by Jay Fox
I've been to more than half of the bars on Sean's list. I've yet to get to some of the more remote places in Brooklyn, like Red Hook, which is accessible only via the B61—the most capricious bus in Brooklyn, according to the Tomas. I plan on exploring the neighborhoods south of Prospect Park this coming week. I would have completed the exploration of Windsor Terrance and what has come to be known as Greenwood Heights last night, but the stretch of Seventh Avenue that runs through Park Slope slowed our expedition to a crawl. There were just too many women, too many bars, too many drinks. To be honest, I don't remember how I got home last night.
Without question, Park Slope retains Coprolalia's pieces the longest. This is not surprising by any means if one knows the idiosyncrasies of the area, but it does go against the general trend that I have seen in other areas like the Slope. Neighborhoods that have recently “come up” over the past decade or so are often reluctant to keep a Coprolalia. Some owners wish to prove the area's nascent respectability, and consequently despise the artist to the extent that one is liable to be asked to vacate the premises with a firm grip around the shoulder if the artist's name is even uttered. Others wish to embrace the former edginess of their neighborhood. They clutch tightly to this past, sometimes under the belief that the streets have been largely uncontaminated by condo barons and the more bohemian I-Bankers and trust-funders in possession of enough dough to actually live in the monstrosities created by the former. It's a proactive form of denial. Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill are similar in this respect. At one place on Smith Street, the main drag for the three neighborhoods just mentioned, the Coprolalia installation has actually been quarantined off by four pieces of duct-tape that the owner evidently put up herself.
It goes without saying that I still have yet to discover a pattern. Even if he time-stamped all of his work, it would seem impossible to track him down. Still, I have been attempting to recreate his nights. I ask the staff at each location when they first noticed that there was something in their midst that could potentially be a Coprolalia. Most say that they don't pay much attention. I emphasize the point that I'm not looking for exact figures, that I simply need a compass. Sometimes I get a day, sometimes a weekend, sometimes just a month. It seems preposterous that a man would so diligently obfuscate the time or date he visited a bar, but this seems to be yet another one of Coprolalia's hobbies.
Here's a specific example. According to my sources, Coprolalia hit eight locations over the course of a weekend in mid-April: three in Manhattan (East Village, Lower East Side, Morningside Heights), four in Brooklyn (Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Greenpoint, Clinton Hill), and one in Queens (Astoria). Three of the pieces, the ones in Morningside Heights, Park Slope, and Astoria were discerned relatively quickly; of the other five pieces, no one is willing to commit to a day, let alone a time. The staff at the Park Slope tavern is certain that Coprolalia was in the bar after seven and prior to nine on Friday. As the size of the piece in Astoria makes it virtually impossible to miss, several members of the staff are more than confident that it appeared between the hours of ten and one on Friday night. The window in which the Morningside installation appeared is wider; the bartender with whom I spoke is certain that the artist came in during his shift, which began at eight and ended at four on the same night. If this information is accurate, I can generate a rough time-line of Coprolalia's travels for the night, provided, of course, these were the only three destinations in his itinerary.
Coprolalia enters the Park Slope tavern sometime during happy hour. It is busy enough so that no one notices him, but slow enough so that he runs a relatively low risk of being interrupted or hurried while creating the piece entitled Herculi Romano Augusto. It is one of the rare cases in which Coprolalia has provided a title, though Sean is absolutely confounded by its meaning. He only knows that “Herculi Romano Augusto” was one of the many honorifics the emperor Commodus bestowed upon himself. Coprolalia must leave this establishment after seven, but prior to nine in the evening, but it is difficult to say the direction in which he goes. The itinerary splits into two scenarios, though in both he begins at the Union Street R train, as it is the closest station to the bar. In the first scenario he transfers to the 2 or 3 train at Atlantic, transfers again to the 1 (the local), probably at 96th Street in Manhattan, and then gets out at the 110th Street stop. This trip takes him between forty-five minutes and an hour and fifteen minutes, thereby meaning he arrives at the bar in Morningside Heights sometime between eight or so and ten-fifteen. It is there that he creates what has been dubbed Glass Onion, a title that Sean created because he thinks it to be a reference to the Beatles song of the same name. At the earliest, Coprolalia gets back on the train at eight-thirty. He then travels south via the 1, transfers to either the 2 or the 3 train, transfers again to the N or the W train at Times Square, and then proceeds into Astoria (or he could have taken a different train, the 7, say, to Queens Plaza where he transfers to either the N or the W). Taking into account that it is no longer rush hour, the trip has to take him close to an hour, if not longer. Also, the bar is not particularly close to the train, meaning that he has to spend at least fifteen minutes walking in order to get there. This places him in the final bar in Astoria, at the earliest, sometime around quarter to ten. He then performs his work, which has to take a substantial amount of time because—as has been established—the piece is atypically large. As the staff is certain that the piece appeared after ten, it is possible that he began his work shortly after arriving, and that it took half an hour to produce. It is also possible that Coprolalia took his time, that he left Morningside Heights as late as eleven or eleven-thirty, and that he arrived in Astoria well after midnight. End scenario one.
In scenario two, Coprolalia takes the R train from Union to Atlantic, but transfers to the N as opposed to the 2 or 3. Although a straight shot to Astoria, the ride on the N takes over an hour. Add the fifteen minutes it takes him to walk from the train station to the bar, as well as a minimum of fifteen minutes required to get from the bar in Park Slope to Atlantic, and you arrive at a total travel time of somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. This means he can leave the bar in Park Slope at seven, arrive at the establishment in Astoria by nine, create Procession/Regression (another title provided by Sean), and then make it into Morningside Heights by eleven or so to produce Glass Onion.
Both patterns are feasible. Either way you cut it, however, neither scenario makes any rational sense. I'll venture to say that, on rare occasions, New Yorkers may visit three neighborhoods in a night. I'll even admit that there have been cases in which people have managed to go to the three neighborhoods I have mentioned above within a few hours. They would only do so, however, if they satisfied one of two conditions: they have three very important events that unfortunately fall on the same day, or they own a car. Because the serpentine path tediously articulated above is the norm rather than the exception for Coprolalia's travels, this leads me to believe that he is not confined to the lines on the Map. He most certainly owns a car.
As I go over my notes, now with a cup of hot coffee that emits no steam in my hand, I begin to create new patterns, patterns that may or may not exist. There's a large map of each borough of the city, save Staten Island, on the wall in the living room. I also have a smaller map that, paradoxically, contains all five boroughs. On the larger maps, each confirmed Coprolalia is represented by a thumbtack. On the smaller map are eight thumbtacks, each one corresponding to one of the bars mentioned above. Something emerges.
The most rational route from Park Slope to Astoria, by car, would be to take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Grand Central Parkway. In fact, the bar in Astoria is only a block or two away from an off ramp. Furthermore, if one were to drive from Park Slope to the B.Q.E., it would be quickest to cut through Gowanus and into Carroll Gardens; and if one were to take the B.Q.E. from Park Slope to Astoria, it would be necessary to drive past Clinton Hill and Greenpoint. This means that the only locations t
hat appear to be random, provided there was a specified plan to go from Park Slope to Astoria, are the ones in Manhattan. But look here. The Grand Central Parkway leads to the Triborough Bridge, which connects Queens to the Bronx and Manhattan. In fact, if one wanted to avoid Manhattan traffic when going from Park Slope to Morningside, the best route would be the B.Q.E. to the Grand Central and over the Triborough. This explains seven out of the nine. Perhaps the other two appeared the following night.
I take the thumbtacks out, flip the pages of my notebook to another weekend, and begin to form new constellations. The second weekend of March of this year; constellation: a distorted Auriga. The pins demarcate bars in eastern Williamsburg, Hunts Point, Washington Heights, the West Village, Carroll Gardens, and Kensington. If he followed that route, or the reverse of it, it would seem that three of the locations were necessary: Williamsburg, Washington Heights, and Kensington. Were the other three just places where he stopped to grab a beer?
I map out another eight or nine weekends and discern a similar pattern. His work always appears in at least one bar in north Brooklyn and one bar in the vicinity of Prospect Park. Morningside is frequented habitually, as is the west side of Manhattan. The east side locations are in close proximity to the various bridges that head into either Brooklyn or Queens with the exception of the Village. Either way, I believe I have found both his origin and terminus, though I don't know which is which.
I'm on the phone with Sean before I consciously realize that I've called him. “I think I know where Coprolalia lives.”
“Really?” incredulously.
“Well…not exactly; but I've come to the conclusion that he lives in Williamsburg and works around Prospect Park or works in Williamsburg and lives around Prospect Park.”
“And how did you come to this conclusion?”
“Well, first I realized that he has a car. It wouldn't make sense for him to take the train given some of the locations he hits. In Astoria alone he's been to four or five spots that are almost a mile away from the closest train station.”
“He could be taking the bus,” he says as he lights up.
“Well,” slightly deflated, “I understand that. But a car just makes so much more sense. In one night he managed to get to three bars that are each, like, ten miles away from one another. No one would go through that much trouble to paint the town, if you'll pardon the pun. A train rider would localize the bars he goes to. Someone with a car, however, would be free to satisfy his most capricious desires.”
“You don't know Coprolalia,” flatly.
“What do you mean?” fully deflated.
“Look, I've been tracking his work for nearly a decade now. You know that. Now, in the past he used to localize his work, as you said. One weekend would be dedicated to Alphabet City, the next to Carroll Gardens, the next to the Financial District and TriBeCa; then, after a few prolific weekends, he would go missing for two months or so. For the past three years, however, he's been specifying his locations, as if each bar is chosen intentionally.”
“So what you're saying is that he bought a car three years ago.”
“I guess that's a possibility,” he chuckles. “But that means that this Prospect Park-Williamsburg connection is no longer entirely sound. If he's so capricious, that means he's not tied to any pattern whatsoever; either he has a car or else he is in some capacity bound to these two locales.”
To me, it's petty nay-saying for Sean to produce such an exclusive disjunction, but, as I've learned with these professorial types, there's no point in arguing.
“So how deep into the list are you?” he asks.
“I have a few more places I need to visit.”
He grunts as to imply satisfaction. “Well, I'm going down to a tavern in Red hook later today. Coprolalia has recently been to some dumpy place by the lot IKEA recently bought for something like thirty million dollars.”
“There's going to be an IKEA in Red Hook?”
“Kinda weird, right?” he laughs.
“Going back to the piece, though—how did you find out about it?”
“Someone sent me an email.”
“This happens frequently?”
“Oh, I'd say I get at least four or five a day. Only a few of them actually lead me to genuine articles.”
“Has he done anything else recently?”
“Let's see,” as he rustles some papers, “There's supposed to be one in the courthouse in Kings.”
“Which one?”
“The one on Adams. Is that the Supreme Court?”
“I don't know.”
“I'm pretty sure it is.”
“Okay.”
“Regardless, someone told me to examine a stall on the first floor. I was going to look into that one tomorrow—the courts are obviously closed today. Besides that, as well as the one in Red Hook, it's been relatively quiet for the past month and a half or so. I suspect it will pick up in a few weeks. As I've said, he usually has a few prolific weeks, especially in the summer, followed by a lull.”
“Is it possible that he's going to neighborhoods that he hasn't been to in the past? You know, maybe that's why we haven't seen as much activity recently. For all we know, he could be working in Staten Island now.”
“It's doubtful. The only Coprolalia piece to have been featured in Staten Island—St. George, to be precise—appeared six or seven years ago.” He pauses. “And don't even suggest Jersey. I've probably seen fifteen spurious pieces in Hoboken this year alone. The only genuine article I've found over there was in the Jersey City PATH station. That was, what, maybe four years ago.”
“What about East New York or some place like that?”
“I've never been asked to authenticate a piece that deep into Brooklyn.” He pauses. “I take that back. I went out to Gerritsen Beach once. That was a nightmare.”
“Why is that?”
“It's not a bad little neighborhood; it's just not the most accessible part of Brooklyn.” He pauses. “Look, it's certainly possible that he's been out to the eastern regions of Brooklyn and Queens with a greater frequency than in the past, but I wouldn't recommend you expand into these types of areas blindly. The city has changed a lot over the years, but there are still places where one just shouldn't go. At least not alone.”
“I understand that, but it seems as though he's running low on locations. Where else does he have to go?”
“He's not a vandal out to mark his territory,” indignantly. “Many establishments have featured three or four of his pieces, sometimes concomitantly.”
“What about subway stations.”
“That's something of a rarity.”
“Well, doesn't that increase the likelihood of his owning a car?”
He sighs. “Not especially. Subway stations typically have cameras, as well as people waiting for the train. And police are occasionally there, too. In other words, he could very easily be caught if he were to take to featuring his work in train stations. This is not to say that he has never made an exception. Still, it's not a milieu with which you should waste your time.” He pauses. “I don't think he's ever done anything on—or in, for that matter—a train car. Then again, I've never looked as diligently as I could have.”
There's a long pause on the line.
“So what do you think? What should I do at this point?”
“Well, for one, I don't think it's all that wise to return to the bars that he's frequented in the past. It's not particularly conducive to finding him. The probability of catching him in the act is so low as to make the effort futile. The only reason I provided you with that list was to allow you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with some of his work.”
“I was retracing his steps with the hope of running into someone who knows him.”
A captious groan floats down the line. It's one of those things you can just feel. “It's likely that even those who know him have no idea who he really is.”
“So now I'm chasing Clark Kent?”
“I'm just saying that he is a very secretive person. He's not going to disclose his identity to just anybody.”
“And yet he was more than willing to impart that information to you,” I respond.
“That's true,” as he lights another cigarette. “You have to remember this was before he became famous.”
“How did he become so famous? Everybody seems to know his name in this city. It's weird. I mean, I met a guy the other day who had never heard of Dali, yet he knew all about Coprolalia.”
“I don't want to sound like a braggart, but I was the first one to ever publish an article on him. In fact, if it weren't for me, no one would have ever put all of the pieces together; it'd be assumed that Coprolalia's corpus represents the work of a myriad of artists and a few talented drunks—besides the Bay Ridge collection, of course.”
The desire to keep up the conversation wastes away for both of us. The call ends in what feels like a stalemate. My phone ends up on the table next to a stack of borrowed and owned books that were featured in the bibliography of a paper I turned in a few weeks ago. The Brothers Karamazov is on top of the pile. My bookmark is the discarded foil from a pack of cigarettes. It rests between pages 780 and 781. On the bottom of page 780 the following passage has been underlined with pen: “If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen.” I don't look at it; I simply remember it. It's one of those brilliant lines that stay with you. I light the remnants of something sitting in the incense catcher. The apartment is overtaken by a pungent, herbal aroma. The couch begins to vibrate slightly; my skin hums a pleasant tune; my eyes go saurian. I feel an oppressive weight on my chest, a presence of anxiety that slowly dissipates over the course of a few minutes.