by Nick Tosches
I loved her. I wanted to have her for whatever remained to me of forever.
The oak leaf on the sill.
Maybe it was over, I told myself.
It was then, suddenly, that I realized that I hated her.
I had thought it was the drawing of the blood. Then I knew it was the blood itself that was the essence of the transformation. Then I knew there was no transformation.
“I’ve seen things come out of them.”
Blood and spicy V8 juice.
The long dark passage without breath, the dark passage longer than life.
And I will never forget this. Or will I? All the brain-mold and deathless water bugs of memory that we cannot rid ourselves of, all the seemingly meaningless detritus that has bored into our minds and remains there, no matter how much we would extract it. Remembrance is a derelict, wretched, and infested broom closet in which almost all that is worth remembering, almost all that we wish we could recall, is lost and irretrievable amid the haunted litter of what we wish we could forget. The brain is not, as they would have us believe, a miraculously complex machine. It is a junkyard, a dangerous dumping ground of rusted ills; and what we regard as reason and intelligence are nothing but the diseased rats that dart and scramble through it: the crumbled plaster of things past turned to asphyxiating dust, stirred by the dead air of our inward stirrings. The mind is a lugubrious, malfunctioning instrument of self-torment, fear, and ghosts. Brilliance and beauty are but the flames of the mind that demolishes itself, the fire of arson in the junkyard. And memory is a killing thing, chewed upon and consumed by the rats, but rarely scorched by the fire that drives out the rats.
My eyes were shut. There was a sudden phosphorescence.
“If you can comprehend it, it is not God.” Augustine, no? And the human mind, which summoned that God into a lie of being, can never and will never understand itself. And whence this arrogance from brain to mind? The brain was just another organ, prone to if not defined outright by illness and disease. The heart, the liver, the prostate, the brain: one or more of them would get you in the end.
Well, I was still here. At least I believed I was, and that was good enough.
All of the lust and blood, Melissa and Lorna and the rest.
The cravings had ebbed, and this, I remembered, felt good. The dwindling of it all, my sexuality, my desire for physical intimacy of any kind.
Was a lingering of that lust still there?
There were cunts and there were pussies. Anatomically, I mean. Most women had cunts. Ugly jagged-purfled necrotic folds of livid flesh and tissue to which one all but had to close one’s eyes. They had come to repulse me to the point where I would not enter into them, could not enter into them. But some young ladies had pussies. Alluring bivalves of pink, puffy vibrant flesh that were a pleasure to behold and to smoothly, lubriciously, sweetly enter. Behind my closed eyes I saw Melissa anointing with the chrism of her pussy the stiletto heel of her shoe, then slowly sliding it into herself. But now—for how long had it been so?—even pussy repelled me. What waited hidden within seemed to be not beautiful sacrament but something disgusting, unclean, and dangerous. And now I felt the same about a kiss, a caress, a touch. It was all repellent to me.
Even the bloodlust, the desire for new life, seemed to have left me. To recall the taste of blood was to be taken with repulsion. I no longer wanted to merge with those who possessed the youth that I had lost, the youth that, however fleetingly, I believed I had regained.
Awaiting glance. I had been like that for years. The dread of eye contact. The dread of physical contact, of any physical intimacy. Somehow, as the years had passed, these had become anathema to me. But now it was over. What was over? Something. Yes, something was over. Or was something just beginning?
Was I here? Was I really here? I did not even feel the hate of this morning—or whenever.
Why had I so intensely wanted a knife with a leopard-bone handle?
The theory of solipsism had now found a place in quantum physics. As the theory has it, only one mind exists, and all that seems to be reality is only a dream transpiring in that one solitary mind. The identity of the dreamer, of course, could never be known.
Was I the dreamer or the dreamt?
But that shit made no sense. Maybe I was going mad. Or maybe I was mad.
The shadows of early dusk were here. I staggered home. I felt the shadows to be those of another life than mine. The few blocks of my staggering seemed endless.
I saw that my kitchen was a cluttered mess of stinking empty bottles. Beer bottles and wine bottles. Vodka bottles. Whiskey bottles. A grain alcohol bottle. Even my glass jug of snake sake, with the dead snake coiled at the bottom, was opened, half empty, part of the snake protruding desiccated above the liquor that was left in the bottle. There was a pizza box, with a few slices of pizza still in it, lying on the floor.
Who had done this? Had Melissa done this in revenge? I could not remember if she had a set of keys or not. But no, who would conceive of doing something like this? I rushed about, banging here and there, looking for further signs of intrusion. I lunged to the drawer in the bedroom dresser where Melissa had kept her hosiery and fancy high heels. They were all still there. I gathered up some shoes and pantyhose and held them close to me. They were better than her—they were her—and they were still here.
I made it to the couch and collapsed. I tried to light a cigarette, but I could not. I wanted water desperately, but I could not get up. I coughed from deep within and thought I saw something like a rat, but vaporous, shoot from my mouth and scurry wildly away.
Lorna screamed from her cross.
I slept—it was a thousand years—then woke in darkness to see if morning had broken. But all was black, and I could not raise myself to go down again to self-annihilation. I felt that I had reached the depths of direst hell.
Then I felt someone sitting beside me.
WHO THE FUCK WAS THIS? HAD I BROUGHT SOME BUM home from the bar? It was a guy, not a broad. And I did not know him. I was pretty sure I did not know him.
He wasn’t a queer: he was at the far end of the couch. He wasn’t a thief: I had been unconscious, and he was still here. I had done this on rare occasions in the past, brought drunken souls home with me when I could barely get home myself. What had been the plan? We would listen to music and drink more? We would not be alone? Who knows? All I thought was, oh, God, not again.
I saw that somehow I had got my shoes off, and I looked down at my feet.
“Nice socks,” he said. “Lisle?”
“Sea Island.”
He seemed mildly impressed. He bent to see if there was skin showing between the upper cuff ribbing of the sock and the frayed blue jean hem of the raised leg, resting on the knee of my other leg, that was aimed toward him.
“Over-the-calf?” he asked.
“Mid-calf,” I said.
He leaned back, then spoke as if pondering aloud. “Lisle,” he said, “Sea Island, and cashmere. The only things a man should let touch his skin.” I saw then that he was smoking an English Oval, and I watched him tap ashes from its end into the ashtray that was on the couch between us. I still had a lot of difficulty lighting a cigarette. He graciously withdrew a lustrous gold lighter from a pocket and lit it for me.
“Tell me,” he said, “are you a Zimmerli man as well?”
I nodded, and he in turn nodded approval and reiterated, more softly, more reflectively, what he had said about the only things that a man should allow to touch his skin.
I was seized again by a hideous cough and saw, or thought I saw, another hideous, vaporous rat-haint rush from my mouth to the floor and flee, black on black, into the darkness.
“Pesky little things, those, hey?” he said lightly, a faint smile on his face. Then he resumed speaking of fine cottons. “Not many men go the tad extra for the Sea Island. After all, unless one has a good maid to wash and dry them with the proper care, what can one do but throw them away after a wearing or tw
o? The essence of their delicate luxuriousness is lost to the washing machine, or even to slapdash hand-washing.
“But, then again, it’s just like life, isn’t it? Live it once and throw it away.” He blew a smoke ring. “And those who don’t even live it but merely throw it away almost invariably wear bad, cheap socks, to which they cling.”
“What kind of socks do you wear?” I asked, for want of anything else to say.
“Handwoven Carstarphen. The only truly pure Sea Island cotton. It’s the stuff Queen Elizabeth had her snot-rags made of. It was said those hankies were so light that they could float upon the air of the gentlest of breezes.”
“Custom-made socks?”
“The toe seams, or rather the absence of them. A few other minor details.” He extinguished his cigarette. “There’s an old weaver in Kentucky. Exquisite.”
“And you wear them once and throw them away?”
“Yes. Well, yes and no. I give them to storefront charities. I’m a great believer in charity.
“Should you like to feel them?”
“No.”
He withdrew another English Oval from a lustrous gold cigarette case, lit it with his lustrous gold lighter.
“Those people who throw away their lives and cling to their cheap socks have no understanding of charity,” he went on. “They are overall a curious lot.
“They all fear death, but they want to hurry and cast away the time remaining between now and the grave. ‘I can’t wait till this day’s over,’ they say. ‘I wish this week would end,’ they say. ‘I can’t wait until next month,’ they say. All of life they will ever know lies in the moment; all of infinity they will ever know lies in the present breath that they are granted. But they, who would think us crazy for throwing away socks, throw away everything in their rush to obliterate their lives and be devoured all the sooner by their greatest fear. The end and its grave-mold. Their beginning is their end: a brief, nervous twitch of panic and dread, and nothing more.”
As he spoke, I shut one eye to banish my diplopia, and I studied him, as best I could, in the dim night light that entered through the windows into the darkness of the room. He was clean-shaven, his sparse black hair streaked with gray or silver. His height, as he sat there, was indeterminate, as was his age, though he was definitely on the older side, perhaps a few years older than I. The cast of his face, which was a bit jowly, seemed to shift from grave nobility to innocent pleasance to a faraway, disincarnate gaze to complete nonchalance. His nose was rather thin, with nostrils that flared somewhat. He was dressed moderately, a bit conservatively, a bit shabbily and carelessly. From what he had said, if he was to be believed, his underwear and socks were probably more extravagantly costly than his outer wardrobe, though for all I knew, his shirt, white with blue pinstripes, may have been of handwoven Carstarphen as well. His eyes had a soft clear gleam. And he was sober, while even I could hear the thick slur in my attempts at speech. Most of the time, I could when very drunk speak with a precision and lucidity of articulation that belied my state and affected relative sobriety. It was a gift that served me well. But I was beyond that now. Why was he here?
I felt that I must summon the power to raise myself. I braced my effort with the arm of the couch. I stood. I fell. My balance was shot. This was a bad sign. It could mean that I had no electrolytes left. This was how I had ended up in the hospital the last time. I had never heard of electrolytes before then. I tried to get up from the floor but I did not have the strength. The stranger assisted me, helped me lurch unsteadily to the kitchen. I put a handful of vitamin capsules into my mouth—electrolytes—and washed them down with a long draught of water, what seemed like an endless draught of water. Dehydration. I needed to stave it off. I needed to live. I forgot completely about my diabetes medication, forgot completely the last time I had taken any.
When I took the container of Centrum Silver from the refrigerator, I saw and smelled the foul remains of partially eaten, partially unrecognizable things. It was amazing what a greasy lamb gyro looked like after enough time: part rock, part unspeakable laboratory experiment.
Gasping after almost a liter of water, I stood on my own legs, leaning on the countertop. The stranger aided my return to the couch, where I lit my own cigarette and took a deep drag.
“What say we raise a glass to ourselves?” he said. “I saw that bottle of Tignanello in there was still half full and recorked. Or perhaps a nice bourbon and branch? That bottle of Booker’s still had a lot in it as well.”
“Bourbon and branch,” I said. Then I heard him opening the kitchen cupboards looking for the glassware. He poured, first the Booker’s, then a bit of water. He set one drink on the little table near me, the other on the little table near him.
I saw then that what I had taken to be shabby corduroy pants were in fact corduroy of pure silk, soft and comfortable as soft and comfortable could be. I had seen and felt a pair once at a store in Milan, once at a store in London. His well-worn shoes, however, were plain and brown, with a vaguely pedorthic look, not unlike the SAS shoes I bought from the Eneslow Foot Comfort Center store. Though I had no doubt that his were more comfortable and custom-made of some rare and supple leather.
What the fuck was with this guy? He saw, he knew, that I was on the verge of going under, and he was not even loaded; yet here he was pressing more drink on me.
I took an unsteady sip. It livened me a little. I took another. There was in me not the least concern for what I said, or tried to say, so I turned to him and said:
“Who are you?”
He took a good swallow, lit a cigarette, laid back his head, and laughed.
“I mean, you gotta excuse me,” I said, “I’m sorta fucked-up and all, but—”
“Here we are. We’ve known each other all these years. And you ask me who I am?”
“Where do we know each other from? I mean, like I said, I’m pretty fucked-up. I think I been blackin’ out, gettin’ everything all fucked-up lately. From the bar? Is that where we know each other from? The bar?”
“Yes, from the bar.” He laughed again, and now there was something ominous in his laugh. “We know each other from the bar. We know each other from here, from there. We know each other from everywhere. Years and years and years. Everywhere.”
I pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead. I drank. I pressed the cool glass to my forehead. I drank.
“Do you like The Music Man?” he asked.
I looked at him strangely. “I like that song ‘Trouble.’ I like that song.”
“Ah, yes, perhaps one of the great Robert Preston’s finest performances.” He sipped, smiled. “I do a damned good Professor Hill myself.” He leapt suddenly to his feet and stood before me. He began to sing in the stentorian speech-like cadences of “Ya Got Trouble,” gesticulating with arch fervency as had Robert Preston in the picture. He was performing, not for me, but merely performing.
What would you rather do with your tongue?
Would you rather lick a woman’s flesh
or talk to her?
Or are you one of those,
further doomed,
lost and undone,
Torn between the two;
one who would do both,
or would rather the one,
whichever,
but settles, or would settle,
for the other?
Tell me: which are you?
Psychiatry,
psychology,
therapy,
psychopharmacology—
You don’t need them; just come to me, And tell me: which are you? And I’ll tell you all about yourself,
parse your soul,
cauterize the hole,
set you right,
set you free.
And the best part is, I charge only
fifty bucks a pop;
Seventy-five for the bald
or broken of heart.
So tell me—cash on the barrelhead, pal—
which are yo
u?
He seemed not at all taxed, not the least out of breath, after this exuberant routine. He merely resumed his seat and took a sip.
“Music by the great Meredith Wilson,” he said, “lyrics by moi. Not bad, hey?” He lit a cigarette, smiled. “Or perhaps it’s just the Irish in me.” He took a deep drag, took another sip, followed by a sound of savorsome appreciation. “Have you a ditty of your own you should like to entertain us with? Come now. Conviviality is not a solitary affair but a feast of folly to be shared.” Then his voice turned cold, cruel, and deprecating: “But you’d probably just fall down.”
I drank, emptying the glass.
“May I replenish that for you?” His voice was again calm, measured, amiable.
I gave him the glass. He took it into the kitchen with his own, came back with two fresh and full drinks. He raised his to mine and said, “Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutamus.” Then he smiled with a whisper of a laugh and drank. I nodded the best I could: Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you. I drank. There was silence. He seemed to be almost inaudibly humming to himself something like ancient Ambrosian plainsong.
I coughed forth another of those rat-like shadow-things. I drank more.
“Who are you?” I tried again.
He stopped humming, if indeed he had been humming.
“Who am I?” He laid back his head again, laughed low and sardonically. “Who am I?” He fell quiet. “Who do you think I am?”
“I think you’re the fucking Devil,” I spat out.
He fell quiet again. “And your better half, too,” he said decisively.
“And you’re here to claim my soul, or buy it, or some such shit.” I laughed, somewhere inside me, I laughed. It was a laughter most strange and unhealthy and indefinable.
“Buy your soul?” His voice rose. “I’m no fucking two-bit schlockmeister,” he said with some indignation. “And how, in any case, does one purchase or lay claim to what was born forth and rendered to him?” He blew a smoke ring, opened his mouth wider, and one of those shadow-vermin leapt from it, through the vanishing ring of smoke, and made off like the others. “Souls?” Again he laid back his head and this time snorted a more forlorn sort of laugh.