Southern Nights

by Barry Gifford

  The subject, the suggestion of T., of my going there, presented itself late one night as I was riding in a taxi. It had been raining all that day and into the evening. The streets and buildings of the city in which I live were blackened by water. The entire city resembled a discarded tire floating in the sea. For a moment the downpour abated, and when the taxi froze suddenly at a stoplight I could see through the glass a poster hanging in a shop window advertising T. Just as suddenly, the taxi sped forward again, forcing the issue; it would be necessary for me to investigate the possibility of T.

  It is important for me to accept that F. found a morbid self-image in my anatomical anomaly. (How many ways, after all, is it possible to say ‘without a mouth’?) I believe absolutely that she enjoyed becoming involved with my predicament. Whether this intrigue included a particular sexual component on her part I (naturally) cannot say. F.’s fondness for brushing her lips along that area of my face below my nose and above my chin I did not attribute to any bizarre fascination. After all, other than with their genitals, this is the most natural place for lovers to combine. Sympathy for her arose in me, however, when I realized how often she yearned to be kissed (though she never spoke of it). Regardless of our repeated coupling, a sense of something missing progressively became an overwhelming factor in our relationship.

  A surgical remedy was out of the question. As a child, I was subjected to numerous medical examinations. Due to an unusual (What is not unusual in this case?) configuration of blood vessels in what should have been my orthodontal region, the specialists deemed invasive measures too precarious for purposes of plastic reconstruction.

  The first question, of course, is always: How do you eat? In ancient times, I would have been slaughtered at birth. At first sight, upon expulsion from my mother’s womb, the hideous creature—I—would certainly have had the briefest of sojourns on this earth. It is believed that a baby does not exercise its vision for two or three weeks, in which case never would I have been able to experience sight, my greatest pleasure. The question of sustenance never would have been raised. As it is, in this most medically aggressive age, intravenous feeding has become almost de rigueur. I possess all relevant bodily functions; several times a day, at my convenience, I am sustained via injection. At the age of three, desiring to emulate my playmates, I attempted to ingest regular food—carrots, I believe through my nostrils. I succeeded only in very nearly asphyxiating myself. This terrible lesson served me well. I knew then, barely beyond infancy, that I controlled death. Subsequently, of course, I learned of the infinite ways in which death controlled me, and that I was an amateur in this department, a novice for whom sophistication would remain a hopeless fantasy.

  3

  If nobody had a mouth then who would inhabit the lie? How would it be verbalized? How could any condition beyond death go unrecognized? F., being beyond life—my life, for now (or forever)—is also beyond death. She has no choice but to exist forever (for now) at variance with the universe as I perceive it. Perception is not properly open to competition. Opinions are replaced repeatedly and with increasing facility. Nothing can prevent this.

  It was not F.’s way to directly reprimand me; never would she act so overtly. Unpleasant circumstances provoked her to laughter, a response which she herself found baffling. This enigmatic mirth, I informed F., was a not uncommon nervous reaction; an obviously involuntary seizure belying no especial significance. F., however, believed her behavior at such moments to be most unseemly; nothing I could say could disabuse her of this opinion.

  4

  F., then, for the sake of this story, which is, of course, not a story. (I never really intended it to be.) If I say she is tall and dark, or fragile, just that, it conveys so very little. There is a darkness in her that she struggles to avoid; it eats at her like a rash on the inside of her skin. The way she moves expresses inexorable distress. Often her movements are those of a lizard on a terrace in the hot sun. She skitters, stops, jerks her head, flaps her eyelids (Do lizards have eyelids? If not, why not?), runs on, light evaporating the colors on her spine: green and blue become gray. F. is serious as she pretends to gaiety. This attitude frightens and—I must confess—delights me. Her vulnerability shrieks at the sky.

  I adore F. and do not blame her for her defection. A predicament such as mine is not nullifying, not in any sense expressive of finality. At least it does not impress me in this way. F., on the other hand, has imposed upon herself a philosophy so restrictive in its parameters that there is virtually no opportunity for her to entirely relax. I do not refer particularly to her impatience with me. How would it be possible for a person—any person of even adequate intelligence and perceptivity—not to be occasionally intolerant?

  It is quite common for people to convulse in the presence of a freak. Even F. has become overwhelmed at the sight of me, despite our long association. She will begin to think of me as being entirely normal in appearance, then suddenly turn to speak to me and be shocked at what she sees. The fear in her eyes when this occurs is unmistakable. Her heart palpitates, her throat and mouth dry up, she stutters when she attempts to regain her faculties. I must remain calm at such moments, endure these seizures of naivete without a flinch of self-hatred.

  I do not loathe myself, after all; it is everyone else whom I loathe. Others have not the complete privilege of seeing how disgustingly weak they are. Confrontation connotes nausea, and this incautious behavior precludes the possibilities of seriousness.

  (Reprinted from The François Villon Review, Vol. I, No. 2)

  THE BIG RED SPOT

  ‘i ever tell you how my mama died?’ Marisa Sopapo asked Cousin Lester.

  ‘No, tell me.’

  Cousin Lester was sitting up in bed reading The Aerodynamics of Vortiginous Levitation. Marisa, lying next to him, smoked a cigarette as she spoke.

  ‘Hoodoo spirit took possession over her body, rode her like it was the Kentucky Derby, until my Grandmama Hypolite Cortez cut off her head.’

  Cousin Lester dropped his book and said, ‘Your grandmother beheaded her own daughter?’

  ‘Yeah. Spooky, ain’t it? A demon had saddled itself on Mama’s shoulders, made her act crazy. Mama poked out both her own eyes first, but the spirit still wouldn’t let go.’

  ‘Poked out her eyes?’

  ‘Blind horse can’t see where it’s goin’, so usually that’ll cut loose the rider. For some reason, Mama couldn’t shake what had hold of her, so Grandmama made sure Mama’s sufferin’ would end.’

  ‘Kind of a drastic solution,’ said Cousin Lester. ‘Why’d this demon possess your mama in the first place?’

  ‘Someone hexed her for stealin’ away a man. Woman named Imogene Moutard, was furious about Mama carryin’ on with Billy Egypt, Imogene Moutard’s ex. She still had the hots for him. Went to a hoodoo lady up in Arcadia, got a spell put on Mama.’

  ‘What happened to your grandmother?’

  ‘She got charged with unlawful decapitation, but died about a month after from kidney disease. Didn’t want to be plugged into no machine.’

  ‘That’s a sad story, Marisa.’

  ‘I guess. Fella from up East—New York, I think—heard about it. He came down and interviewed me for a book he was writin’ called The Big Red Spot. Bought me a mess of drinks at Duck’s Colorado Club.’

  Cousin Lester leaned over and kissed Marisa on the forehead.

  ‘God didn’t intend the planet to be such a terrible place,’ he said.

  Marisa put out her cigarette against the wall above her head. Her eyes teared up and she asked, ‘Then why the hell he make so many bad people?’

  POSTCARD

  dear ruby-baby I get your letter yesterday and I please to reply. People is so nasty to each other cause of Fear. They opres humilat hord divide and destroy in order to Create Hell wich is nothin. The fearfull and unbeliever the abominable the murderers sorcerers idol worship and all Liars doom theyself to the second Death wich is Life. Baby Cat Face feel no Pain she bli
ssfull in Death. It a condishin so close resemble Life that it sure surprise her since she expec a band of angels hangin in the cloud. She think eatrateristils entise her take that Fatefull Step in another dimenahin but when the Veil of Sadness was raise to Reveal a Face with wich she long be familar but never seen Baby understan the Purpose of Being. I an old lady now girl but I got my mind Right.

  Ruby-Baby Wasp

  Hotel La Culebra

  Frenchmen Street

  Sew Orleans, Louisiana

  by the same author

  FICTION

  The Sinaloa Story

  Baby Cat-Face

  Arise and Walk

  Night People

  My Last Martini

  The Sailor & Lula Novels:

  Wild at Heart

  Perdita Durango

  Sailor’s Holiday

  Sultans of Africa

  Consuelo’s Kiss

  Bad Day for the Leopard Man

  The Imagination of the Heart

  The Up-Down

  New Mysteries of Paris

  Port Tropique

  Landscape with Traveler

  A Boy’s Novel

  American Falls

  The Cuban Club

  Do the Blind Dream?

  Memories from a Sinking Ship

  Wyoming

  Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

  NONFICTION

  Bordertown (with David Perry)

  The Phantom Father: A Memoir

  A Day at the Races

  The Devil Thumbs a Ride & Other Unforgettable Films

  The Neighborhood of Baseball

  Saroyan: A Biography (with Lawrence Lee)

  Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography of

  Jack Kerouac (with Lawrence Lee)

  POETRY

  Flaubert at Key West

  Ghosts No Horse Can Carry

  Giotto’s Circle

  Beautiful Phantoms

  Persimmons: Poems for Paintings

  The Boy You Have Always Loved

  Poems from Snail Hut

  Horse hauling timber out of

  Hokkaido forest

  Coyote Tantras

  The Blood of the Parade

  Selected Poems of Francis Jammes

  (translations, with Bettina Dickie)

  Imagining Paradise

  PLAYS

  Hotel Room Trilogy

  Writers

  SCREENPLAYS

  Lost Highway (with David Lynch)

  MUSIC

  Madrugada: A Libretto for Toru Takemitsu