by Jay Fox
He lifts up his beer. Before he drinks, he says, “And I have no idea what happened to her. We broke up right after college. I think she moved back to Washington with her parents. We haven't spoken since.”
“Dude! Well, if it isn't Mike the Mechanic and Whoseville,” from behind. I turn around to see the woman from the last time I was in this bar. “What are you doing back up here? I thought those stories Vanessa told you guys would keep you out of Greenpoint for at least a few months.”
“I live here.”
“Vanessa?”
“And why is she calling you Whoseville?”
“You know, my friend.”
“Is this 'King of Carrot Flowers'?”
“The dominatrix?”
“Oh my God, I haven't heard this album in years.”
“Oh, you probably know her by her copro- thing…pseudonym.”
“Coprogenic Coprophile.”
“Yeah, that one.”
“I used to listen to this album all the fucking time.”
“Her real name is Vanessa?”
“Yeah,” she says. I don't remember the woman's name. She clearly doesn't remember ours, either (at least our real ones). Still, she's friendly and not passively so. Her gregarious nature is not something that she cooks up for the sake of occupying time while a friend is in the bathroom. She's genuinely pleased to see the two of us. “Where's the third stooge?”
“He's talking with his friend, Buddy.”
We point. She nods.
“I have a question.”
“What's that?”
“After meeting with Vanessa I got to thinking: What kind of dominatrix gets off on shit? Right? I mean, I could understand it if she liked shitting on people, but her name….”
“She's just really into poo.”
“Into poo?”
“Yeah—into poo. We don’t talk about it. It's narsty.” Narsty? “Fucking grosses me out.”
“Does she have a preference—creamy, chunky….”
“She's just into poo, dude. That's all I know. That's all I want to know.”
We're all quiet a moment.
“Well, I've got some good news for you, Whoseville.”
“Really?”
“Yup. I talked to a few friends of mine—you know, people real in-the-know when it comes to the art scene—and they got me some information about that dude you're looking for.”
“Really?”
“See, I knew you'd be happy to see me again. I told my friend, 'Holy shit, this dude's just totally gonna flip when I tell him'.”
“Yeah…wow…I mean, thanks for looking out for me.”
“You're a nice kid, and I could see you needed some help; so I talked to these friends of mine, and they told me that your guy used to live around here…in Greenpoint.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, like a few blocks down from here. My girlfriend, Marta, told me that he used to hang out in Van Gogh's all the time back when it was called…um, whatever it was called.” She looks to the ceiling. “Ah, dude! I'm not going to remember. Anyway,” with a sweeping hand motion, “I don't know if she's one hundred percent sure about all of this, but it's not like she has a reason to bullshit me.”
“But how does she know for certain? Did she catch him or something?”
“Yeah, dick in hand,” Tomas pops in.
She laughs, a coarse series of plosive sounds that catch the attention of a few of the people standing nearby. “No, I guess she talked to him a few times. He was kind of a loner, and he always looked a little down, so she started something of a little…um, you know…that French word—”
“Rapport?”
“—Rappaport [sic.] with him.”
“What did he look like?”
“White guy, about your height. I don't know. She said he looked Jewish and always wore a gray sweatshirt. He probably didn’t in the summer, but…well, unless it was cold, of course. Yeah, so whenever it was cold he wore a gray sweatshirt. Not that that's too big a help for you right now. It's fucking hot as balls.” She pauses. “He had big ears, too. She said you couldn't help but notice the dude's ears. That's about all she could remember. Plus it was always dark in that bar, and it's not like she wanted to maow down on his dick or nothing.” I look to Tomas. He shrugs. “Not to mention that it's been about nine-ten years since she's seen him.”
“But, I mean…” and I trail off. I trail off because there's really no use in trying to push this woman for further information I know she will be unable to provide. We'll just participate in an incredulous repartee that ultimately leads nowhere. It's the same type of questioning that goes on in the immediate aftermath of some tragic event. The vacuum of information and fact is filled by baseless speculation and whys that are repeated over and over again until the question (why?) itself begins to constitute an answer or, at the very least, a mild level of participation in a dialog no one is qualified enough to be having. It's typically one of those three in the morning phone calls that revolve around a bad, but not fatal, car accident—the kind of catastrophe that has not been anticipated, just regarded as possible even if you tell yourself never to think like that because there's that little, superstitious voice in the back of your head that believes acknowledging a potential calamity is no less dangerous than wishing for it to occur. Still, it's there; you don't dwell on it or anything, but just kind of both avoid and ignore it like a fly upon the wall, which you spare because expending the energy to kill it is more of a deterrent than the respect for the sanctity of insectile life.
She continues to look to me, expecting a response and, at the very least, a modest show of gratitude—not because she needs it, just because it's custom. “Thank you,” I say. “Do you know how long ago he moved out?”
“Naw, dude. She couldn't say. She moved out of here back in ninety-eight…nine. I don't know. She went up to Vermont because she thought the city was sucking the life out of her. She came back, like, three years later. I don't remember exactly. Turns out Vermont has just as many fucked up people as the city—per capita, of course.”
“Was he still hanging out in Van Gogh's?”
“No, he was long gone. No one really remembered him, either.”
Again an apparition, a phantom just short of identifiable. It's a peculiar trait among humans—that our vision does not become just more attuned when we focus upon stationary objects; rather, the object changes—its normal dimensions become slightly disfigured; its utility becomes far more difficult to pigeonhole. It's not that the image loses its original meaning; it's that the context becomes more intricate. What begins as a loner at the bar, a piece of furniture almost innocent in his absence of features, ceases to be the only identity available to the man. He becomes defined by his potentiality and his past, which are limitless as they are both unknown.
“She didn't get a name, did she?”
She smiles: “Mordecai.”
“Seriously?” Tomas squints. He motions to the bartender and points to the empty pint of Guinness in front of him.
“Yeah, Mordecai. No last name, but his first name is Mordecai.”
“That's kind of an odd name.”
“Biblical. Old Testament shit.” She pauses. “You Jewish?”
“No,” I respond.
“Well, it's kind of a funny story—Purim, that is. Do you know anything about it?”
“Not especially. I know that people eat those little triangular pastries during it. What are they called?”
“Hamantashen.”
“Gesundheit.”
She laughs again. “Do you know why we eat them?”
“No.”
“Long story short, the King of Persia, who was apparently Xerxes—”
“—Scissor me, Xerxes,” Tomas adds in an impersonated voice.
“—but not the one who launched the war against Greece—it was his father or grandfather or son or something—I forget—he had a right-hand man by the name of Haman, and Haman hated the Jews because on
e of them, Mordecai, refused to bow before him.”
“The king?”
“No, before Haman.”
“Why would he have to bow to Haman?”
“It's irrelevant, dude. Anyway, so Haman gets the king's signet ring, and he draws up a decree that allows people throughout the empire to kill all of the Jews.”
“What?”
“Yeah, the decree basically says that random people throughout the Persian Empire will be allowed to kill anyone who's Jewish for, like, one day only.”
“What fucking sense does that make?”
“I know, I know. But listen: So Mordecai is in the king's favor because Mordecai saved him, the king, from assassination; but the king doesn't realize that Mordecai is a Jew until after he's given Haman permission to carry out the genocide. Now, Mordecai finds out about the plot one way or another, and he goes to his cousin or niece—I always forget which one—who is the queen. Queen Esther. This is all in the Book of Esther. Anyway, so Mordecai goes to her and lets her know the shit that's about to go down, and she decides to…um…like ask, but not just ask.” She puts her thumb and forefinger upon her chin. “Lobby. She lobbies the king to stop the bloodbath by inviting Haman and Xerxes to a feast—”
“Wait; she's the queen, and she has to invite the king to dinner?”
“Well, he has more than one wife.”
“I see.”
“That shit's allowed in Judyism?”
“Hell, lotsa shit's allowed in my fucked-up religion.” She shrugs. “Dude! Fucking ‘Divine Hammer’? I love this fucking song!”
“I haven’t heard this in years,” Tomas replies.
“Okay, so she has the two of them to dinner, and nothing happens. But then she asks them to dinner a second time, and on the second night she informs the king that she's a Jew—”
“The king doesn't know?”
“No.”
“Are you sure you're telling the story right?”
“Look dude, I know this story, okay.” She pauses. She's not upset, simply frustrated. “Anyway, so Esther tells the king that Haman wants to kill all the Jews, including both her and Mordecai, who the king loves because Mordecai foiled an assassination attempt. The king becomes outraged, I mean just fucking furious that Haman would try to pull shit like this, so the he, the king, has Haman executed. Oh yeah,” she begins with a slap on the forehead, “I almost forgot. Haman had built a…um, what's that thing called that you hang people from?”
“A scaffold?”
“Scaffold? That's the shit they put up at construction sites.”
“Gallows?”
“Yeah, gallows. So Haman built this fucking gallows that was like a hundred feet tall in front of his house, and he was going to hang Mordecai from it the following day, but the king has Haman hung there instead.
“But the problem was that the decree, which allowed Haman and all his buddies to kill the Jews, could not be revoked.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know, dude; I guess the king couldn't go back on his word. He couldn't…what's the fucking word. You know, like go back?'
“Renege?”
“It’s like that…but different.”
“Contradict?”
“Yeah; the king couldn't contradict himself. Anyway, so the king allows Mordecai to write his own decree, which says that the Jews can rise up in self-defense, and kill whoever they want. In the provinces, they were allowed twenty-four hours to slaughter all of their enemies. In Susa, the capital, they were allowed forty-eight.”
“So the Jews kill all of their enemies.”
“Yup. And that's what Purim is all about. Now, the cookies, the hamatashen, are eaten because, apparently, Haman wore a tri-cornered hat.”
“That's a pretty fucked up holiday,” Tomas says as he takes the first sip of his fresh beer.
“I know dude, right!” she says as she slaps Tomas' arm. “But I like it because it's one of the only times in the Bible where God doesn't really do anything. You know, He doesn't need to because the Jews can handle themselves.”
“I guess this was a few years before bulldozers and refugee camps,” Tomas mutters.
Luckily, she ignores or doesn't hear the comment. “So that's where the name Mordecai comes from,” I conclude.
“Yup.”
“So why does your friend think this Mordecai person is Coprolalia?”
“Apparently this Mordecai dude was reading an article on Coprolalia one night. He just kept saying that the guy who wrote it didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He—Mordecai—kept pointing out things in the artwork that you wouldn't know just by looking at it. He knew way too much. So my friend figured, maybe this dude actually is Coprolalia.”
“Do you know if the article of which he was derisive was written by Sean Westchester?” I ask.
“Of which he was derisive? Couldn't tell you,” she responds with a shrug and a look to Tomas. Tomas chuckles. “Detroit Rock City” is suddenly audible. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, studies it, and then looks back to me. “I have to take this. I'll be right back.”
Her beer is placed next to mine. She disappears.
“So Mordecai, huh?” Tomas laughs. “Should we call her Esther?”
7
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Nothing.
8
The bathroom walls have already been painted over in Miami aqua. I am also again reminded that no woman will fuck you if you smell (unless, of course, it's the second or third or (who knows?) fourth time for the night). When I call Sean to break the news that his most recent prospect in Red Hook has been lost he is all profanity and groans; there's no conciliatory prize I can offer him besides a joke about the possibility of there being fuchsia trim in the bathroom's near future. For a moment I believe the line has been disconnected.
“Weren't you supposed to come down here a few days ago?” I ask as I step out of the washroom. Otis Redding sings of the glory of love.
“I got sidetracked,” he laments. “I visited the courts in both Manhattan and Brooklyn yesterday. The day before that I ended up at Shea Stadium—”
“For the shutout?”
Caesura. “Sure.”
“But Bonds didn't do shit. Ain't hit shit since Sunday.”
“Seven forty-six, right?”
“Seven forty-fuckin'-six. And if he hits that magic number…if he does it, he'll defile the dignity of da' fuckin' game. 's a fuckin' travesty.”
“Who's that?” Sean asks.
“The bartender.”
“Name's Charlie.”
“Charlie the bartender.”
“Charlie the bartender.” He sighs. “Anyway, I didn't find anything there. Terrible leads, really. I don't know why I even bothered going all the way out there.”
I order a pint after hanging up with him and quickly start up a conversation with the unoccupied and loquacious Charlie, a pock-marked man of fifty-something, who sports a Yankees cap, a faded blue shirt, and a pair of shorts that are held up by frequent tugs from his calloused hands. It's not quite five, and the sun comes through the front windows in delicate beams of illuminated dust. Besides me and the bartender, there are six other people in the bar: a sullen man at the next stool who is missing a shoe, a young couple playing pool, and three men in front of the jukebox debating which record label had a greater impact on American music, Motown or Atlantic. William DeVaughn begins to urge the few of us in here to be thankful for what we got.
Charlie lets out a reluctant laugh when I ask him about the recent paint job. “My wife picked da' culla out.” The half-shod man makes a whipping noise, which provokes “Shut the fuck up, Midas,” as rebuke.
“No, I mean why did you repaint the bathroom? The most recent Coprolalia may have been in there?”
“'Da fuck is 'at?”
“It's a who, actually. Coprolalia is an artist,” I add. He squints. “The bathroom wall is like his canvas.”
“Some guy used my shitta' as his canvas?”
“No, he uses any bar's bathroom as his canvas.”
“Sounds like a fucking vandal to me, Charlie,” the man with the one shoe says.
“Oh yeah,” Charlie says with that Staten Island accent that turns the monosyllabic yeə into the polysyllabic yē´ä. “I read something about him in the-uh…in the-uh…in Da (uh) Post.” He shrugs. “Well, s'not like 'at was the only thing in there, you understand. Now I ain't the owner a' the Ritz by any means, but I got a solid establishment ear, not to mention a reputation to uphold, ya' get me, kid?” he adds with a less than amiable tone. “Now, look, I ain't got no problem 'f this guy want to come back, ya know…uh, do some type a' mural or some shit, but I tink it a bit fuckin' rude fa' some fuckin' asshole to just waltz on in ear, and draw some stupid shit on my fuckin' wall like it's his motherfuckin'…you know,” slowly, “like it’s his fucking his prerogative. Who da' fuck he tink he is, anyway?” he asks to no one in particular one octave up.
“He's just some dope from the City, Charlie.” Shoeless Midas speaks from the bottle. “Besides, it ain't like this kid scribbled anything on your wall. Lay off of him.”
“Shut the fuck up, Midas,” he says with facetious cruelty. Apparently, this is something of a refrain. “I ain't talking to you,” he adds. Charlie looks back to me with a smile. Midas continues to macerate his liver with cheap beer. “Look: I don't mean to be short or nothing,” slowly, “but I know how this shit goes. I been here since before you was born. And I know this: once some douche-bag writes something on the wall, it's like an open invitation to every other jackass in town. I just try to stop it before it gets outta' hand, ya' get me, kid?” He smiles and turns back to Midas. “Hey, Midas, what's da' name a'dat one place in the City where we went fa' Mardy's fortieth?”
“I don't know, Charlie,” he responds. “You talking about that place on Saint Marx?”
“No, s'on First, remember?”
“But close to Saint Marx, right?”
“You're right. It was like a block away.” Midas doesn't respond. He's not contemplative, nor is he engaged by someone or something else. He has merely resigned from the conversation because he is a breathing shadow, an irrelevant detail in someone else's dream. Charlie eventually shrugs. “Irregardless,” he turns to me, “It was a fuckin' disaster.”