THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

  “Who?”

  “Bates.”

  “Random lunatic. That's what Sean says, anyway. According to him, the guy was found in a stall covered in his own shit—that's where the whole connection comes from.”

  “Where?”

  “What do you mean, where?”

  “Well, like, where was he found?”

  “In the City.”

  “Where in the city?”

  “A bathroom in Columbus Park.”

  “That's in Brooklyn Heights, right?”

  “No, the one in Manhattan by Worth Street.”

  “Worth and what.”

  “Mulberry, I think. It used to be part of the Five Points—you know, the neighborhood in Gangs of New York. Now it's a kind of limbo for retired Chinese people. They just aimlessly wander around, sit on the benches, feed the pigeons—you know, retired.”

  “I see.” He pauses as he lights his cigarette. He holds up the lighter to me. I nod as the tip catches. “Why did he do it?”

  “Bates?” He nods. “I don't know. Sean's account is fairly spartan. Apparently he just bolted out of the Earth Room—which was where he was working—, ran through SoHo like a madman, and ended up naked in a bathroom with shit smeared all over himself.”

  “And the wall.”

  “Of course. And he just kept saying 'Shit is life' and 'Only the living can shit'. Apparently.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Shit is life.”

  “There's certainly some truth to that.” He takes a long drag. “And it's better than the reverse.”

  “Life is shit.”

  “Meaningless, but not shitty.”

  “Meaninglessness does not entail shittiness.”

  “And shittiness does not entail meaninglessness—just look at Job.” He takes another drag. “Where did they find his clothes?”

  “In a trash can on Wooster, I think.”

  “Wooster and what?”

  “Prince or Spring. Whichever one is two blocks south of Houston.”

  “Spring.” He pauses. “So he ran through just about all of SoHo stark naked,” laughing. “That's wild.”

  “I know. But what bothers me is that this happened almost five years ago. If Bates is really Coprolalia, there hasn't been a genuine article since he was institutionalized.”

  “Oh two, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You do know I believe that to be the year Coprolalia retired.”

  “It's a coincidence.”

  “Calling something a coincidence is just a form of denial.”

  “And linking coincidences is a habit of the schizophrenic.”

  “Touché.” He takes a long drag. “Did he ever claim to be Coprolalia?”

  “From what I can tell, no. A lot of people just assume that there’s a correlation between the two because they both have left their marks on public toilets—in a manner of speaking.”

  “And he's still in Bellevue?”

  “That's what I've heard from the majority of people, but some say he's upstate somewhere. Regardless, I don't even want to entertain the idea that he's Coprolalia. I mean, he, Bates, had friends; it's not like he was some loner who just happened to snap one fine day.”

  “So you've researched him?”

  “Not extensively. I know that every deposition on his character paints him as a quiet, abstemious—”

  “—Abstemious?”

  “Moderate in drinking and eating practices. If you were to make a scale with an ascetic as your one and a glutton as your ten, then an abstemious person would fall between two and three…three and a half tops.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wallace.”

  “Shut up, man. Look, all I'm saying is this: he didn't go out to the bars that often, he wasn't a loner, and, what's more, Bates didn't even move to the city until ninety-six. This precludes him from being the creator of, among other things, the Bay Ridge Collection.”

  “I guess I wouldn't follow up on that lead, either.”

  “I'm not going to. But it's kind of a shame that it's a dead-end. At this point I just want something to go on. I mean, I initially thought something would just kind of call out to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought there would be a…I guess a tell. You know, like in poker. I thought there would be some clue that others have missed.”

  “There isn't one. I'll be frank: Coprolalia doesn't want to be found. He has gone to great lengths to not be discovered.” He notices a look. “I know I'm just restating the obvious, but it's not as though you were blind to the difficulties facing you when you started up with all of this.”

  “I know. I just don't like being constantly reminded of my shortcomings.”

  “Well, it's not like you've failed. At least not yet,” he says with a sardonic smile. I know that he can be an asshole. He's not a malicious asshole. He's not a passive-aggressive one, either. He is simply candid enough to not especially care whether or not he flirts with the possibility of being incendiary. It's an intractable trait, perhaps an atavistic one, too. His father, a rather famous artist in the West Coast circuit, is renown for his…well, let's call it wit. “You shouldn't let it get under your skin,” he says as his finger wags like the tail of a small, hairless dog. “It's only been, what, like a week?”

  “Nine days.”

  “That's not even a third of the time you've set aside to accomplish this. Don't be so hard on yourself. At least we've seen some great pieces of his. I really liked that one on Fifth Avenue.”

  “Where?”

  “I don't know. By the little park.”

  “The one about the Roman emperor?”

  “Yeah. That one. I just wish I knew what it meant.”

  The late-afternoon heat has passed its peak by this point. A breeze from the harbor lazily floats down Atlantic with just enough force to move some of the hairs on Aberdeen's head. The smell of baked concrete and car exhaust fills the air. Atlantic is so many shades of gray. A woman in a burka walks in the direction of the river with her groceries and a dreamy-eyed boy in a stroller. Aberdeen and I wince in her direction. Her steps pick up pace.

  “It's hard to find the…I don't know…it seems like determination, I guess, to continue with all of this.”

  “To be willing is to be able.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I think you need to be less goal oriented.”

  “You sound like Tomas.”

  “Seriously, though, you need to appreciate the experience, not only the…well…goal.”

  “I'm not exactly in the mood to hear this right now. I've spent the whole day walking around these random fucking parts of Brooklyn where everybody hates me because I'm not one of them. I'm sweaty, I smell, and all of the muscles in my legs feel like they're smoldering. I'm fucking exhausted, man. At this point, I just want to find something, anything, that could at the very least lead me to someone who knows something about Coprolalia.”

  “We got a lead the other day, didn't we?”

  “A dominatrix, who goes by the name Coprophagous Coprophile, isn't a lead, James.”

  “Did you check out her band?”

  “Los Paranoias?”

  “And then, in parentheses, 'C'mon and Join Us'. You can't forget that—that's what makes the name.”

  “Isn't that a Beatles reference?”

  “I think so.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette. “What did she say her name meant again?”

  “Which one?” I ask.

  “The copro- one.”

  “Shit-eating shit-lover.” He smiles. “She was certainly amusing,” I concede.

  “Especially when she starting telling those stories. I still can't believe the one about that one guy in Oyster Bay who asked her to bring a strap-on and a goat.” He laughs. “The aristocracy has some bizarre fetishes.”

  “It was a shame to hear about the goat, though.”

  “And you certainly had to feel for the man's wife.”

  “I gues
s the same dangers apply when women come home from work early.”

  “It really was a shame to hear about that goat,” he echoes as he flicks his cigarette to the street.

  I follow suit, and then walk into the bar behind him. The bartender cards us once again and assures us that he's too laid back to be the type to go on a power trip. We tell him that we've already purchased beers. He doesn't seem convinced, and makes sure to mention the word “precaution” several times as he tells a story that expounds upon his reasons for not taking people at their word. It's not that he doesn't trust us; it's that he doesn't trust us—others, particulates who have not been converted into persons or personages or even personalities.

  While there is an absence of cruelty in his eyes, he does exhibit a mild derivative of megalomania, a quiet belligerence most commonly seen in the eyes of animals and small children. It's a recalcitrance without passion or a specific goal in mind, something of the subject rather than a mere part of it. His eyes intimate a brilliant older sibling and a coddled younger one, a home not broken, but seriously stressed and splintering like a brittle tightrope supporting a shaky funambulist bearing the weight of one too many confessions given without either request or recourse to privacy, but rather at the Thanksgiving table with the alcoholic of the family laughing hysterically as the fireworks begin to shroud the dinner in blizzards of rage and wrath and tears and the eventual calls to the girlfriends or boyfriends to collect solace as though it flows freely from a faucet, though this, too, ends in further complications as there's that reluctance to impart anything more than commiseration because we all have to deal with this type of thing, don't we?, and it's selfish to think that you're the only one going through something like this. But that's like you, isn't it? That's so fucking like you.

  He hands us back the two licenses. Aberdeen and I then exchange them. “So what are you having?”

  “I've already ordered.”

  “I've already had, like, three drinks.”

  “Seriously?” he laughs. It’s a light, deviant chortle meant to convert his obliviousness into some budget-brand derision. “I thought you two were just saying that.”

  “Pete, they were in here less than five minutes ago.”

  “Well, we were in the middle of a conversation,” he begins indignantly. Aberdeen mutters something under his breath. I don't catch it, but it's fairly certain that the feeling is mutual.

  We arrive at the table after a quick trip to examine both bathrooms. A familiar song by Rats with Wings plays a low level. I am introduced to five people—Mike, Nana, Dmitri, “Nikki with two 'k's and an 'i',” and Mike—who are, as I expected, former N.Y.U. students. Mike Number One is less than welcoming, as is Nikki With Two 'K's And An 'I'. They share that lack of interest in most things or people that are new to them unless they are the first of their friends to discover said things or people. It is a fairly common personality disorder here in New York. Dmitri looks European or gay, though he claims to be neither. Mike Number Two and Nana are in love.

  “Tomas says you're the Don Quixote of Brooklyn,” Dmitri says after a moment.

  “I like to think of myself as a bit more astute,” I respond with a quick look to Tomas. He blushes a bit.

  “Dude, you were just looking for art in the shitter.”

  “Did you find anything?” Nana asks as she turns away from Mike Number Two.

  “No, not really. There's some really melancholy nonsense in the far one.”

  “Who's your Dulcinea Del Torboso?” Dmitri asks.

  “His what?”

  The group focuses upon Dmitri, his eyes searching for something like concord or recognition to reaffirm how cogent his reference is. This effort, however, is in vain.

  “You know, his princesse lointaine.” Goose egg. “Has anyone here actually read all of Don Quixote?” Silence. “I guess no one bothers with the classics anymore,” he shrugs.

  The evening continues as one might expect. Mike Number Two and Nana leave after a drink. I discover that they are normally very friendly, but that they have recently become an item. The friends are not particularly enthused by the way the two constantly sequester themselves from the group, but they are quick to understand that this is just one of those honeymooner proclivities that passes in time. Even with this degree of empathy, however, they still mock Mike Number Two because he follows Nana around like a child, and not an intrepid child or even a curious one—and certainly not one so wondrous as to make you yourself wonder how it is that humanity managed not to kill itself off within a few generations—, but a silent and obedient one still captivated by the specious infallibility of adults. Dmitri leaves to meet a friend for dinner. Nikki and Mike Number One go to get a slice of pizza and never come back. A group of girls take the vacant seats. Tomas initiates conversation with the only redhead in this group once he realizes that her inhibitions lay at the bottom of an eighty-proof grave.

  She tells us that her name is Yvonne and that she recently broke up with her girlfriend as the soundtrack of the night becomes more soulful than one would expect in a bar dominated by white people under the age of thirty (Sly and the Family Stone, Al Green, Betty Wright, Timmy Thomas, Buddy Miles, and even the hyper-sexual Betty Davis). It is her first night out in roughly two weeks. This explains the awkward sense of defiance in her voice, as well as the reason why her friends (perhaps temporary suzerains) are more than willing to allow Tomas' advances without remonstration or concern. Even if she has no interest in him, they may reason, she needs to feel desirable. They do not seem particularly interested in either Aberdeen or me. This is not to say that they don't find us attractive or sexually provocative. No, we are not on their radar even in the most platonic sense; we are like apparitions screaming to the deaf.

  Tomas drops his name as though it is a coin; to Yvonne, its value is copper as opposed to gold. He switches tactics like an astute general, begins to listen to her, to nod sympathetically as she reveals not-all-that-implicitly that she is an egoist: a determined and ambitious former-peon ready to sacrifice nearly anything as she maneuvers up the ladder of Corporate America with the agility of a spider. She has severe brows, darting eyes, and a thin celestial nose. She is regular frequenter of the salon, the spa, the gym, and the clothing stores that cater to women who, thirty years ago, would have been wearing those gruesome Yves St. Laurent get-ups with the shoulder-pads and the sharp angles that give the impression of frigidity with a dash of sociopathy. People judge her as a judgmental person, though it is fairly safe to say that she is more critical of herself than anyone else, a perfectionist who has imposed upon herself such a high standard that her daily routine flirts with some realm of masochism that an amateur Freudian would explain away with recourse to two words: Daddy Issues. Regardless of the antecedents, this type of disposition seems to be pervasive among professional women (men, too).

  Suffice to say, Yvonne wears her insecurities as a zebra wears its stripes, though her style of clothing is inconsequential. She could be stark naked with the exception of body-paint and moccasins and it wouldn't matter, because her obsession with appearances is not what reveals the ugly truth. It's not even inherent in her words, which are slurred and dominated by hollow self-confidence and pronouns of the first-person variety. No, it's a part of her that is discernible to that sixth sense, a kind of effluvium or imprecation that warns of a gangrenous conscience even if she has too much pride to admit the possibility that there could be something corrupt about her. You can just tell.

  She tells Tomas that she has decided to reconsider dating boys (and she calls them that, too: boys, as though she has already acknowledged that those of us unfortunate enough to be born with a penis are incapable of maturing, or, perhaps, that she is too immature for a man) as the praetorian lesbians watching over her roll their eyes with disdain. Aberdeen describes her as a farmer's daughter as we smoke another cigarette. I tell him that no farmer's daughter I've ever known has so quickly allowed the facade of innocence to crumble; moreover, that th
e facade that's crumbling inside was never meant to be perceived as innocent. I think he just associates red hair with red barns, and, consequently…well, you understand.

  We return to discover that Yvonne has tried to flush her gin and tonic, glass and all, down the toilet. There was a bug in it, evidently. This is followed by an extended period of awkwardness as her companions wait for Tomas to make his move. This is not because they want to see their friend get laid (at least not by Tomas). It's a bit more conniving and potentially dangerous than that. A quiet consensus is soon reached among the three of us that it is probably best to get out of the bar before we discover either what it feels like to be savagely mauled or what Yvonne had for dinner. Tomas writes his number on a cocktail napkin while Yvonne is in the bathroom yet again and hands it to Marissa, one of the members of Yvonne's entourage, who brandishes a contemptuous smile. “I'll see that she gets it,” through clinched teeth.

  We cross Atlantic and hail a cab that's heading towards the B.Q.E. “This party's going to Greenpoint.” The cab driver is blasting Mahler's sixth symphony—the first movement, which erupts with that triumphant compositional bravura so common to German Romantics—until Aberdeen asks him to turn it down. He picks up his phone. Tomas turns to me and proposes a new approach: “You should totally post something on Craigslist. Dig it, man: a ton of people prowl that shit. At least one of them has to know something about Coprolalia.”

  Aberdeen spends the majority of the ride on the phone with a music journalist who goes by the name of Keen Buddy. According to Tomas, he's not keen on much, nor is particularly friendly. Once he is off the phone, Aberdeen describes this Buddy character as a half-mad Scot with an insatiable thirst for whiskey and a temper that can be measured in Planck units. Aberdeen then defines Planck units even though there is no request to do so. Tomas adds that Buddy's probably syphilitic once the cab driver cranks up the music. It's the point in the movement where the strings have taken the lead and the damsel and the protagonist are seen waltzing through a field; the episode is captured by a camera manufactured sometime during the first decade of the previous century. It is a blur of bucolic sepia.