THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

  “Far be it for me to advise you not to follow a dead end.” Sean seems to be circumnavigating around the word temerity.

  “Well, these people I met last night seem to be fairly convinced that he's really Coprolalia.”

  “Of course they are convinced of it. It makes them feel special. People love bragging about who they know; it makes them feel as though they're part of the scene,” he derides.

  “Can I start you off with something to drink,” the waitress, who materializes behind me, asks. “We have a bloody mary special—buy one, get one free.”

  “Coffee will be fine,” I respond. “I think my liver needs a rest.”

  “You only live once,” she curtsies. Whatever gem lay in her nose winks in the sun.

  “I guess one drink couldn't hurt,” I say as I look over to Sean.

  “Coffee's fine,” he says with severity.

  Her eyes widen and her posture straightens. “Okay,” she says with a protracted 'o'. This implies a variety of unflattering thoughts.

  She walks back into the building. Its bricks have been painted over in a faded beige—that hue that recollects a child's drawing of Caribbean sands—that is chipped in several places, thereby revealing calico layers from the past. The sound of a Mingus tune can be heard as the door opens. Nothing is said at the table for a long while. Sean drinks his coffee and smokes his cigarette in torpid pantomime. My shadow grows.

  “Here you are sweetie,” the waitress says as she hands my coffee, which is in a bowl the diameter of a softball. “If you need anything else, my name is Zoe,” she adds with as much passion as she can summon.

  “So why are you so skeptical about Mordecai and the A-R-E?” I ask as I reach for the milk.

  “Because I've met them before—not Mordecai, but the others. They all hang around with this one band—Poot Moint.”

  “Yeah, they were playing last night. I had a long conversation with Daphne, the pianist.”

  “Oh (caesura) her.” The utterance of “Tenochtitlán” would have probably produced a similar expression on the face of Cortés.

  “You know her?”

  “Ancient history.”

  “Did you ever meet Willis Faxo?”

  “No, but I've definitely heard the name. The artist who's too good for the art world. Pretentious ass, if you ask me.”

  “What do you mean? I thought he made furniture.”

  “Yes, he does. It's a whole bunch of Marxist hoopla, really,” he says. I feel as though we both acknowledge that his word choice is something of an anomaly. “He refuses to produce any artwork that the working class won't understand. This, of course, is incredibly patronizing to the working class, but it is also a barb aimed at men of culture. To paraphrase what he said: the discourse of the art world has become a form of autoeroticism for those with too much time and hair on their hands.

  “He's critical of nearly everyone: artists, poets, writers, feminists…anyone who does not think the abolition of the class system is paramount to justice. Feminists really hate him. He's called the majority of them, and I quote, 'The most self-absorbed and elitist members of the leisure-class'.”

  “That explains what Daphne said of him,” I respond as I sip my coffee. “Can I bum one of those?”

  “I didn't realize you smoke.”

  “I don't normally, but I could use one right now.” He slides the pack and a lighter across the table. “From where are you quoting this Faxo guy?” The cigarette coughs out a plume of opaque smoke that's almost mauve in the sunlight. “Did he write a book or something?”

  “No, some art magazine interviewed him a few years back. It was when he decided to quit the scene. He was quite a celebrity back then.” He drags from his cigarette for a long while. “I think it was back in ninety-eight or ninety-nine. Regardless, it's an amusing read,” he continues; “It's along the lines of Castro's speech to the UN in sixty or sixty-one.”

  I concentrate on the white strands of milk, which swirl like wisps of smoke, before they are consumed by the fallow tone the coffee has taken on. I am absently stirring it. “So where does this leave me?” The question sounds more forlorn than it should be. Sean's gaze is sympathetic. “You're basically telling me that nothing I've done over the past two plus weeks has any merit. I mean, it's hard to even find a bar that has preserved one of his pieces, let alone someone who has the, the—apparently the audacity to claim that they know him.” My hands fall to the table. “I mean, what's the point in asking around if everyone is full of shit? Fuck, Sean, I have been on the move since the last time I saw you. I'd be happy if Tomas and Aberdeen were actually helping, but Tomas—who keeps abandoning me, mind you, because the fucking guy gets laid like every night—”

  “Don't be jealous,” he scolds. “Some women are just really attracted to artistic types.”

  “I know that Sean,” as calm as the eye of the hurricane. “I know. It's just that I'm beginning to feel like nobody takes me seriously.”

  “You're young. People think your interest in high culture is ephemeral, that you'll join the workforce and become a yuppie just like so many others with liberal arts degrees,” which provokes a glacial stare from the woman at the next table. “It's a cynical approach to life, I guess, but it's certainly accurate in most cases.”

  I nod. “Well, where do I go from here? If Mordecai isn't Coprolalia, and the members of the A-R-E are bullshit artists, what other leads do I have?”

  “Oh yeah, that's what I wanted to mention,” he gasps in a minor Eureka! moment. My eyes narrow. “Well, the A-R-E—as you were told—stands for what seems to be a cult that both worships and strives to promote laughter.” I nod. “There is another belief that there are ulterior motives behind their activities. Some people believe them to be a…well…cult.”

  “A cult?”

  “Okay, for instance I've heard that the point is to encourage people to embrace their real selves, their…well, I forget the exact words that they use. Anyway, the laughter, they believe, is the first step towards coming to term with the real self…the eidolon—that's it! There's some sophomoric reason for this.”

  “Okay.”

  “Supposedly, the founder, Dick Keens, spent his years searching for some great truth, a penultimate step that could result in pure enlightenment. He called this The Joke—capitalized 'T' and 'J'.” I squint. “Neo-Platonism,” he responds. “And a lot of drugs.”

  “I see,” with an uneasy nod.

  “Now, I've certainly heard about the laughter aspect, as I've already said, but I have also heard that the acronym has another meaning.” His tenor cannot be described as facetious or malign; a conjunction of the two, however, would not be unfitting, though they would appear very clumsy together if one were to turn one of the words into a noun as so: facetious malignancy/malign facetiousness.

  “They go by a name besides the Acolytes of Risus, the Enlightener?”

  “Yes,” he nods with a tenuous grin. “Some believe it actually stands for Astrally-Resurrected Entity—or the plural of that: Astrally-Resurrected Entities.” I look to him with lemons. “The term Astral-Projection essentially means the ability to consciously travel without the use of a body; Astral-Resurrection relates to the ability to bring the dead back to life without the need of a corpse.” Before I can respond, he laughs: “Russian ex-pats and a lot of drugs. To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised you got in. They're typically very exclusive. I guess there's one thing I can't doubt, and that's your tenacity.”

  “But they never mentioned anything about resurrections or Russia. It was just a bunch of people having fun.”

  “Fun,” he scoffs. “I've seen more refinement in the lot outside a Phish show.” He reaches for his cigarettes. “Still, and I am quite sure of this, the membership includes the most ridiculous members of the Russian avant-garde here in New York. To name a few, there's Dmitri Kondrashov, Antonia Kashcheev, Yuri Podgornov, Feodor Zolotov-Khomutov, Yevgeny Pominov…” I look to him with a very stupid countenance—I can feel
it, see myself looking like an utter buffoon. Some of the names are instantly familiar; others summon faint recollections of voices and faces. “You obviously know Daphne—Daphne Karev.”

  “She didn't seem Russian to me.”

  “She's first generation. I think her mother's French or Italian. I forget.” Caesura. “French.”

  “Regardless; you've met all of these people?”

  “Yes and no. I've only really talked to Daphne and Keen's grandson, Mongo Blageaux. My guess is that the rest of them aren't all that different. Mongo comes from extreme wealth, as I'm sure you already know. Daphne went to Dartmouth, so I can imagine her background is essentially the same. They're no different than the rest of the idiots running around Williamsburg thinking they're revolutionaries just because they reject the posterity of the Manhattan elite. A bunch of fucking bobos if you ask me.”

  “Bobos?”

  “Bourgeois bohemians,” almost spitefully. There are lines in his face that I swear I have never seen before. Their design is baroque, a ferocious calligraphy.

  It dawns on me that this is the first time I have ever looked to Sean as an equal. The realization does not strike me as a fully conscious thought—at least not initially. Yet this is his face, his face with all its imperfections. I've never looked to it as I would to a friend's face. I've always been too busy concentrating on his eyes—the indifference, fatigue, confidence—to notice the small print.

  “I enjoyed their company,” I respond. “I even liked Patrick.”

  “You don't mean Patrick Shaheen, do you?”

  “Yes,” I respond. “What's the big deal?”

  “Nothing. I just heard that he was being deported.” Caesura. “I don't remember the exact reason. France would have probably described him as a 'serene fanatic'.”

  “France?”

  “Anatole France. Yes, from the Gods Will Have Blood.”

  “Is he some type of criminal?”

  “Anatole France? No—”

  “I know who Anatole France is, Sean.”

  “Oh, Patrick. Not really. A lot of governments don't particularly like him. I'm sure there are dossiers on him in a variety of languages.”

  “What does he do exactly?”

  “He's a ghost writer. And I know you've read something he's written—most people in college have.” Before I begin, he interrupts with, “I don't know. Even if I did, I wouldn't be at liberty to say.”

  “So he's a ghost writer for what?”

  “Academics. Left-wing demagogues.”

  “So he writes anti-establishment literature for famous people? He's like living samizdat?”

  “If you want to be horribly pretentious about it. Again, it's not as though there are cross hairs on him or anything. It's more that he has connections. I'm surprised he used his real name during your interaction.” He pauses. “Unless someone else used his name as an alias. An old friend of mine in L.A. likes to tell strangers that he's Thomas Pynchon.”

  “Well, that's who he said he was,” slowly. “He's the one who took me and Tomas to the party.”

  “And what did he tell you of the group?”

  “He told us that it was founded by Dick Keens, that Keens wanted to spread happiness and laughter throughout the world, and, to be honest that's about it—unless, of course, you would like to hear the entire history of the Keens and Balaguez families.”

  “He didn't explain the group's goal to you guys?”

  “Laughter. And you mentioned something about The Joke.”

  “It's a form of atonement,” he says bluntly. My cigarette has gone out. He lights another before sliding his Zippo across the table. “He felt guilty about the source of his money, his life. It haunted him.” He drags from his cigarette slowly. “I'm guessing Patrick didn't mention how Keens died.”

  “No; never came up.”

  “He shot himself.”

  There is a long silence at the table. In this time I notice that the couple next to us, who have been getting the majority of the smoke from Sean's cigarette blown in their face, are conversing about how rude smokers are just loud enough so that Sean and I can hear them. The music from inside the café sounds like late George Benson. The centerpiece of the concrete garden, a massive oak rising from a five by five plot of soil, makes shifting shadow-lattices on the walls that surround us. I remove my sunglasses.

  “He what?”

  “Shot himself.” It comes out plainly, not stoically or gravely; he recites this information as if telling me the time. “He couldn't live with the guilt, so he shot himself.”

  “But why? I mean, the money only paid for his education; it's not like—”

  “And what of Abram & Keens? Did his mother promote happiness and laughter with that Leviathan? Don't you think he felt that the money from that company was contaminated, that it contaminated him, too. Didn't you question why he never worked again? He could have given it all away, lived by his labor, and rid himself of the insidious wealth that came from the blood and the toil of untold millions, from a scarred landscape where ore was withdrawn, brutalized bodies deposited.” He ashes his cigarette carefully, slowly. “It became his legacy, too. He did not erase it or rectify it; he only denied it.”

  “I thought he gave away most of that money. I thought he only kept enough to tool around the world, and that, with the rest of it, he bought a house down in Park Slope.”

  “He gave some of it away. But denial is a poor surrogate for innocence,” he adds in an aphoristic tone. “You see, he formed that cult to run away from the reality of the situation. But it was always there, a great cynosure that infected every thread of his clothing, every brick of that house, every thought in his head: there was not one thing in his life that could not be traced back to the privilege he inherited by means of rape or plunder.” He brandishes what I hope is a wince. “And it was this realization, this inability to escape from the imperious guilt, that led him to suicide. Isn't that all suicide really is—the desire to escape from the ego?”

  Maybe it is. He was not only his mother's son; he was a constant reminder of the crime, a byproduct of that insatiable lust and that need for power over a woman, a woman for whom the perpetrator felt no love, no tenderness, no sympathy. Yes, he was the unwanted result of a crime, the crime that stole away his mother's youth. And as much as she may have loved him, as much as she may have cared for him and nurtured him and taught him, there was always that element in him that she could not fully trust, and, therefore, could not fully love. And so maybe there are some crimes that are atavistic, even if the father is disowned by the son, the son by the father. But that was not fully the case with Keens. He may have returned each night to the apartment he and his mother shared, he may have never met the eyes of his father, but the boys with whom he socialized and the environment to which he was subjected were befitting of a Balaguez, a Rockefeller, a Vanderbilt. And maybe he realized it early on, too. Because he must have known. He must have been able to see in it in the mirror. Even if he looked nothing like his father, even if he had his mother's eyes or her nose or her mouth or her cheeks or whatever, it didn't matter. Because the guilt was generational, indelible: He could have renounced everything, he could have given away all of his possessions, thrown them away, immolated them upon a pyre and called the whole ordeal a purification ritual; he could have reduced himself to poverty, assumed the likeness of Job and taken to prostrating himself upon the earth, digging at his blistering skin with the shards of his former life; he could have become a doctor, a holy man, a saint—it would not have erased that legacy he inherited (unwillingly, true; but are not all legacies imposed upon their inheritors, benefactor and victim alike?); he still would have been part Balaguez, part aristocrat, part rapist, capitalist, exploiter, parasite, demon.

  “He still had options. We always have options.”

  “Options?” he scoffs. “By options, do you mean the pissing away of several million dollars in technology that would enable him to apologize to the dead? That'
s the real reason behind the A-R-E: He wanted to bring the Russian miners and prisoners to Brooklyn, to have a fucking party with these…these ghosts, as if it could somehow ameliorate the tragedy that was their life—a bandage in the form of bacchanalia.”

  He takes a long drag from his cigarette. He seems so calm now that one could mistake his demeanor for smug. “Astrally-Resurrected Entities: The Russians who died in the Balaguez mines over one hundred years ago—the same people who had to die to grant his father the ability to circumvent the law, to allow his mother the ability to become the most feared person in Brooklyn real estate, to allow him his schooling at Columbia and Harvard, not to mention his years of aimless traveling and wanton reprobation. And what do you think came of his funding of Dr. Frankenstein's inventions?” I narrow my eyes. “Do you think that Keens discovered a means by which he could communicate with the dead? Or is it far more plausible that the obvious futility of these continued experiments was just further proof of his inability to cope with the history of his family and the crimes he inherited?” He grunts. “And now his grandson continues the pointless charade by inviting a gang of corybants to engage in the basest performances of hedonism and debauchery one can imagine. Is there anything redeeming in that?”

  We gaze to one another in a détente that brings not only silence, but also resignation on my part. I am outmatched. I pull my eyes away from Sean, and begin to examine the rest of the garden: the emaciated cat that has appeared on the wall above, the couples gossiping about friends assumed to be mutual, the waitress—Zoe—forcing laughter and salads with goat cheese onto patrons, Sean staring to the ashtray without any ostensible emotion, the harem of shadows dancing enthusiastically in the breeze, the uneven portions of concrete being forced up by the roots of the oak. I have no reason to hold the beliefs that I am unwilling to abandon; I only have a vague sense of hope that seems sympathetic to the existence of a world beyond visible wavelengths and audible frequencies. How can one prove anything when the conclusion we wish to affirm carries the gravity it does precisely because it exists beyond the realm of measurement and empirical instrumentation? It is not faith, but, then again, what else goes by the epithet of unverifiable trust?