THE WALLS
Page 15
Sitting here in one of those horse latitudes of existence, I feel a part of me wants to give up, to abandon the search. Is it not conceited to believe that I can find him when so many others have failed? Of course it is. Then again, what else do I have to do? I am strolling down the Via Atē. I am Don Quixote sans Rocinante. Hell, I don't even have a Sancho Panza. I am not only alone, but also without responsibility—without direction, only temptation. I am watching the lazy River Heraclitus from what feels like the wrong bank. I should not be looking back this early in my life to evanescent youth, and yet I am almost paralyzed by the desire to feel the bubbles from a glass of coca-cola I once had when I was nine on my tongue, to dance to Nina Simone's rendition of “I Loves You Porky” with barefoot Connie in that overpriced jazz club in Gramercy, to spend the night sharing a case Natty Bo' with the guys on the shore of Chesapeake Bay just before our respective departures to our respective universities. If nothing is eternal, then nothing really matters.
So this is despair.
6
Monday arrives with a languid and party cloudy dawn. There is talk of rain. At least that's what some of the weathermen on the Internet say. I shower after learning that John Edwards' expensive haircut is more important than the hundreds of people who have been killed in Iraq in the previous twenty-four hours (and don't kid yourself; it's at least in the hundreds). The shower liner needs to be changed soon. I don't remember this being such a persistent problem when I lived with my parents—the mildew that creeps up like the tide. I don't know any women with this problem, either. Then again, how often do I gaze upon the curtains of strange women?
I'm waiting on the train platform by quarter after eight, aboard the train by eight-twenty. This constitutes the earliest time I have ever left my apartment in Bushwick, unless one counts those lucubratory nights that bitterly transcend the dawn and necessitate several cups of coffee, the occasional amphetamine, and, at some point, a horribly agitated and nonsensical and silent tirade on a matter that is neither pressing nor relevant to the catalyst behind the outburst. These are the types of hours that are comparative to the infamous and brutal Alaskan summer nights, nights infested with wall-eyed lunatics engaging in mild levels of mayhem (not in the legal sense, of course—i.e. to maim or disfigure a potential soldier in the King's army) throughout towns that are described as sleepy because they are populated by somnambulists sauntering (in the strictly Thoreauian sense) through memoryless weeks under the ruthless empire of the sun.
My typical commute into the City had taken place no earlier than ten, no later than eleven. True, the riders were far from boisterous then, but they had the tendency to appear less sleep-deprived than those with whom I share the car at this early hour, people best defined by either one or a conjunction of the following four adjectives: ornery, pensive, bored, asleep in a position that is both uncomfortable and conducive to nothing more than making said individual appear gruesomely unattractive and ostensibly homeless. I would paint myself a hue that straddles the line between the first two because I have been forced to stand. I didn't think it possible that one could be required to stay on one's feet so deep in Brooklyn.
There are no babies on the train, a detail that would be an anomaly at virtually any other hour in the day unless we're talking about the lean hours, which cater to drunks two (perhaps three) drinks past sympathy. All of the people here are clearly on their way to work. The older commuters, the awake ones anyhow, have become inured to the routine. The younger ones, however, still have some fight in them; there is an indelible bitterness in their eyes, as they are more than likely chagrined over the inescapable nature of that proverbial rat race, which involves little running and a far greater proportion of sheep to rats. One of them listens to a song about the lyricist's keen intellect. The lyrics stop short of saying anything insightful or particularly interesting because the song is of that genre of hip-hop that speaks to college-educated kids and loners, those who assume their lack of friends and affinity with the feel of a fifi-bag to be portends of brilliance or genius or whatever it is you call the ability to rationalize a low score on an IQ exam and a bedroom rank with the smell of mushrooms, feet, and sour milk. They are the boring protagonists in boring novels, adventurers as curious as furniture, subjects of insult, purveyors of silent retort. They are the antiheroes of bygone days, the heroes Generation X, made of the same special stuff of Felix Krull and would be no less murderous and pathetic than Nero if given the opportunity. Other songs can be heard, including someone's ring tone, which features the chorus of the Pink song “U + Ur Hand” (and it is spelled that way, too, perhaps to intimate that the lyrics were written out in a series of text messages) blasting through one shitty speaker again and again, though the owner of the phone does not seem to be receiving a call—or, from the look of her, too many drink offers. Other people are on the phone, as the M is superterranean throughout north Brooklyn and Queens. The three people in their residency that board at Woodhull are probably the most loquacious of this group. An older woman speaking in Chinese to someone with bad reception or a broken hearing aid is undoubtedly the loudest. Several Orthodox Jewish men speak in low tones and glance about the train like pitchers with pick-off moves that any umpire would call a balk.
As we approach Manhattan, the people boarding the train begin to resemble models from those uncomfortably erotic American Apparel advertisements: pallid faces and lugubrious countenances, emaciated bodies adorned in clothing that caters to a Progeria fetish. Most of these individuals read novels with controversial and profane titles or self-indulgent memoirs about being totally punk before it was cool to be totally punk or treatises by English professors for whom the usage of a German word with a readily available English equivalent brings on a state of tumescence. The few not reading look impatient and unimpressed. I don't know why.
The train has nearly filled to capacity by the time we reach the Marcy Street station. One young man with the skin tone of dishwater gets his guitar caught in the door, which arouses a lot of acerbic commentary that is more racially motivated than most would like to admit. He eventually makes his way in, which sends us on towards Manhattan, its skyline dissolving into a million different stories both concentric and concurrent.
I transfer to the F train at Delancey. Most of the other passengers coming from the M are going the other way—north, towards the white lights emitted from the shitty souvenir shops that plague Midtown and mutate your average pedestrian into a fevered apparition during the colder months of the year. The F train is filled with relatively supervised Chinese children jumping and screaming and howling for reasons that no one, not even the other children, seem to understand. They all get off the train at Grand Street, which grants me a seat for the first time of the day. No one exits or enters at East Broadway. The Gatsby-Warhols and Astor-Dworkins detrain at York. Most of the remaining passengers are black, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty, and in various states of indignation. The Jay Street-Borough Hall stop sees the majority of them leave. By the time the train hits President Street, there are only eight other people in the car. Out of the eight, there’s a couple that keeps looking to the Map directly above my shoulder. They cannot seem to decide whether they are still in Manhattan or not. When I finally inform them that they are indeed in Brooklyn, the man looks to me as though I hold a knife in one hand and his severed penis in the other. They stare out the window as the train ascends into the light. This is serendipitous. “Whadda' know? There's Lady Liberty.”
They get out of the train at Smith and Ninth, which leaves me alone with only two people—one of those large, contractor types from Bay Ridge with slick, brillowy, cement-colored hair, and a prune of a black woman dressed in what may or may not be funeral attire. The man keeps talking to himself, occasionally tossing a rhetorical in the direction of the woman, who denies direct eye-contact with either myself or the guy busy telling anyone within earshot that, “I just love Jesus,” in a tired monotone. “Ya' know, dare's worship, and den d
are's how I worship—s'like supersonic worship, ya' know.” I snicker a bit. “People'll laugh when day hear dat, but when da' rapture happens, ya' know, we're gonna be da' ones laughing at 'dem.” She nods. “Yeah we are.” He looks to her. She stares straight ahead. I notice that she is holding a Watchtower pamphlet. “Ya' know what I'm getting' at dough, right?” The woman mumbles something inaudible. “Yeah, 'cause Jesus wantsta' come down and save us. He does. You'n me. 'Cause you'n me—you'n me—we're da' chosen ones. The kikes think day's God' people,” he begins slowly with a shake of his head. “Nah, nah; let me tell you something: you'n me, we're da' chosen ones. We've decided what path we wanna follow. We decided, and we’re gonna be rewarded.” He stops. “I ain’t always been like dis, dough. Believe it or not, I youseda get high on crack.” He nods awkwardly; it's as though he's reciting from a script with which he's not entirely familiar—perhaps a passage from Infinite Jest that got the ax. “Believe it or not, believe it or not: I youseda smoke crack cocaine. But then I hit rock bottom. I mean, slam, bam—rock-freaking bottom. I'd woken up under da boardwalk, on streets I ain't never seen, in hoods that I ain't never been to, in apartments where I didn't know nobody's name, in the bathroom of freaking Paulmil. And den I woke up in Central Booking one day, and had no clue how I got dare. I was lost. Lost! And den someone—and I'm sure he was an angel—he left a Bible in the cell. I picked it up. I read it. Right there in the cell! I read all four gospels. And I realized dat I'd been givin up my life for drugs, and that I should be givin up my life for Jesus. Dats what it took. Dats what made me change my ways. I suddenly knew why I was here. It all made sense. I once was lost, and now I'm found, ya know,” with a laugh. “I was put here to spread da Gospel: da good news: dat dis world's soon to end because Jesus is comin back. 'Cause dare ain't no justice now. And dare ain't gonna be no justice until Jesus returns to us. And den; and den.” He nods enthusiastically. “You'n me; we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior,” he begins slowly. “We accept dat we're only gonna get inda' heaven if we love'n worship Him. 'Cause dat's eternity. Says so in da' scriptures—and I read da' scriptures. I know'm better'n the priests. I know all 'bout eternity. It ain't five minutes; it ain't even a day. Eternity. All'a time. And it's either heaven or hell. For all'a time. And s'our choice, too. See, 'cause God's dat great. He gave us dat choice, ya' know. And it's either heaven or hell.” She turns to him, nods, and smiles. “Hell scares me. Sure it scares you, too. It really gets da' me, dough—keeps me from sleepin' sometimes. Hell: demons and da' Evil One torturing people for all'a time. All'a time!” ebulliently. “Fughetaboutit!” with the same ebullience. “But I know I love Jesus; I know he'll save me from all'a dat. From hell. Dat's how great He is. He'll save me from dat. And I know He's coming back soon. I just know it. Faith ain't got nutting to do with it. Look 'round. We're livin' in the end times. Wars. You know there ain't never been a time when there were more wars goin' on. Goes to show. Goes to show ya' He's comin' soon. And he wants to come back right now. If it were up to Jesus, we'd all be saved right now; all the sinners of da' world—da' atheists (look to me), and da' faggots (another look to me), and da' Allah worshipers (begins to look at me and perhaps realizes that Allah is just the Arabic word that denotes the monotheistic God featured in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)—day'd be sent straight to hell. But He's got da' Fadder, ya' know, and the Fadder's sayin', 'Jesus, now ain't da' time,' ya' know. 'Cause God, da' Fadder, He wants to save more people. And it's His mercy dat keeps us here. 'Cause God—bless His Holy name—could wipe us out. Ya' know,” as he blows on an imaginary dandelion, “and we're gone. Just like dat.” Again with the dandelion. “It's His Mercy dat keeps us here. And people laugh; day wanna tell me not to love Jesus so much, but I ain't botherin' no one. I'm just mindin' my own, lovin' my Jesus.” The F train pulls into the 15th Street station. I stand. The doors open. “Bless you, sir,” the man yells in my direction. I walk out of the train. The doors close. Like most Evangelicals, he probably assumes his denomination to be his own: an odd amalgam that seeks to synthesize the teachings of the Gospels and Revelations with the personality of Abraham. And I imagine the man in the shoes of Abraham. I imagine that catamite of the Lord climbing up Mount Moriah, constructing the altar where He had appeared to him a few days previously, and then employing some mysterious tactics to get the child onto the altar. Unlike Abraham, though, I see this myrmidon heedlessly raising his knife, struggling with putti, consummating the fillicide. The angels are stunned by his audacity. God seriously considers accepting some blame. The man, however, is sanguine, perhaps even a bit arrogant. With the warm blood of his son flowing from the knife onto his hand, he looks to the angels, quotes Luke 14:26, and then adds, “I hated dat fucking kid, and I hate da' fuckin' world. Dat’s what contempt means, right? It’s proof that I love you, Jesus.”
After picking up breakfast, I take a seat on one of the many open benches in Prospect Park. It's about half past nine. There's a surprising amount of joggers at such an early hour on a Monday morning. They race past the elderly and quiescent couples shuffling past as I eat my bagel and drink my coffee.
I am committing the act that is prosaically known as “people watching,” a leisurely activity that is not as active as most activities; in fact it is more of a pass-time, in that it passes time. I know not to look at people directly, so I can't really be said to be watching them. I merely notice them, speculate on their motivations and convictions, and then move on to the next individual or group of individuals to catch my attention.
I sit upon the same bench until I tire of judging people I will never come to know: the young woman in those shorts that are so conducive to camel-toe, the old man concealing a Newton's Cradle in his sweatpants, the tranquil few taking in a landscape that only changes with the seasons, the early-rising tourists, who have probably gotten lost on their way to the Botanical Gardens or the museum, the young mothers with curious-looking children in curious-looking contraptions. I am the unshaven twenty-something that needs to do something with his life. A group of toddlers stream past like a pack of wild dogs as I begin to walk in the direction of the southwest exit. Several women follow like patient and passive shepherds. There is more than likely a playground in the vicinity, but I can't see it from where I am.
Without any real orientation to the week as a seven-day construct, every day feels like Saturday or Sunday, depending on my mood. Today is more of a Sunday than a Saturday; therefore, it is natural to see the bars closed. I don't consider the option of looking for one that caters to only the most forsaken of aquarium drinkers; instead, I take to inquiring in coffee shops and other locations that have public restrooms not exclusively reserved for patrons. These cafés are filled with women with computers, magazines, newspapers, or popular novels in front of them. There's almost always one very intense girl of maybe seventeen reading something very heavy in the corner.
As I have decided to abandon the practice of having a drink or something to eat at every place I wander into, the number of lavatories I manage to see mounts relatively quickly during the early hours of the day. Few employees know Coprolalia by name, and even fewer are interested in the reason I am looking for him. There is only a quick shrug of the shoulder and a finger in the direction of a door. Sometimes it is marked. Sometimes it is not. Either way, the bathrooms each smell of cheap disinfectant and recirculated air. There are nuances in each of these washrooms, typically something from the kitchen. The walls don't have much on them. There are anti-war stickers on top of deodorant advertisements, illegible tags, changing tables. The latter is an amenity that is more pervasive the further north you go, as it is a prerequisite for any establishment that both serves food and claims to be located within the elusive boundaries of Park Slope, which some people will claim encompasses roughly a third of Brooklyn.
After a few hours in this area (Windsor Terrace or Park Slope or South Slope or Greenwood Heights, which features a medical center named after the cemetery), I believe I have i
dentified at least four Coprolalia installations not featured on Sean's list. The workers initially expressed a reluctance to say when these pieces appeared, but many came to exhibit a modest deal of pride as we examined what they had ignored hitherto, and, after a few minutes, a consensus on the probable month Coprolalia paid them a visit is established.
There are relatively few bars once you're south of Windsor Terrace, and even fewer restaurants that serve anything besides sandwiches, Chinese food, and things both fried and nondescript that have been writhing under a heat lamp since before dawn. Further east, fast-food joints that sell fried chicken and beef patties litter the blocks, as do salons, $.99 stores, and purveyors of cheap and possibly illegal porn. There are more liquor stores and bodegas than garbage cans, which provides some explanation as to why there are shards of broken vodka and beer bottles just about everywhere you look (this is the materialist explanation, of course).
I begin to backtrack with the hope of finding a street with more storefronts, and end up heading west until I come to the southern border of Greenwood Cemetery, its sprawling acres verdant and lush and manicured and fragrant with the scent of damp leaves and mowed grass. I soon realize that the street is something of an extension of the cemetery, so I once again change course, and end up on 39th. Initially, it contains nothing more than the jumbled mixture of row homes and those tenement buildings—miasma of twisted metal (foreground); beer-bottle-brown brick (background)—that are so ubiquitous in nearly every part of Brooklyn; soon it becomes a shallow canyon cutting through a low-density industrial zone profuse with loading areas (some gaping open like toothless mouths, some closed behind walls of retractable steel), diesel-spewing trucks, and small tan men on forklifts. I turn down 14th Avenue when the opportunity arises. This leads me into a community in which I am subjected to a silent curiosity too profane to admit steady eye contact. I am less than an enigma here, more like an apparition just tangible enough to warrant chameleon tongues and quickened steps. The women feign interest in their children: tiny creatures—pudgy to the point of amorphous—with faces both frail and innocent like good men in love. They look out upon the world from the strollers—their mouths suckling upon ellipses, their eyes darting with feline agility—as their mothers scold them (in Semitic tongue) for staring. These mothers then twist their mouths in my direction. Is this some type of apology? The men speak on cellular phones and pay little regard to the traffic upon the street; they gracefully avoid the speeding trucks and cars that, like me, are phantoms passing through the community. The younger girls with whom I share the sidewalk giggle, their faces more rebellious than any others you may run across in this land—this land where the present shadows the past, where today begets not tomorrow, but a slight perversion of what the Day ought to be—although there is nothing particularly defiant in their eyes. The little boys ride bicycles and tricycles along the sidewalk, not in tandem or even succession, with their peyos flowing in the breeze. They, too, weave in and out of traffic—onto the sidewalk, off of the sidewalk—in sine waves. The adolescents and young men are absent, plucked from this anachronistic tableau as if ripened berries from the vine.