by Jay Fox
“That being said, he left the city and went out looking for some of that good old Kerouac-style adventure with true gaité de cœur…”
“Oh my God, Patrick, will you please shut the fuck up,” Tomas finally explodes. “I don't care about Dick Keens, okay. I just don't care.”
“Fine, I'll just finish with this: after several years of travel and his return to the city, as well as his revelation with regards to laughter, he bought a few pieces of property in Brooklyn. We are going to one such place tonight. Think of it as a temple. Now,” he begins, clearly frustrated with Tomas, “If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go run to the toilet, and then introduce myself to the newcomers to this bar.”
When each group refuses to even humor Patrick, he comes back to the table in a mood just shy of resignation. Tensions begin to mount. Patrick has thought Tomas to be impudent all night; now he is becoming impatient and downright ornery. Tomas has thought Patrick to be obnoxious and self-absorbed; at this point he feels himself all the more justified because so many others in the bar advocate this view. Efforts to reconcile the two are further impugned by the amount of alcohol in Tomas' bloodstream. It is obvious that he would have been abrasive and even belligerent had it not been for the coffee Patrick had forced upon him. He defends these vicissitudes, and says that they are supposed to be a form of homage to Pollack or Bukowski, but only the most gullible would think this claim to be sincere.
I try to focus my attention on the coffee, but it is fairly difficult. Between the character assassins taking pop shots at anyone in the bar besides the people at their own table, as well as the civil war that threatens to erupt in closer proximity, it is difficult to concentrate on anything, let alone a brackish cup of coffee that has grown cold. The brand is probably the same one served to prisoners and funeral home attendees. The aftertaste is metallic and it ravages the stomach in a way one would think reserved for battery acid or lye. The bartender and the remnants of the early crowd apparently find this very amusing. They are staring at me. The dregs of the pot go into a mug. Patrick finishes his beer, stands, and walks over to the bar. He presents a toast without a word, and then takes down the contents of the mug. The regulars applaud while the newer residents look on with curiosity and contempt. I hear the words “douche” and “tool” and “poseur” spoken as though a mantra. These distant insults are accompanied by the sound of laughter, which begins at the bar, but soon resonates through my head.
10.2
When we leave, the bartender tells Patrick to come back anytime (which, I realize, I will have to do because I failed to scan the bathroom for anything by Coprolalia; I just noticed one of those fucking deodorant advertisements that won't seem to leave me alone). Several women at the bar look to him with hungry eyes. To the least homely of the bunch he recites the following:
In flight I shall be surely wise,
Escaping from temptation's snare;
I cannot view my Paradise
Without the wish of dwelling there.
The air outside is humid, and the scent of damp grass drifts down from McCarren. Patrick puts on a pair of sunglasses. We can still hear the women inside laughing to themselves, even if they are all married, some to the men a few stools down from them, who are still in awe of “'at guy…'at guy's got some serious persafuckinalidy.”
“Lettin' his fuckin' freak flag fly—high!” is added as we leave the realm of earshot.
“You know what?” Patrick looks back to the two of us. “That stanza is absolutely meaningless unless one knows its context. It's barely even a cogent reference to the moment.” He laughs. “Do you know its context?”
“No,” I respond.
“What's the deal with the glasses, man?” Tomas asks. “It's after midnight.”
“It's the streetlights. They bother my eyes.” He does not follow this up with an explanation, nor does he mention the context of the stanza he just recited. He is suddenly silent, driven. He walks into the first deli we come across, buys a pack of cigarettes, a large candy bar, and two pairs of sunglasses. He offers the pack to each of us after lighting up. I take one; Tomas declines. Patrick then hands each of us a pair of glasses. We accept, but don't say anything besides the obvious gratuity.
The three of us travel south. Patrick moves both swiftly and intrepidly. Tomas and I follow with apprehensive steps. No one says anything until we are walking under the Williamsburg Bridge. “I am a part of all that I have met,” Patrick begins with an odd rhythm, as he is more than likely reciting a poem; “Yet all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.”
We continue for another few blocks. I finally break the relative silence. “Where are we going?”
“It's on this street,” Patrick replies. “I think it's another four or five blocks south.” He opens the candy bar at this point and breaks off a rather sizable chunk. “Here,” he says to Tomas. “I received an extra twenty percent. It stands to reason that this additional portion of candy must be relinquished.” Tomas receives it with hesitance. I decline his, Tomas', subsequent offer.
As we approach a door leading to what appears a small factory, Patrick looks back to us. “Just smile,” he says. “That's the only thing you need to get in.” The street is silent, eerie, and heavily industrial. “Oh, and put on the sunglasses.” We do so. Patrick rings the buzzer.
The open door unleashes what sounds like a ragtime quartet—piano, bass, drums, clarinet. “Do you have business attending a festival of the A-R-E?” an elfish girl with perfect teeth asks. She wears sunglasses, a blue, conical party hat that reads “Everybody Wang Chung!” in golden script, and a yellow prom dress with large pink and purple flowers of satin that appear to have blossomed out of her left shoulder. She is wearing neither shoes nor socks. Beyond the glasses and the hat, she is without accessory.
“Yes, I am here to embrace the eidolons.”
“Are you an acolyte?”
“Indeed.” There is a sudden shrillness in his voice, a conservation of speech that is abnormal and almost patrician. She squints. “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”
“Whatever you do,” Tomas whispers to me, “Don't drink the Kool-Aid.”
“French?” She shows her teeth again, begins to almost snicker. Avoided the obvious reference to pearls or words containing the prefix 'nacre-', I instead think of baby teeth and the way in which we are all clutching an aspect of youth that resonates too powerfully in some, of how our own recollections of self are projected upon others with vivid colors and glaring distortions, abstractions; sometimes these mutated forms even sidle behind the reflection in the mirror, translucent like ghosts.
“These men are outsiders, but they have come with me in search of Coprolalia,” Patrick responds with poorly contrived gallantly. (Had he been sober, he may have said the following: “Fair wench, we beseech thee but the modest proposal of sojourning for the evening, as we seek a man who hath inherited the blessing of the most august Muses.” The begs the question, of course, which Muse would have visited Mordecai?) She focuses her eyes upon Tomas and me as though studying faint images in the distance. “Shun not these gentlemen; their request to find an elusive artist leads them here only out of necessity.”
Her countenance is suddenly a conjunction of pensiveness and patience. Does she judge us? Of course she does; she is human. After a few moments of being confronted with Patrick's sturdy glare, however, she lets out an echoing laugh and abandons the charade of speaking in bastardized Victorian English. “Come on in,” as she pushes the door open a bit wider. “Daphne, Aaron, Lucas, Sam, and Andreas should be finishing up their set fairly soon. I don’t know the guys they're playing with, but they are really on a roll.” She embraces Patrick. “Why are you so late?”
“I had to meet up with these two,” he says before kissing her on the cheek. The kiss itself is polite, a platitude of physical contact. Tomas is intrigued.
“Hi,” she says as she turns to us. She the
n sticks out her hand to me. “Name's Boots.”
“Boots,” Tomas says with a matter-of-fact nod. Boots and Patrick walk ahead. “If she's Boots, then my name must be Foot,” Tomas whispers as he nudges me in the side.
The door closes behind us. Even without the sunglasses, I'm fairly sure that I would be blinded by the darkness, but I follow the sound of the music, which is occasionally interrupted by a dull, reverberating thud. It sounds like a tennis pro launching serves at a piece of drywall. We turn a corner; I can see a dim light outlining a door. The song comes to an end, a clamor of applause ensues, and the percussive exclamation point once again rattles the building. The door opens.
The band is comprised not only of upright bass, piano, drum kit, and clarinet, but of guitar, trumpet, and sax, too. A man dressed to look like Vincent Price, greased mustache and all, appears to be the singer. The inaugural notes of “Minnie the Moocher” accompany our entry. No one pays any attention to us, as almost everyone is focused on the band. Patrick and Boots abscond, leaving Thomas and I by the door.
The spacious venue is less a loft, perhaps more of a gutted factory—the main chamber of which is capable of holding well over one hundred people comfortably. This is the room in which we find ourselves, awkwardly hugging the wall and listening to an extended instrumental introduction, which features a terrific solo on muted horn.
The loud thuds heard from the hallway are projectiles—oranges, to be exact—launched from a massive slingshot. The bombardment does not seem to have a reason; it is just a thing the people on the balcony above have decided to do in order to occupy the time. A man wearing a diaper and a Pickelhaube leads them. He gives his command in what I’m fairly certain is German. The projectiles from the citrus artillery—coming from about thirty feet to our right—pass over the people crowding around the stage—which is directly in front of us—and then smash into a wall that stands about forty feet to our left. There is a bullseye painted about twenty-five feet above the floor, its center no bigger than a foot in diameter (the area of the entire design is roughly fifty times that of the center—i.e. seven feet in diameter). The center of this target is about twenty feet ahead of us, just about halfway between the wall against which we stand and the beginning of the stage. Regardless of how close they come to the target, each collision provokes an elated cheer from about a quarter of those on the floor, especially the few nudists trying to catch some of the raining pulp and rind in their mouths. The stairs that lead up to the second floor hug the wall opposite the bullseye. A few observers lean on the balustrade, each with stereotypically Russian appearances: squared facial features, men with beards, women with babushkas, the androgynous customers shopping distant looks more sinister than demure. There are two doors up there, as well as two beneath the balcony. The kitchen is directly to our right, an alcove between the wall against which Tomas and I stand and the wall that begins where the stairs do. The depth of the kitchen is probably fifteen feet or so; it contains an island topped by a pyramid of beer cans (a byramid) and features a lot of really fancy equipment that has never been used—this deduction comes from an abundance of shrink-wrap and a cleanliness that is more sterile than tidy. There are two doors on the wall being sieged by the onslaught of oranges, one that clearly leads to a bathroom as what seems to be a line has formed outside of it. The other door is closed and invites little interest. The only windows capable of ventilating the place are probably behind the stage. It is impossible to tell, however, because an array of calico curtains have been thrown up to keep the interior shielded from prying eyes. The kitchen has one small window, but it is made of thick glass blocks that distort the pale light coming from the street.
As the vocalist tells the audience about the most famous mooch on record in a smoky croon, people begin to depart from the kitchen and the upstairs rooms to sing along. The chorus then comes, the Mustache Man conducting one of the most call and response choruses in musical history. Anyone familiar with old, Warner Bros. cartoons proves capable of following along.
“Doesn't this freak you out, man?” Tomas asks as an Elvis impersonator—complete with fat suit (it's obvious that it's a fat suit because he lacks a turkey-neck that is either real or prosthetic) and white, rhinestone-studded abomination—walks past. “I mean, I am all for partying, especially at a madhouse like this, but, seriously, you know, there's a limit. This is just too fucking bizarre, dig.” He pauses. “Whatever,” he shrugs. “You want to grab a beer?”
“Yeah. Looks like they're over there.”
As we stroll into the kitchen, a shoe whizzes over my shoulder and hits an unassuming bystander eating a bowl of Lucky Charms in the face. He drops the bowl, which shatters on the floor and sends a rainbow of milk, marshmallows, peculiar-shaped oats, and ceramic puzzle pieces flying into the air. While some begin to duck for cover, the bowl's previous owner continues to stand with a look of unadulterated mystification as the admixture soaks into his jeans and shoes. Blood begins to gush out of his nose with the force of a hydrant, which causes the viscous, amethyst pool on the floor to turn the color of eggplant. A few attend to the injured. Others address the assailant with tones that range from admonishment to persiflage. The assailant's name, apparently, is Mongo. As he comes in to explain himself, Mongo snags his unshod—and sockless, too—foot on a crescent-shaped shard, which leads to yelps and screams and a sudden flinging of blood and marshmallow milk throughout the entire kitchen. It doesn't seem to matter much to these culinary jesters, as they are all bowling over with those peals of laughter that ripple through rooms like thunder upon the igneous summer skies of the Midwest. Even the one with the potentially broken nose can't help but join in the revelry. Mongo, meanwhile, quietly makes his exit.
This, of course, is not the end of it; within a few seconds Mongo comes running back into the room with an ironing board above his head. He tosses it down in front of him, jumps on, screams “Cowabunga!” and skids through the pool of Technicolor sludge until the board hits the island, which sends him flying through the air towards the byramid towering above the awestruck spectators in a pose so immaculate that it makes everyone in the room believe him to be a veteran aerialist, if only for the moment. There are no barrel rolls or flips; still, his form is exquisite. As the inertial powers that be propel him along in a horizontal swan dive closer and closer to the aluminum monolith, people begin to seek cover under whatever they can find: empty cases of beer, onionskins of newspaper, slices of bread, ashtrays, hands, arms, feet, various props from the set of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
The collision sounds like a strike, but the tumultuous symphony of crashing aluminum and flesh summons the image of a bowling alley only in the schematic sense. These metallic pins don't so much fall as explode; Mongo, meanwhile, continues upon his trajectory, spans the entirety of the island flawlessly, and falls to the floor amidst successive avalanches of cans and swill and the tremendous boom of laughter and tinny cacophony. The music in the other room stops. Shortly after this yet another orange slams into the wall. It's a bullseye, something which may have been overlooked had it not been for the roar from the balcony of “Bullseye!” which cascades down upon the party, summoning a celebration of Tunguskan magnitude. When the applause dies down, the Mustache Man asks if everything is okay. Upon hearing an affirmative response from the kitchen, he gives a three-count, which leads the band right back into the chorus.
“What the fuck is wrong with these people?” Tomas yells, though no one pays much attention to him. Most in the kitchen are busy trying to help Mongo to his feet. This proves to be far more difficult than initially assumed, as the dregs of beer from the two hundred or so cans is by now mixing with the previous mélange of Lucky Charms and nasal and pedal blood to form a concoction with the constitution of mineral oil, which bleeds over the tile floor like a spilled vile of ink upon a page. As the kitchen inhabitants begin to find their feet traveling on radial patterns of 90 or 270 degrees from the vertical axis, which finds right angles at the floor, but
not so much the ceiling, cans of beer and tumblers of far more troubling concoctions start to launch skyward in parabolic peril, thereby leading to even further chaos. As the guitarist beings his solo, Mongo emerges from the morass, a primordial beast arising without the ornery disposition that one typically associates with the Godzillas and Mothras of fame, though he is somehow just as menacing. He smiles to the two of us—perhaps because he recognizes something green in us, perhaps because he just happens to be looking in our direction. Before he says anything, however, he slips, goes horizontal, and finds himself on his back yet again. The sound of the crash coincides with yet another bullseye from the citrus artillery, another effervescent celebration, and the portion of the solo where the guitarist teases a Tony Rice head.
“What's going on in here?” a female voice asks with feigned contempt. Tomas and I both turn around to see Boots and the resurgent Patrick each with grins on their faces. “Did Mongo take out the byramid again?”
“You guys can't tempt me like that,” responds an asylum-friendly voice from below. Mongo has crawled his way to us through the swamp of whatever demons have accumulated on the floor. A green clover is stuck to his forehead. “I'll take that shit down every time,” he says as he pounds the floor with his fist, splashing no small amount of fluid into the air.