by Jay Fox
“Who? Sartre?”
“Yes. Look, the point is that hell is not other people; hell is dealing with the pretenses of other people. Heaven is all space, all time, filled with eidolons only.”
“So that was the goal.”
“No, the goal, the JOKE, was something different. As I've told you, no one really knows what it was or what it is supposed to be.”
“Did he ever write anything concerning the JOKE? Did he have a manifesto?”
“No.”
“Did he leave a note upon his death?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“'The only proof of the present is in syntax.'”
14
She's standing on the east side of Fifth Avenue, in the middle of what would be Seventy-First Street if there were no park, only a further extension of concrete. There continues to be a relentless drizzle, turning the City into a symphony of hues a la Ligeti. She is a haze of red and bronze with a chestnut halo that flutters gently as a slight breeze picks up, rustling the various shades of gray and brown and green that surrounds her. She is animated once again—self-animated rather—and no longer any number of visions torn from the picture book of memory. While the Connie of the past had the tendency to elicit every visceral emotion that seeks to protect or embrace or surrender, the Connie of the present evokes things no less carnal, but they all feel negative. I can't help but feel as though I hate this woman.
She is waving now, summoning a flood of images from the past, images that had not necessarily been repressed, but nonetheless relegated to some place that never gets visited, kind of like a senile grandparent's home. The entire train ride up here I felt inundated by her, by the fact that I would once again be in her presence. It was not the warming anticipation of having the opportunity to resume a relationship that had, perhaps, only been suspended; it was more like a walk to the principal's office. I knew I wanted to see her. The problem is that the veracity of this proposition is time-sensitive. I did want to see her, just under the condition that the act occur six months ago.
As the train barreled uptown, I couldn't help but ask myself why she suddenly wanted to have me back in her life. After she avoided so many phone calls. After she explained that she needed time to herself. After she so callously redacted the history that we had shared so as to make years of mutual cathexis seem like a few weeks of innocent fun. These tactics of denial had been employed directly after the break, of course—those first few weeks when we were both attempting to reacquaint ourselves with the type of solitary life that is lonely, lethargic, and often accompanied by damp pillowcases and empty bottles of liquor, beer, wine—whatever is available. Over the past three months, however, she has become less resilient to the idea of the two of us having been in love at some point in the past, to the two of us being just friends now, to the two of us not being able to stop loving one another even if this means we are no longer in love, just lovers in the sense of being like family or friends or lost in some terra vague that seems to transcend both of these groups. It's acknowledged that something had once been there, and that it no longer is. We talk on the phone, we write each other emails, but we eschew the past unless it involves the sort of banality that one can share with a friend or a sibling: about the time we got pulled over in Roscommon, or the time we met John Scofield, or the time we both got sick after eating at one of those half-price Sushi places in the Village. So now it's an abridged history, a history in which I am ignorant of the birthmark that greets anyone who travels far enough up her right thigh, in which I have never seen or smelled or tasted that O'Keeffe flower in which she takes so much pride. Maybe we fucked—to her, that is. And not the author-with-inadequacy-issues or the author-stuck-with-an-inadequate-man type of fuck, which is ruthlessly passionate for all of the five or six consecutive hours it takes for the character with the cock, which needs to measured in meters, to finally launch his gallons onto Onan's tomb. No. This was just a fuck. Nothing epic or tender about it. Just a fuck. And that was it. Cock in cunt. Repeat as needed. Huff. Puff. Ejaculate. Sleep.
“You never remember to bring your umbrella,” she says when I approach her. She embraces me, tightly and quickly, and then backs away with haste. She never was one for physical platitudes, even when we shared a bed. “You look (caesura) good.” I squint. “No, really, you look…I don't know…happy.” She smiles, slowly, maybe coyly. “What's the secret?”
“A complete lack of exercise and sleep,” I respond. “And a lot of booze.”
“So you haven't changed at all, huh?”
We begin to walk south. “So how are you?” I ask.
“Well, I'm kind of tired because the air conditioner in the condo is broken. But, besides that, I had an interview earlier. I don't think it went well. The guy who I met with was such an asshole. He asked me what relevant experience I had. Relevant experience? Excuse me? I thought you were the one who contacted me because you thought I was qualified enough to fill the position. Yeah, position. It's never a job. It's always a position.” She exhausts. “These people are so fucking stupid.”
“What was the (caesura) position for?”
She flashes her teeth. “Administrative assistant.”
“That's about as vague as you can get.”
“You know, answering phones, responding to emails, assisting some rich asshole with his daily life.”
“So secretary.”
“Sure,” derisively, “if you’re stuck in the fifties.”
“What industry?”
“Publishing. I don't even know what they specialize in.”
“Was it an agency or a publishing house?”
“It was an agency. I don't know anyone they represent. No one good, I assume. I wanted to get a job with the people who handle Tom Robbins, but they aren't based in the City.” Something catches her eye. “Hey, the Frick is coming up, right?” I respond in the affirmative. “Remember the one portrait we liked so much, the one with the drag queen?”
“Ah, yes,” I nod; “Gainsborough's Mrs. Elliot.”
“Oh my God,” she swoons; “I though we were going to get kicked out we were laughing so hard. Have you been in there lately?”
“The Frick?”
“Yeah…to see if Coprolalia has…I guess marked his territory.”
“That's not exactly his style.”
I can't tell if the subsequent silence is awkward. It's not silence, of course, just a suspension of conversation. The cars continue to hiss past, kicking up rainwater and coagulated soot and pebbles that have arrived in this city from God knows where. Others out sauntering in the drizzle are speaking in a multitude of languages, as it is the tourist season. A lot of them are wearing garbage bags as a consequence of the rain. I've always believed Europeans to be more fashion conscious than us, but I guess that generalization only applies when the sun's out. Vendors listen to radios at full volume. One hums along with a Chopin etude; others are listening to that modern stuff from the East, which sound like tracks from a Bollywood film. A pauper asks the man in front of us for change, but requests nothing from either Connie or myself. He checks her out with his whole body as we pass. He does not simply follow her with his eyes; rather, he turns his entire body with that sexual deviant posture that a lot of bassists are known to exhibit. A helicopter can be heard overhead. A French bulldog mounts a Pomeranian, which arouses a series of shrieks and laughs. Connie seems oblivious.
“I also remember,” she begins, “You started calling me Gabrielle after that. You said I reminded you of…who was that? One of someone's models?”
“Renoir.”
“I still don't see the resemblance. It wasn't exactly flattering to compare the two of us, you know. She was kind of…I don't know…big-boned.”
“You two have similar faces.”
“She was his cousin, right?”
“The family nanny.”
She is quiet for a moment.
“So what have you been up to besides chasing t
his artist around?”
“That's about all I've had time for,” I respond. “As I've said, it's not exactly a part-time gig.”
“Jessica tells me you've been hanging around Tomas Bennington a lot.”
“Yeah.” I want to follow this up with something, but nothing comes to mind.
“What's he like?”
“I don't know. He's a pretty normal guy.” I pause. “Same with Aberdeen.”
“Who?”
“James Aberdeen. He's another artist.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He's best friends with Tomas. Actually, they're roommates.”
“I see.”
“I met Willis Faxo, too, if you know him.”
“Never heard of him, either.” She laughs. “You were always such a snob when it came to art.”
Another pause, suspension. She motions for me to cross the street with her. I follow obediently.
She's pensive; she has something important to tell me. This is not prescience; it is more of a syllogism (though the conditional proposition that validates the argument is here only implied). Prescience would at least kill the suspicion and the anticipation. Of course, prescience (perhaps even clairvoyance) would have allowed me the chance to save what we once had. I would have been able to remedy whatever it was that forced me out the door so many months ago. Because it wasn't distance. It's never distance. It's something that you've done, though they won't tell you the catalyst that ignited all of the doubt in the relationship—no, not the relationship; in you, the recipient of the rejection—the person riddled with a cancer so pervasive and repulsive that it subsumes you, steals your identity, becomes all that she can see when she looks at you.
Maybe the reason is that they recognize your ability to surprise them. It's almost like a breech of contract, that you have trespassed upon an unspoken agreement to continue upon an asymptote towards some personal essence that they impute to you. You can never reach it, of course, but you are supposed to strive to engender this person, even if you aren't conscious of this ambition, even if you don't know who this person is supposed to be. You are flawed because you are not the you that they want you to be. But people change, perhaps not dramatically, but subtly. People do not always live up to expectations; in fact, they sometimes refuse to be defined by expectations (which can lead to a paradox, I suppose: By failing to live up to an expectation, you are doing what is expected). And it begins with one aberration, probably not a noticeable one. It's tiny, minute. And then this insignificant change leads to two more insignificant changes. It's exponential. Eventually, they not only mount, but begin to get more discernible. And these miscellaneous alterations eventually aggregate to such a point that you suddenly look upon your own past as you may look upon the pages of a history book—you acknowledge the veracity of the facts in the text, but aren't entirely sure whether or not you agree with the author's explanation as to why the events transpired in such a way. But she is not privy to this information. She still sees me as the me that I once was. But the truth of the matter is that I am following another asymptote, and that she's too stubborn to accept that this is why the equation she possesses keeps turning out the wrong answer. Then again—
“It's so good to see you again,” she says while squeezing my hand.
“I feel the same way.” I squeeze back. She quickly lets go. “I can't get over how great you look.”
She smiles. “Don't say that. I feel like shit. I think I've gained ten pounds since graduating.”
“So you're drinking a lot, too.”
“Well, I’ve been on a little Nebbiolo kick, but nothing excessive.”
“…”
“It’s a Sicilian wine. Either way, I’ve pretty much just been sitting at the computer all day sending out resumes.”
“I've heard that can be rough.”
“Yeah, it can be.”
“Hopefully I'll never have to find out about that.”
“I know Denny and Marge can't be supporting this. Your parents aren't exactly pro-hedonist.”
“They don't know. As far as they're concerned, I'm in the same boat as you.”
“So you're taking advantage of their kindness.” I squint. “You told me that they're helping you out.”
“Yeah, but I figure there's no real harm in it,” I begin. She spells out skepticism in sign. “Look, I don't want to sit here and rationalize all this.” She squints to me. “I know I can't ever be honest—even partially. But there's no way they would have ever financed this search, and there's no way I could have pulled it off while looking for a full-time job.”
“It takes, like, an hour a day.”
“No, it doesn't. You have to individualize every letter. You have to tweak your resume. You have to constantly be looking on six or seven different websites. You have to look through papers, too. It's a very involved process. I'd deal with it, but I've decided to dedicate every moment that I have to Coprolalia.”
“It doesn't take me that long,” she replies.
—Then again it could be your inability to surprise them, your inability to provide anything beyond that same routine—devoid of passion, devoid of anything besides that feeling of suffocation that imperiously hounds you at every moment, even when they are not around. Because you know they will be there. Yes, they will be there, ready to judge, to interject every time you open your mouth, to pout until they get they their way. It is a trial upon your every nerve, a contest to see just how much of your dignity can be pilfered until you finally snap. And then you are a monster. And you feel like a monster, too. No, you haven't hit her; you've done something far worse: you've injured her pride. And she's crying, but you don't know if these are the same disingenuous tears that she contrives when in a critical professor's office or if her face is glistening in earnest. So you apologize, but she doesn't accept it. No, you have to beg for that forgiveness. And you're a monster if you don't. You're a monster even though you don't believe you've done anything wrong. And then it's suddenly over. It's over because you've convinced her that she's convinced you that she is right and that you are wrong. And that's all a woman really wants. She just wants you to tell her that she is right. That's all there is to it. She doesn't care if this admission is genuine or not. She just wants you to acquiesce because there is nothing more intoxicating to a woman than power, especially when that power is over a man. And she'll hold it over you, too. She'll debase you, mock you—not only while she and her friends discuss how spineless you are, how weak you are; she'll do it to your face, too. And if you complain she mocks your masculinity (—Don't be such a baby or —Oh, big man has to make sure his woman’s in check); and if you don't complain she mocks you all the same (—You're such a pushover; why don't you fucking grow a pair?). And yet she'll mock these concepts of male integrity, of a gender role that society has forced me to ascribe by and forced her to find desirable. Still, she wants me to be either callous or assertive. Sometimes. Sometimes that is how I ought to be. But you can't say anything at that point; you can't do anything. Because you just want to be left alone by then. That's all we—men—want: not to be bothered, harassed, and put in these impossible situations in which every fucking response is the wrong one.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just thinking.”
“About what?”
“You know…Coprolalia.”
“That's not what it looks like,” almost as a taunt.
“What do you mean?”
“You look upset. Are you mad at me?”
“No. Of course not. I'm just…you know…a little preoccupied.”
She smiles. “So I'm going to have to dig for this one, huh?”
“No, seriously,” I laugh. “You look into everything way too deeply.”
We approach a French restaurant on Madison. She silently reveals that this is the place.
“I can't afford this,” as I look to the menu. There are no prices. This means money is not an issue for the res
taurant's normal patrons.
“Don't worry,” she begins while patting her purse. “This one's on my dad.”
“I don't want to do that. I don't feel right eating—”
“He told me to have a nice meal to celebrate the interview. It's fine.”
We enter (half-reluctantly). The host stares to me before smiling to Connie. They exchange platitudes in French as Josephine Baker serenades the ten or twelve occupied tables. He has massive teeth. It's not that he's buck-toothed; rather, it appears that he stole a pair of dentures from someone twice his size.
“Monsieur,” he eventually begins, “Your table is right this way.”
14.1
The appetizers cost more than any meal I've eaten since my parents were in town back in January. She orders mussels dressed in a sauce consisting of wite whine, butter, shallots, parsley, and rosemary, as well as pâté, before we have even opened the menus. The bread on the table is still warm and the butter has been softened. The wine is ordered without consulting a list. This provokes an impressed nod from the waiter. He approaches with the Muscat d'Alsace within a few moments to pour her a small glass. She sips, nods, and then looks to me as he pours each of us a glass. “The food here is exquisite,” she says. The waiter smiles with feigned humility.
“Had I known we were coming to such a nice place I would have dressed a little nicer. I thought we were just going to grab a coffee.”
“They have coffee here. Besides, it's not like anyone seriously cares. They let you in, didn't they?”
“That's not the point.”
“Why do you care so much about what other people think? Just enjoy the meal.” She pauses. “Jesus, everything has to be such a production with you.”
“Look, I just think I should have gotten a bit of a head's up—”
“About what? About getting a free meal at an amazing restaurant? You know, when you told me that you've been prowling around the gutters of this city looking for some artist who uses a pseudonym derived from the word 'shit' (which provokes a slow and minatory…no, revise that…a disgusted glance from a man at the next table), I was worried about you. And let's not forgot about where you're living—that dump in Bushwick.”