The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay

  Charlie, Stanley says, I don’t suppose you know of a guy called Adrian Welles?

  20

  A cavalcade of bikers is making the curve at Brooks as Stanley and Claudio march north along the boardwalk. Girls in circle skirts and pedal-pushers jam fingers in their ears and stare openmouthed while the oscillating line of headlamps sweeps the buildings, the reports of V-twin engines reshape the waterfront air. A pair of panhead Harleys is parked outside a liquor store on Breeze Avenue, their chrome-plated pipes and chassis so polished that they’re visible only by the deformed images they return of the night around them. Stanley picks up the pace without sparing the bikes a second look.

  You see? Claudio is saying. I am a great detective.

  You’re a lucky detective, is what you are.

  Claudio shrugs. I don’t think I understand what is the difference, he says.

  You’re not even lucky, Stanley says. You got the dope on what I’m looking for, not on what you’re looking for. That guy didn’t have one red cent on him.

  Then it is you who are the lucky one, yes? To have such a great detective for your partner.

  Don’t talk to me about luck, Stanley says.

  A few blocks up he spots two familiar faces coming out of a ramshackle amusement parlor: the boss Dog from the run-in a couple of weeks ago, along with Whitey, out for a night on the town. Both greasers have dates—a topheavy pinch-faced skirt for the boss, a Mexican halfbreed for Whitey who looks fresh off the playground—and they aren’t paying much attention to anything else. Stanley and Claudio hesitate, then walk on. The boss pipes them as they draw closer. Stanley meets his gaze, keeping his eyes steady, his face blank. The boss’s eyes go narrow. Then he gives Stanley a tight smile and a nod—nasty, but respectful—and turns back to his girl. Stanley and Claudio hustle on by.

  The moon is higher and brighter now, silvered blue, and over the roof of the Avalon Ballroom Stanley can make out structures on the amusement pier: a rollercoaster, a tiltawhirl, a magic carpet ride with painted-on minarets and onion domes. They’re getting close. Charlie’s directions were a drunken mess, but Stanley knows exactly where they’re going. He remembers Dudley Avenue from earlier, and he spots the coffeehouse as soon as they make the corner: ahead on the left, bright and bustling. They cross the street. Stanley tugs open the door.

  It’s a long room, lit from above, with an aisle up the middle and small octagonal tables along the sides. The whitewashed walls are painted with words and phrases in jagged black letters, and elsewhere hung with stretched canvases: splashed-over, squiggled-on. A narrow counter topped by a copper espresso machine juts partway across the far end; an old stove, a buzzing refrigerator, and a bespectacled man in a coffee-stained T-shirt slouch behind it. The hipsters from the boardwalk are scattered through the room: musicians in the back, blond girl against the left wall, giving him a heavy-lidded stare. Nobody else seems to notice him. Coils of cigarette smoke rise from every place at every table. The milky air seems gradually to solidify into the white globe lamps that hang from the ceiling.

  A drumkit is set up in front of the counter. A young man in bluejeans and a sweater stands in front of it, facing the tables, reading aloud from a folded-over notebook. He clutches a pencil in his right hand, as if he’s just written the words he speaks. I see the holy city through your eyes, Herman Melville, guy says. This new moonlight is your moonlight, Herman Melville, and my feet always find your cadences.

  Poetry, Stanley thinks. Then he wonders why he thinks this. It’s nothing like the language in The Mirror Thief, and apart from a few lines he used to hear the 42nd Street grifters quote to rope in Columbia kids, The Mirror Thief is the only poetry he knows. So how come he’s so quick to peg this stuff as verse, and not just as some hipster talking?

  The guy in the sweater goes on for a while—ranting and jiving about Buddha and Zoroaster, Sputnik and General Motors—and Stanley tunes out, scans the room. The tables are three-quarters full; people are still filing in, shouldering by to find seats. Stanley squints through the smoke like he’s blindfolded with waxpaper. At a table by the drumkit he spots an older man in hornrims and a Donegal cap; he’s maybe sixty, twice the age of anyone else in the room. He’s listening to the poet, nodding along. A fierce-looking character with a black beard and thinning hair sits to his right. The chair across from him is empty.

  Stanley nudges Claudio. Wait here, he says. I’ll be back.

  The path to the empty seat is blocked by the guy reading, so Stanley steps around him, crossing in front of the drums. The poet looks up from his notebook, shoots Stanley a baffled glance, stumbles to find his place again. Stanley glides into the empty chair. The bearded man glares at him, bunches his heavy eyebrows, and looks away.

  Stanley leans across the table toward the older guy. Excuse me, mister, he whispers.

  Shhhhh, the older guy says, putting a finger to his lips. Tut tut.

  The poet has hit his stride again; he’s shouting something about towers and pyramids, about a new Renaissance, about Atlantis rising from the Pacific. People in the crowd cheer and shout go go go, but it sounds phony to Stanley, rehearsed. He taps his heel on the smooth concrete floor as the guy builds to his big finish and the hipsters all snap their fingers in applause. Then he leans across the table again. Excuse me, he says.

  The old guy gets in a few more slow snaps before turning to Stanley and arching an imperious eyebrow. Young man, he says. How may I help you?

  Are you Adrian Welles?

  The eyebrow sinks, and the guy’s face knots in irritation. The bearded man stifles a laugh, looks at the ceiling. My dear young friend, the old guy says. I am Lawrence Lipton.

  He says it like Stanley’s supposed to recognize the name right away. Over Stanley’s shoulder, somebody’s lurking: the poet, wanting his chair back. Stanley gives the old guy a thin smile. Okay, jack, he says. Do you know Adrian Welles?

  Lipton stares at him for a second, doing an affected slow-burn, then raps twice on the white formica and pushes himself away from the table. I know everyone, he growls. He looks past Stanley and calls to the poet. Here, John, he says. Take my seat. I need to have a word with the musicians.

  Stanley’s rising to intercept him when the bearded man gently but firmly takes his arm. Wait up a minute, he says. Adrian Welles comes in here sometimes. He comes to hear the jazz canto.

  Is he here tonight?

  Not yet.

  What’s the jazz canto?

  Lipton, circling the table, comes to a stop in front of the drumkit. He turns and spins in a slow circle, spreading his arms like a stage magician or a gameshow host. His open hands seem to indicate the room, the scene, the entire waterfront. This! he says. This is the jazz canto!

  The bearded man holds out a thick, square hand to Stanley. I’m Stuart, he says.

  Stanley, Stanley says.

  So what do you want with Adrian Welles, man? Are you, like, his long-lost son or something? Here to claim your legacy?

  I read his book, Stanley says. I want to meet him.

  He published a book?

  Across the table, the poet is lowering himself into Lipton’s seat. Who published a book? he says.

  Adrian Welles.

  Never heard of him.

  He lives in the neighborhood, Stuart says. Larry knows him. He read some work for us right after the café opened. You’ve seen him around. Seems square at first, but if you butter him up a little, he’ll really beat his chops. Oh, Stanley, this is John.

  The poet warily offers him a hand. Stanley looks over just long enough to take it.

  You dig Welles, huh? Stuart is saying. Who else do you like?

  I don’t understand your question, Stanley says.

  Poets, man. Who else do you read?

  Stanley looks down at the tabletop. It’s dappled all over with candle-wax, chipped around its edges, blistered by cigarettes in a few spots. He looks up again and shrugs.

  Stuart strokes his beard, watching the smoke swirl past the
light globes overhead. I like Welles all right, he says. I think he’s sharp. But I gotta say, man, his verse is strictly off the cob. I mean, I dig T. S. Eliot just fine. The Waste Land is crazy. But it’s just reactionary, man, to keep chasing the old possum’s tail. All these old farts—Patchen, Rexroth, Adrian Welles, Curtis Zahn, shit, even Larry sometimes—they all got their boots on, sure. Their heads are in the right place. But they’re screwed up under the ribs, man, and they don’t even know it.

  Near the center of the table, partly obscured by the base of a thick red candle, a lozenge of formica has been cut away to expose the woodpulp beneath. Someone has glued a three-cent RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA stamp in the cleared area and inked a ring of symbols around it: stars, moons, crosses, ankhs, sigils. They all seem familiar, but most of them Stanley can’t quite place.

  Their kind of poetry, Stuart says, it’s like cool jazz, dig? Same situation. Cats get so good at articulating the problem that they forget to look for the solution. And the whole scene just turns into a death trip. Poets today, we gotta pick up where Eliot left off, with what the thunder said. Shantih shantih shantih, man.

  John jerks a thumb toward the entrance. Speaking of death trips, he says, look who just walked in.

  Stuart pans toward the door. Stanley tracks his gaze. A small blackhaired woman stands there, wearing a lost and sleepy expression. A man with a beaked nose and a simian brow looms behind her, his hand on her neck. The man’s skin is a uniform gray, the color of boiled meat; tiny eyes flash in his otherwise lifeless face. The girl is slim, wide-hipped, broad-shouldered—pretty, though she won’t be for long. Even through the haze Stanley can make them both as junkies. Together they look like a ventriloquist act.

  That’s not him, Stanley says. Is it?

  Welles? Stuart laughs. No, man. That’s, like, the opposite of Welles.

  What’s he doing here? John says. I thought he’d already hit the road. Weren’t him and Lyn going back to New York?

  They were, but I talked him into hanging around till after the fish run, Stuart says. Alex wouldn’t pass up a free feast.

  The fish? That’s another two weeks yet.

  No, man, they run tomorrow. Full moon tonight, dig?

  Aw, you’re full of shit, Stuart. Nothing’s running tomorrow night. It’s too early. The water’s still cold.

  Stuart grins. You got it all wrong, jack. Me and Bob and Charlie went down to the ocean last night and communed with Neptune and his nymphs. We got the report direct from the king. It’s the bible, man: the fish will run tomorrow night.

  Behind Stanley the Negro plays scales on his muted trumpet; the saxophonist sucks the reed of his alto. The blonde and a few of the other hipsters crowd around the counter and sit on the floor, their backs pressed to the walls. Lipton beckons to Stuart, a wrinkled sheaf of foolscap fluttering in his other hand. Uh oh, Stuart says. Showtime.

  Stuart rises, pulls a notebook from his back pocket, and takes his place in front of the drumkit. Afoot, he’s shorter than Stanley would have guessed: not much taller than Stanley himself. Lipton claps Stuart on the back, moves to take his empty seat.

  Stanley gets up, pushes past the old man, taps Stuart on the shoulder. Stuart, he says. I need your help. How do I find Welles?

  Stuart flips through his notebook, doesn’t look up. If he stops in tonight, he says, I’ll introduce you.

  Can you tell me where he lives? Or where he works? Do you have a phone number for him?

  I don’t know about any of that, man, Stuart says. He sighs, closes the notebook, and looks Stanley in the eye. Listen, he says. I gotta do this thing now. I’ll help you find Welles later. Just cool it, okay?

  Stanley looks at the floor. A few feet to his left, the blond girl is staring up at him. Her eyes—dun-colored, kaolin-pale, a doll’s eyes—are open wide. The sight of them makes Stanley uneasy, and he blinks. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets, turns, and crosses the room to stand by the entrance.

  Claudio is at a table on the other side of the aisle, among a younger group: three girls, seated, and two guys, leaning on the backs of the girls’ chairs. Claudio’s doing his bashful act, sheepish and shrugging, in the middle of some story, recounting his wetback adventures in the Arizona desert, probably. The two guys have their ears cocked to hear him better, and the three skirts look like they’re all set to take him home, bake him cakes, dress him up in fancy outfits.

  Someone sidles up on Stanley’s right: the beak-nosed man. As he draws close a wariness comes over Stanley, sharp and not unpleasing, a feeling he hasn’t known since he left the city: this guy clicks as a true grifter. The familiarity feels good, even if it’s apt to mean trouble. Stanley plays it cool, doesn’t meet the man’s gaze.

  You’re a fresh face, the man says. I’m Alex.

  Stanley.

  Alex nods his big head in Claudio’s direction. That handsome bugger’s got the run of the place, he says. Wastes not a minute, does he?

  Stanley smiles, says nothing.

  Your partner, Alex says. Is he a good man to work with?

  Stanley takes a second to remember that Alex just walked in, has never seen the two of them together. Not that Stanley knows of, anyway. Stanley turns to face him.

  Alex is giving him his old-man-of-the-mountain profile, staring into space. You and your friend are down and out, he says. Is that not so? You’re on the street.

  His accent is foreign: English but not English, Irish or Scottish, Stanley can never tell the difference. There’s no shame in it, Alex continues. Though it can be very hard. I’ve been down and out myself. More than once. Each time because I’ve chosen it. You understand, I’m sure. Tell me, your friend—is he working as trade?

  Stanley feels a jolt of anger, but keeps it out of his face, his voice. No, he says. He ain’t. How come? You in the market?

  He could do very well, Alex says. Not here, of course. But I know many places.

  He ain’t interested.

  Alex glances over at Stanley for a second. His eyes narrow to slots. You’re from New York, he says. I hear it in your voice. What borough?

  Brooklyn.

  Flatbush? Borough Park?

  Williamsburg.

  You’re a Jew?

  Yeah, Stanley says. Sure.

  Done a bit of wandering, have you?

  No more than you, I guess.

  True enough. What brings you to California?

  Business.

  And what business is that?

  Stanley gives him a deadpan look. Batboy for the Dodgers, he says.

  Alex seems confused; then he begins to laugh loudly, and now the whole place is looking at them. Stanley hadn’t planned on getting this kind of attention. He keeps his eyes lowered, his face blank, until the stares scatter and fade.

  Alex’s laugh gutters. He’s quiet for a second. Over there’s my wife, he says. Lyn’s her name. Common law; no ceremony. But we are married, nevertheless.

  He doesn’t point, doesn’t even look at her. She’s leaning against a wall at the far end of the room next to three seated women; the women talk among themselves, ignoring her, as if she’s invisible.

  We’re leaving town in a few days, Alex says. Going to Las Vegas. Have you ever been there?

  I don’t think so.

  Lyn will find work there as a dancer. A stripteaser, I should say. For extra cash she’ll turn tricks. There is no shame in it. All of us, we can only do as we’re doing. Always.

  What’ll you do?

  I am a writer, Alex says. I intend to write.

  Across the room Lipton is waving his papers around, belting out some kind of introduction. Stuart stands next to him, his arms at his sides, his eyes closed, his nose aimed at the ceiling. A hairy white kid is seated at the kit, working brushes across the ride cymbal and the snare. The blond girl rises to her feet, sliding up the wall. A slanted line of black text above her head reads ART IS LOVE IS GOD.

  Alex speaks softly; Stanley strains to hear him even as he feigns disinte
rest. Provisions for our journey, Alex says, have been difficult to find. You seem a wise and capable fellow. I think we can help each other. I have connections that could be useful.

  I don’t have a connection here, Stanley says. You’re wasting your time on me.

  You are welcome in this place, Alex says. Everyone who is not small-minded and conventional is welcome here. But this is not your world. It never can be. Likewise, your world is not mine. You are called a juvenile delinquent. It’s a stupid label, it insults and inters a treasure-house of undocumented human experience, and it cannot easily be put aside. I don’t offer you my understanding. I know you don’t want it. But I do offer you my respect. We can help each other. Of that I am certain.

  Alex’s words are all but drowned out by a short fanfare from the two horns; he claps a heavy hand on Stanley’s back, tips the brim of an invisible cap, and slouches off toward the music. The drummer scrapes a lurching stutter from his kit, and Stuart—his eyes still closed, his notebook sweeping the air before him—begins to shout across the room. Silver! he says. Darkness! Echo! Ocean! Gather up the things that are yours, O Lady! I offer my voice for the gathering. The room seems to contract, the air to grow more dense, and the shaved hairs on the back of Stanley’s neck rise up like ghosts.

  Stuart’s language is plain, almost conversational, but his voice is melodic, incantatory, completely transformed, and Stanley catches almost nothing of what he says. His rhythms sometimes follow the drums, sometimes strain against them. The horn players are off-balance, at a loss, bleating awkward figures between his pauses for breath. A passing phrase snags Stanley’s attention—I reach for the hot coal, and suck my burned fingers—and dredges up the memory of a story his grandfather often told about the young Moses in Egypt. Stanley imagines Stuart bathed in light, hauling stone tablets down from a sacred mountain, and he smirks at the thought.