THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

  “No, he doesn't typically sign his work,” Sean begins, “But in many cases there's really no need for it.”

  “How did this name come about?” I ask. “Did someone make it up?”

  “No, he told it to me. I told you that I met him one time, right?”

  “No. How the hell does something like that just slip your mind?”

  “Well, it's not like it's that important. It was just one brief encounter.”

  “This is the man to whom you owe your professional ca—”

  “I know, but the interaction was quick, and, well, to be honest, I was quite drunk. I don't even mention it in my essays.”

  “It was really that unimportant?”

  “Look, if it were to happen now it would be, but back then I was barely even familiar with his work. Imagine meeting Lou Reed at the age of twelve. True, you may know some of his songs, but the conversation would be relatively superficial, wouldn't it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well, as I was saying, I met him in ninety-eight. April eighteenth…I guess nineteenth, to be precise. I know what you're thinking: If it's so unimportant, why do I remember the day? There's a simple answer to that. It was my friend's birthday. You may know him: Derrick Errington.”

  “Sorry, that name doesn't ring a bell.”

  “You should check out his work. He's a fantastic photographer.” Caesura. “Well, we were in this bar that most people refer to as Ma' Kettle's—a real dive somewhere on Fourteenth Street. I don't think that's the real name of the place, but, as I said, that's the name it typically goes by. So we're in there for maybe two or three minutes before Bruno, the owner of the bar, comes out of the bathroom. He's clearly upset. He says that someone's just written something on the wall in there. Now, he isn't exactly outraged, or even all that upset, but Bruno has a bit of Fyodor Karamazov in him, and he decides to take the spotlight once he realizes he's attracted everyone's attention.

  “Most lost interest after a few minutes, but there were these two men sitting next to me who continued to egg him on. Bruno accosted one of the men after some time, but it was only in jest. It was fairly obvious that the two knew each other rather well. They had similar accents.”

  “What kind?”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “I see.”

  “So this goes on for some time: Bruno rants and raves while the two continue in hysterics. Soon even Bruno's had enough, and he goes to the other side of the bar to help the bartender—an older woman, who, as I recall, was one of the bar's biggest, if not only, attractions. Intrigued, I turned to the two to ask how they knew Bruno, which got us to talking not only about Bruno, but about a miscellany of subjects—you know, a typical bar conversation.

  “After a while, the more talkative one finally looks around, and very quietly tells me that he did it. I asked him what he meant. He furtively pointed to the bathroom, and, again quietly, told me that he did it. I didn't know how to respond. To be honest, I figured it was some puerile message—you know, typical bathroom vandalism. But I decided to check it out, just to assuage my curiosity. What I saw in there was far from typical; it was…well, brilliant. And I realized that I had seen it before, not the exact piece of course, but the same style, the same essential message. I came out as fast as I could, probably pissing myself a little on the way,” he says with a laugh, “and ran back to my seat. 'You did that?' I ask. 'Yeah,' he responds; 'What of it?' He seemed to think that I wanted to pick a fight with him. As you can probably imagine, he was taken a bit off guard when I told him that I loved his work.

  “He thought I was being facetious initially; he was even reluctant to take credit…about the pieces in Bay Ridge I had seen, that is. It wasn't until I started mentioning specific bars and specific instillations that he admitted that he was indeed Coprolalia. It was the first time I had heard the name. As I'm sure you know, the only name that had ever been connected to the Bay Ridge Collection was Anonymous or The Bay Ridge Bathroom Artist or something of the like.”

  “Did he give you a reason for the name?”

  “He said that he created without thinking, as if it were a tic.”

  “Really? Was it compulsive? Impulsive? Was he remorseful?”

  “No, not at all,” Sean says as I hear his lighter snap. “He found it very amusing that people had made such a big deal out of what he did in Bay Ridge. He was far more appreciative of reactions like Bruno's.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “That's the thing,” Sean exhausts. “I don't really remember. The bar is kind of dark in the back, and I had been drinking for just about the entire duration of the night. As I said, it was a Derrick's birthday, and he really had almost a fetish for dive bars at the time. In fact, Ma' Kettle's ended up being our last stop. We weren't even going to go in, but we decided to eat there before going home.”

  “You were going to eat at a place called Ma' Kettle's?”

  “Actually, we were going to eat in the Kennedy Fried Chicken down the block, but it was packed. We had to take it to go. We just happened to stumble—literally stumble—upon the bar. We asked Bruno if we could bring in outside food. He was more than happy to accommodate, so we ended up eating our chicken over a pitcher of beer. My other friends left after that, but I stayed on for one more. Serendipitous, no?”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean? If it weren’t for that decision to stay for another beer, I would have never met Coprolalia. I wouldn't have studied his work. My life would be completely different.”

  “I see,” slowly. “Where was the bar?”

  “I don't know if it's still there, but it was on Fourteenth between A and B.”

  “That was kind of a rough neighborhood back then.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Do you think he's from the area?”

  “Coprolalia? Well, he may have been living there, in Manhattan, at the time, but he is most certainly from Brooklyn. The accent was a dead give-away.”

  “Do you remember anything else about him?”

  “He's white; he has big ears; he's probably about my age, maybe a bit older.”

  “How old would that be, then?”

  “He's probably in his late-thirties now. He may even be forty.” He slurps what I assume to be coffee without repose. “What was funny, though, was how hard he laughed when I brought up the J.J. Bubbles piece—you remember, I showed it to you yesterday. He said it was one of his favorites. You remember that one, right? Pariah Blues—the one of the coffee table.”

  “Of course,” I respond. “That was the first one you saw.”

  “Well, I like to think of it as the first one I really noticed, but, yes, in a way you are correct. Long story short, it's one of the only two pieces I absolutely know to be authentic.”

  “What's the other one?”

  “How hungover are you?”

  “I've seen better days,” I respond. “But, regardless, you said it was one of the two pieces….”

  “Ma' Kettle's,” he responds slowly. “I think you may want to take it easy tonight, buddy. I know you're young and you think you can take on the world, but the last thing you want to do is get so drunk that you don't even remember your interview.”

  I groan. “What do you think I should do, then?”

  “Last night I had a few drinks with some former students of mine. Your situation came up, and they want to help you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they want to join you on your little adventure. They want to meet Coprolalia, too. Do you have a pen? I'll give you Tomas' number.”

  2.1

  Tomas Bennington and James Aberdeen are not the most famous artists in New York. They are not not-famous, or even infamous; they are simply too young to have seriously established themselves. Tomas is a video artist, but he is probably best known for his critically acclaimed, Postlexical book, Letters in Tandem. James has also made something of a name for himself within the art community, as he is the founde
r (and so far only member) of the Potentialist Movement. His Purple Elephant Waltz #42 is currently on display at the Graham Gallery in Chelsea. He will soon be showing a small collection (beginning in August) at the Keens Center for the Arts, which is located in south Williamsburg.

  Tomas is a ruddy-faced eccentric with a narrow nose and crooked teeth. His eyes are of Eastern European stock, though his ancestry is predominately English. Some would think him cynical. I would be no exception to this. It is not a necessarily acerbic orientation, just a state of perpetual disappointment—the primary antecedent, in Seneca’s mind, to anger. He is a stout man, comprised of neither excessive muscle nor fat, but simply brawn. He wears a plain white T-shirt and jeans, gator-skin beetle-boots (zippers on the side, aerodynamic in shape), and a Detroit Tigers hat that hasn't seen a wash cycle in what appears to be a decade.

  Tomas sounds like he's in a constant state of agitation, complete with erratic hand gestures that are often accompanied by sound effects and a barrage of profanity. He goes through long periods of time in which he doesn't blink. When he does blink, it is usually followed by several more. Blinks. It's as though he is trying to keep his average blinks-per-minute close to the mean of the general population. When you notice this idiosyncrasy, you can't help but store it in memory for later discussion with someone else. It doesn't seem to have a catalyst, either. This element of caprice just makes it that much more noticeable.

  James is taller and more reserved. He is pensive and cautious, but eager to exhibit his insight. In Medieval times he would have been called melancholic. He wears a tweed blazer, nods along as others speak, and rolls his own cigarettes—a habit (or vice, depending whom you ask) in which he takes a modest deal of pride. Tomas says that he drinks nearly a gallon of coffee a day; without it, the tempo of his speech would probably degenerate into a soporific largo. When talking, he refuses eye contact; when listening, he focuses his attention on the mouth of the speaker.

  There is a curiosity in his eyes that is salient, somewhat intimidating. At a glance, you would assume him to be a graduate student from Dartmouth or Brown—not a perpetual student like those whom you meet in the coffeehouses of the West Village, but a professional student, a cloistered brain busy mulling over a thesis paper that revolves around the significance of some random artifact in a work of fiction from the nineteenth century (like Natalia's kerchief, which appears towards the end of the sixth chapter of Gogol's Taras Bulba)—not only because of the tweed and the ponderous disposition he exhibits, but also as a consequence of his neat beard. My father always said that beards are for mystics and the vain.

  Tomas says that Aberdeen (and he calls him that, too) takes himself too seriously. Aberdeen says that Tomas lives in a state of childish rebellion, which is certainly true to a degree. Neither have what most would consider a real occupation, as they have managed to become successful enough to escape what Aberdeen calls “the tedium of the post-industrial day-job,” and what Tomas refers to as “The degradation of the Dionysian spirit by the anti-social elements of capitalist society.” Even though Aberdeen is less self-righteous than Tomas, his laconic phrases complement the ravings of his friend with a counterbalance of intellectual buzzwords and rehearsed incredulity.

  I met Tomas and Aberdeen around two in the afternoon under a corner scaffold in northern Greenpoint, an area supposedly rife with the work of Coprolalia. There was a mist oscillating in severity as we exchanged pleasantries and spoke about the neighborhood, which I had never really visited during the daytime. Even though it had become something of a nexus for those fleeing the rent increases in Williamsburg, who were flocking to Williamsburg to escape the rent increases in the Village, it had retained a lot of its former character. Most of the shop windows have signs in Polish, English, and Spanish (in that order, too), though there are establishments that exclusively cater to the neighborhood's newer, more domestic immigrants. There's a high-end produce market, a minimalist Thai restaurant, and a video store that specializes in quality films that you can never find at your local Blockbuster because the VHS copy has been stolen and the studio hasn't bothered to mass-produce a DVD edition yet. Starbucks has converted the old movie theater into…well…a Starbucks. The marquee implores pedestrians to stop in for a dessert beverage that costs only five bucks. The justification for the price probably comes from the Italian neologism that's been slapped onto the substance, which, for all intents and purposes, is nothing more than hypercaffeinated Nesquik. McDonald's has set up shop nearby, too. The windows reveal a sterile environment that is oddly reminiscent of a poorly constructed diorama or a scene from the bottom of an aquarium. The majority of the inhabitants are Dominican or elderly (in some cases both).

  But these newer places do not overwhelm those that have been in the area for what seems like generations. A few storefronts north of the McDonald’s there is a Polish meat market that sells organs and glands that most Americans forget how to spell by the time they get home to plug such items into a search engine. Between the two is an old bar illuminated only by the sun as seen though tinted glass and one of those neon beer advertisements that one typically sees after pulling off the highway deep in Bush country. On the other side of the street is a butcher, as well as pharmacy named after Poland's most famous composer. The G train below all of this smells like asparagus-tinged piss, garlic, offal and some type of peppery spice that may or may not be smoked paprika.

  The sidewalks are cleaner than most one comes across in Brooklyn, though the people inhabiting them are typical to the borough. You have the short bulbous brown women in spaghetti-strapped tops; they push strollers down the street while gangs of toddlers hang upon them like ornaments on a Christmas Tree—perhaps there is a certain nimbus surrounding these women, too, a kind of sanctuary of patience beclouding what to all of us sans enfants seems a vision of hell. There's also the requisite Chinese woman marching down the street under a massive bag of cans and bottles. They jingle like loose change in the pocket of a giant. Bearded white men in their early- to mid-twenties discuss a myriad of subjects in aggravated tones while their limp fingers draw out the perimeters of ellipses. Cherubic Polish women stroll though the slight mist; they are being courted by thick men with deltoids like mountain ranges and facial topographies no less marred than the South Dakota Badlands.

  The mist begins to pick up a bit as we continue making small talk. Tomas proposes an indoor venue after a gust of wind sends an empty soda can rolling down a street that appears to be filled with nothing but low-density industrial buildings and dumpsters. The idea is met with no resistance, and soon we begin in the direction of wherever he has in mind. The two describe the neighborhood in esoteric fashion as we walk: where the best bar is (where we are going), where the best Cuban sandwich is (Franklin and Huron), where the best coffee is (Franklin and Huron), where to score just about any drug under the sun with the exception of psilocybin, opium, and those goofy pharmaceuticals that smarter dealers know to eschew (wouldn't you like to know). Aberdeen tells me that Magic Johnson owns the property around the corner. Tomas complains that the nearby pizza place, “which fucking sucks anyway,” charges twenty dollars for a large Hawaiian even though the same pie with ham and pineapple runs just sixteen. “Fucking bullshit, man,” he adds with an amount of venom that isn't really warranted. “Praeludium” (BWV 1007) can be heard coming from a window above us. It is being played by a cellist with an erratic right hand.

  “Introibo ad altare Dei,” Tomas proclaims as he opens the door for Aberdeen and me.

  Aberdeen rolls his eyes. “Sean thinks the piece in here is a fake, but we're not so skeptical,” he states. We walk to the back, past the few patrons and bartender, and stop at the threshold of one of the unisex bathrooms. The ski-ball machine to our right begs for quarters with dancing red lights. The nearby jukebox is a gray mass of technology. “It's obviously a Coprolalia,” Aberdeen continues as the bathroom door is pushed open. He reveals the four small, block letters that comprise the piece, as the others
in the bar look to us with curiosity. I don't think either Tomas or Aberdeen notice the attention we draw to ourselves as we stand looking just above the paper towel dispenser from the small ante-lavatory—a space that moonlights as a cigarette lounge, something that evident from the faint redolence of smoke and the flattened filters of white and cedar-speckled gamboge that litter the floor. A rather large pillar obstructs the vantage from behind the bar. This explains why the location serves the secondary purpose it does.