Jude suddenly rose from the table. He was feeling guilty for his own existence there, desperate for some kind of legitimacy.
“The bar!” he suddenly exclaimed to himself. He looked over and saw, yes, the bar was open.
“Okay,” he thought, “no matter how expensive this place is, $12.00 must be substantial enough for a drink of some sort. I can at least afford a glass of mineral water. Better not buy that Norwegian stuff though. Who needs Norwegian water?” he asked himself. He gathered up his things and moved towards the Fabergé Lounge, which was cordoned off with a dark, wood partition and a yellow sign. There was one other person there, who was seated right at the bar. There was also a bartender who was polishing wine glasses, and intent, it would seem, to do so without any disruption. Jude considered his move towards the bar, since it meant that he had, first, sat down and taken up space in the dining room, and in so doing, he had ruffled the tablecloth, moved the chair, and “used” a space. It was as though he had checked into a hotel, taken a shit, used some of the toilet paper that had been carefully arranged so as to create a flower-like ornament on the dangling few sheets, washed his hands using the fresh bar of soap, left a ring of soap in the sparkling sink and fingerprints of soapy water on the faucets, soiled the floor with the dust of the world that he’d dragged in on his feet, sat down upon the bed, found the remote in its special remote spot, fired up the television, put his feet upon the bed, watched a few minutes of some football game that could have been played this year, last year, or any other year in the last decade without anyone really being able to tell the bloody difference, and then, disgusted, turned off the television, removed himself from the bed, feigned to unwrinkle the bedspread through broad sweeps of his filthy sweatshirt on the surface of the 800-count Egyptian cotton, and then left the room in search of another place to repeat the same acts.
This rumination led Jude to think about the servers who had carefully arranged the table, about the dishwasher who had made all of the white-and-yellow (of course) dishes so clean and shiny, and the cleaner who made those gorgeous Fabergé Restaurant toilets so pristine, and he felt a pang of remorse. And then he thought about the fucking bank that had stolen all of his money, and he walked, briskly, towards the bar.
He chose a seat behind the sole guest, a bearded, bespectacled man, mid-forties, well-dressed, but somehow disheveled nonetheless, exuding the image of discarded wealth. He was nursing a scotch and reading the New York Times, arranged in front of him according to the rules that had been set down on some ancient tablet in downtown London. Jude had seen this form of origami before, most noticeable on his first (and only) trip to Europe in his late teens, and since then he’d noticed that it was a well-known form of ordinary wisdom that manifested itself in folded newspapers.
Indeed, from the number of men who folded newspapers in this way, it seemed to Jude reasonable to believe that the sacred text known as, hmm, The London Tablet, is consulted by all mid-level businessmen to teach them how to fold their newspapers so as to minimally impinge upon those seated anonymously beside them in the subway or the train. This paper-folding ceremony is affected thousands of times per day by those en route to Fleet Street, Wall Street, or back home to the miserable little duplex situated on a street of miserable little duplexes, indistinguishable from one another, far from the city center that sucked the miserable life out of the peons who make white-collar, nonproduction pay. It seemed oddly out of place in this sumptuous restaurant, suggesting that this type of establishment had not always been accessible to this client of Fabergé Restaurant, no matter how wealthy he now looked. This client looked up for a moment at the bartender, who was now shining champagne glasses, and then cleared his throat and looked around the bar, revealing a dark beard, flecked with grey, and patchy skin blotched with redness. But even from afar, Jude could see shining, expressive eyes. His expensive suit and shoes and watch and, is that a necklace? No, it was some kind of a chain, a gold chain, probably made of solid gold.
“Hmm,” Jude calculated. That gold chain looked to weigh around one pound, and the news plastered on the front pages of all of New York’s daily newspapers pegged the precious metal at around $4,000 per ounce, which would make that necklace alone worth, who knows? $64,000? At the going rate, that meant sixty-four egg essays, or, hmm, around two thousand service charges at his fucking, fucking, fucking bank. That was a lot of money. The client cleared his throat again, as he manipulated the newspaper from one quarter of a page to the next, and then he cleared his throat again, twice, as he continued the operation towards dissecting the contents of the paper. And then he cleared his throat. Again.
Jude prepared the barroom table for writing, setting out the notebook right in front of him and his Montblanc pen to his right. He then pushed back against his jean jacket that he had maneuvered into position behind him. This jacket was an extension of the blanket he had owned as a child, and it similarly served as a kind of spiritual protection, in addition to offering a bit of padding to the already-padded, dark, leather pillow that adorned the bar chair. He had read somewhere about transitional objects, or some such term, things that people used to substitute for, or wean themselves off of, activities that had been crucial to their development. Thumbs are portable nipples, teddy bears are portable mothers, and so blankets, here Jude strained his memory. “What the fuck are blankets?” he wondered. “Wombs? Blankets are portable wombs? That’s fucked up. So my jacket, well,” he smiled to himself. “There’s an image!” Comfortable and rather inspired, and in position to write, Jude courageously reached down and grabbed the Montblanc pen, cleaned its rather filthy tip with his finger, and began to write, leaving the meager ballpoint on the tabletop.
The egg. Perfect imperfection. Balanced, strong, impeccable, the very seat of life, flawless, even with the almost imperceptible flaws of mottling upon its delicate, yet, hardy shell.
He hesitated. “Is the eggshell delicate or strong? How am I supposed to convey both?” He thought of a woman—strong, delicate, the center of the world—carrying the eggs of the species within her very body, until they are stimulated into life-creating division through fertilization. He pondered this for a moment, sucked on the end of the pen, smiled to himself, and then giggled, perceptibly.
Human eggs. Perfect imperfection. Millions of them present at her birth, they . . .
“Can I get you something?” Jude literally jumped, not quite out of his skin, or shell, but close, it seemed.
“Jesus, sorry, dude, you okay?” The bartender had apparently abandoned the smears and spots on the glasses in favor of sneaking up on Jude at his little table, and he now stood before him, pen in hand, almost jokingly. How much of an order would Jude, with $12.00, possibly make? He looked down at his smeared scribbles. And how could mankind explain the creation of writing? Who invented the alphabet? Why did people only start writing thoughts down five thousand years ago?
“Um . . .” He looked down at his fingers, sensing an oozing substance, and realized that his pen was leaking onto his hands. “Why can’t I write with a fountain pen, given how much it’s worth? How many drinks would this fountain pen buy?” He had muttered this under his breath, but his lips had been moving perceptibly, and the bartender had clearly seen them.
“Can I help you?” the barman repeated, looking rather concerned. This was the second time today that someone working in this place had questioned, if only momentarily, Jude’s sanity. And Jude was becoming aware that wasn’t the best of trends to uphold.
“Hey. Sorry, I’m inside of my own mind,” he said, trying to sound sophisticated. The bartender didn’t look impressed, so Jude tried another tack. “I’m mining. My brain, I mean,” he grinned.
No response.
“I’m, well, trying to write something.”
The bartender stood in silence. He didn’t seem to care in the least about any of these personae: insane, funny, or possibly brilliant. He was a big man with a messy, frizzy beard, thick glasses, the type that was trendy
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1980s, and had now become the mark of the particular brand of hipster that frequented bars and clubs in Manhattan. In spite of them, he looked solid, well-built, if on the heavy side, comfortably wearing a suit that looked rather trendy, like an Armani, or, at the least, an Armani knockoff, something that resembled those advertisements close to the women’s lingerie ads he used to jerk-off to in Vanity Fair. Jude was ready to talk to this guy, partly because he was so taken aback by having been so totally surprised in his thoughts. Now there was nothing to say. Except what was required.
“Can I see your list of whiskeys?”
“We have most everything, what would you like?” This guy was either being really professional, or was a real prick. Probably both. Jude was in trouble, because who knows how much a place like this would charge for whiskey? And which one, if any, might be less than $12.00?
“Jameson, please.” This seemed like a safe choice. He had once had a Jameson with a girl he’d met casually on the street in Akron, Ohio, when he’d helped her move a dresser from her apartment into a little, blue Toyota pickup truck that she’d borrowed from a friend. To thank him, she had offered him money, which he had declined in favor of a drink. Actually, he was only kidding about the drink, but she took him up on it, and brought him to a bar on the corner of the street, where she offered to pay for anything he wanted.
“Whiskey,” he’d said, and the bartender in that local place immediately offered, “Jameson?”
“Yes.”
So here he was, doing it again, like a Pavlov dog.
“Why not? It had worked the first time,” he thought. The difference here, however, was that on the previous occasion the Jameson was paid for by somebody else, and this time he had to pay for it all by himself. That girl had been cute, but she had left immediately after paying, in cash, for the drink, and he, for some stupid reason, never pursued her. He had, however, thought of her many times since. He obviously should have followed her that day, or at least engaged in some kind of follow-up to her generous gift. What would have happened had he invited her to have another one with him? Why didn’t he? He vaguely remembered that he’d masturbated the morning he’d met her, twice in fact, once in the shower and once in front of the sink, looking out the window at his neighbor who was hanging her laundry out to dry on the line. He didn’t think that his neighbor was that attractive, but there was something about her doing the laundry near him that had produced not only a nice hard on, but a quantity of cum that required two paper towels. So maybe that was why he didn’t ask her to join him. If he ever had to justify that decision, he’d decided that he would have to lie.
“Jameson . . . on the rocks?” Any liquor lasts longer if it has ice in it, he thought.
“Yes, sir.”
“Please,” he replied involuntarily to the formality of the bartender.
He thought back to that girl, as the bartender left to prepare the drink. She had paid for the Akron Jameson with a ten-dollar bill, but he couldn’t remember if there had been any change. If it was close to ten dollars in Ohio, how much would it be in this place? Fuck. Maybe he ought to just . . . He could hear the bartender adding ice to the glass.
“Shit. Fuck it. I’ll just stay here until the place closes if it’s too expensive. Hopefully he’ll finish his shift without calling in the tab, and if it’s exactly $12.00, I’ll pay absentmindedly and then bring him a tip next time. Or if it’s more than $12.00, I’ll just, fuck, leave, and then return some day and apologetically say that I had left in a hurry for some emergency and had forgotten to close my tab.” He felt satisfied by all these plans and turned his attention back to his accouterments: the pen, the notebook, and, moreover, the muddle of his own mind.
The guy at the bar cleared his throat—again. This was really annoying. Jude wondered if it was going to happen again. It did. Now he began to fear that he’d wait for the next one, a habit that he’d developed whenever he was near a barking dog. He hated barking dogs, and as a result, he could obsess and fill hour upon hour not only with the aggravation of the ambient sounds that surrounded him, but with sounds that were in fact not occurring.
“Okay, silence. Here goes.” He raised his Montblanc pen for duel.
The egg. Perfect imperfection. Balanced, strong, impeccable, the very seat of life, flawless, even with the almost imperceptible flaws of mottling upon its delicate yet hardy shell.
“Okay, right. Now where was I going with this?”
Perfect, too perfect. Too perfect.
Jude thought back to Tina. His cock stirred again as he continued writing:
Nature had chosen thorns for the protection of delicate, little flowers, dreadful odors to ward away predators from skunks, ink to blind and frighten sea creatures who prey upon octopi, and strong flavors to dissuade herbivores from devouring oregano or parsley. And for the most fragile being of all, the as-yet-unborn bird or reptile or insect, nature opted for the mottled, fragile, resilient eggshell.
“Where the hell am I going with this? I can’t just start talking about God, it’s going to sound like a greeting card. What ever made me think that I could write an entire monograph about eggs? I need a hook,” thought Jude.
He lifted his head to see if Tina was around, maybe she would provide some inspiration. He peered beyond the divider towards the table where she’d been seated a few minutes earlier, but she was gone. John had evidently lingered, and now sat by himself, in deep reflection. Suddenly, he rose and began to approach the bar. Was he on to Jude? He was staring again, and once again John met his gaze. Jude detected a slight smile, a kind of caustic grin, momentary, the visage of a man who had just shot a wild turkey, and with that single shot, had made it fit for plucking. Then he looked towards the bar, which he approached, settling into one of the tall bar stools near the bearded client. His voice bellowed through the restaurant.
“Robbie?” he inquired. The bartender approached him, ready to serve.
“Yes, sir?”
“Robbie, we’re expecting the health inspector.”
“Yes, sir!” Robbie seemed to have heard this before, based on his demurred reaction.
The guy at the bar cleared his throat and looked over towards John.
“Salmonella is in the news, John,” he said with a grin. Then he cleared his throat again.
“Salmonella, yes, Ted,” said John. “Nasty.” He looked over toward Jude, who avoided his grey-eyed gaze.
“Ted,” thought Jude. Wow, cool name. Actually, this guy does look Russian, and Jewish. Is Ted a Jewish name? Theodore?
“Let’s see.” Ted manipulated his newspaper expertly, from one folded quarter to another, until he found the desired area. “A bacterium, Salmonella enteritidis, can be inside perfectly normal—appearing eggs, and if the eggs are eaten raw or undercooked, the bacterium can cause illness. Jesus.” He looked up at John. “Fabergé eggs are immune, aren’t they?”
John smiled wryly and then lifted the glass of cold water that the bartender had placed before him, took a long drag, then rose, pulled a white chef’s rag from his belt, and wrapped it over his hands as though it was a small switch used to encourage a galloping racehorse. “Immune, Teddy. Immune.”
John glanced back at Jude, who was now staring fixedly at him.
“Immune,” he muttered, this time in Jude’s direction, and he smiled before turning and walking back towards the kitchen.
“Immune,” he mouthed quietly, but this time directed beyond Ted, beyond Jude, beyond the restaurant and the city and the state and the country and its many possessions. “Immune,” he said again, this time louder, to the vast expanse beyond the cities, beyond the plains, towards the ocean, and then through the atmosphere and beyond the planet, and towards the entire galaxy. This, as anyone who knew John knew, was certainly a theme.
Ted pivoted in his chair and swung his body towards Jude. “Your drink is safe,” he said, as the bartender placed a coaster with the large dose of Jameson down on Jude’s table.
“John is the owner, he keeps everything salmonella-free, don’t worry.”
“Thanks,” said Jude. He was happy for the distraction and anxious to prolong it. “I was worried about it, but even more worried about the enterI-dies.”
Ted looked back to the article that he’d read out: “en-ter-i-ti-dis. Enteritidis. That’s what the egg says when it gets salmonella.”
“Enter I die—dis?” asked Jude, following the joke’s pathway.
Ted laughed, and his eyes illuminated behind his glasses.
“Very funny. I’m Ted.” Ted extended his hand towards Jude.
“Jude, hey, what’s up?”
“Hey, Jude,” said Ted, not even bothering for a response. “There’s a song title for you. Write that down. Are you writing a letter to the bartender? I can probably call him over if you’re in a bad way. Want a double?”
Jude smiled, “No. I’m writing to the hostess.” Shit, he’d not meant to say that. She was closer to his consciousness than he’d realized.
“Tina? The porcelain lady?”
“Sorry, just kidding.” Jude suddenly realized that (a) he wasn’t the only person to notice Tina’s unearthly appearance, and (b) he may have sounded homophobic, not wanting to write to the guy behind the bar. “Maybe,” he thought, “Robbie is gay, especially with a name like that. And maybe Ted is gay.”
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