THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

  And the answer seems to be a resounding yes. We experience a false nostalgia more severe than that pastoral longing that Proust and Ortega y Gasset and Fromm and Kerouac and Pynchon and DeLillo and Wallace vocalized prior to the complete digitalization of this world. And we ask ourselves, Has life become more artificial now—not surreal, but abreal? Is there some grand Truth hidden somewhere in the morass? Is Truth still relevant?

  And herein lay the rub: there is no answer. Because the answer must come from an institution, and institutions cannot be trusted, especially after Watergate (at least that's what the Me Generation tells us).

  And they may be right. Because it seems the most troubling problem of my generation is not just the profusion of information, but the absence of referential authority, the inability to award credence to anything that does not comply with our limited understanding of the world. We have either moved beyond or retreated away from the problem of the twentieth century, which essentially boiled down to the question of legitimacy. There is either total acquiescence to pre-Enlightenment Christianity or the belief that there is no anchor, no legitimacy, in any form. (And this is not just when it comes to the elusive, abysmal absence that has been meditated upon since the writing of the Eclogues; this is in the realm of the every day, the quotidian. It is the world of facts.)

  And with all of the knowledge of the material world both accessible and seemingly contradictory, we begin to turn into ourselves. The zealots have their own problems, but those of us without the ersatz faith of the Evangelicals, we find ourselves confronted with a void, a void in which authority is abundant, but credibility is nil. So authority loses the only quality it needs to retain its status as such. Everything becomes bullshit, subject to interpretation, a potential lie if we find out that the wrong people believe it. We have our beliefs and there is no further use arguing because there is no argument that can dissuade us, nor is there an argument that we can provide to dissuade others. Unless they agree with us to begin with. Because conversation is dead, joined the ranks of meditation, civility and earnest piety. We agree to disagree on matters that only a few years ago would not have been regarded as subject to debate because said subjects consist of facts, of phenomena that cannot be manipulated unless one entertains solipsism, the epistemological version of the lowest common denominator. And we do entertain this, not as idealists in the tradition of Berkeley or even Borges, but as idealists of the red and blue variety; we entertain it by engaging in a form of solipsism that is not only parochial, but moral and ideological, too. (“Oh, you read that in Harper's? Well, then it can't be true.” “I wouldn't trust anything in the National Review. You know what their agenda is, don't you?”) In the end, the physical world is subjected to abridgment, redaction, and embellishment because it does not comply with what we want it to be.

  And for so many this all becomes too much. It becomes too much to have to refute the beliefs of others, let alone amend our own beliefs in order to make them stronger or more accurate. We become desiccated, not passive exactly, but unaffected—not only to the news, but to the world at large. We cease to be Generation Y, and become Generation Why Bother? We fall into line with Generation X: disgraced, but without shame. Art becomes not only devoid of meaning, but of any feeling that is more complicated than heartache. The best we can produce is either bathos or satire because no one can muster anything real. The rest is just words on pages, paint on canvases, notes in measures, sex in distans. Existence itself eventually becomes white noise, static, that every once in a while interrupts the narration over the iPod. We lament the fact that we used to see odd bursts of light in the peripheries, but know that there's no point trying to find them again.

  And she sits there with that certain lachrymose expression that portends northing short of this peculiar disposition in which our generation is trapped. And I cannot help but think that she, too, understands that this form of resignation is only possible in the information age, this capacity to be able to read nearly anything with the presumption that it's completely false, to be able to see art and already know whether it has been accredited as brilliant or dismissed as pretentious shit, to be able to hear music and contemplate nothing of its depth, only its parallel to some other band that can be referenced when speaking to someone “about music” (which really means “about bands,” as very little is said about the music itself, only its relation to other bands “that sound like a cross between…and…”). We acknowledge that we are missing something, that we are undergoing a process of becoming without serious effort or personal struggle. We even know that we have taken the shortcut to our identities, and that this, paradoxically enough, has become our generational identity. We're hollow: familiar with everything and knowledgeable of nothing. And though we know that there is something missing, we are too lazy and too vain to seek out its dimensions or its definition.

  (And it shows in the only new form of art (or perhaps just entertainment) to have come on the scene in the past decade: Reality television. That is our contribution. An attempt at art with the absence of creative intention—the end to the debate of art imitating life or life imitating art; the final synthesis exemplified in people just like you and me.)

  And so we take on the archetypes that appeal to us, as Faxo said. We assume the role of the sullen intellectual, the derisive critic, or the tortured artist. We learn to play these parts as masked hypokrites, and then complain to our compatriots about the lack of sincerity in our generation, this generation of fabricated memoirs.

  And she reveals all of this without attempting to do so. She just is: the culmination of the last half-century with all of its contradictions, all of its fetishes, all of its idolatries, all of its failures. She is the most recent chapter in the American Dream. And I can't help but think of her as beautiful for this, beautiful because of her frailty, her honesty. Maybe “beautiful” is not the right word. Alluring. There's something alluring in her, something that draws you in, interests you. You are intrigued because she is so much like you even though the two of you have never exchanged a single word.

  And she asks for five dollars. I give it to her. The taller member of the Onan cult, meanwhile, explains that a watched pot will inevitably boil, provided sufficient heat is applied to it. The girl stamps my hand, smiles absently, and tells me to enjoy the show in an accent of ambiguous origin. I try to think of something to say in return, a quip or something memorable, but I just nod, return the smile, and push the velvet curtain aside. I enter into a dim corridor.

  Rock.

  Island.

  Whatever.

  15.2

  I remember just who the Sheeps are as soon as I see Barazov on the stage. He’s tightening up some of his toms with a chrome wrench. It radiates violet light. Every few moments he strikes one of the skins; they emit resonant implosives that sound like doom as opposed to boom or thud, though this particular noun, “thud,” would probably be the most accurate means of referring to the din tumbling around the small venue. It’s a rather shallow resonance, probably because of the sound-proofed walls, which have been adorned with that type of black foam that one sees not only in studios, but in hard cases for expensive equipment like keyboards and weapons of mass destruction as featured in those action movies where the antagonist’s thugs are not only evil, they’re also great shots and more than confidant when dealing with the authorities—they’re just completely incompetent when attempting to engage the rugged protagonist, who is a total bad-ass most of the time, but he’s also got a softer side, which is best illustrated by his passion for his resurgent and somewhat adulterous ex-wife (although he’s also being wooed by this totally hot ethnic chick, who just so happens to have been hired out to kill him by the mastermind behind the world’s most daring caper). The guitarists (one with a vintage SG the color of a maraschino cherry, the other with a semi-hollow Ibanez in black with gold trim) are attempting a sound check. SG is talking, but I cannot discern to whom he is speaking or what is being said as a consequence of th
e thirty simultaneous conversations that are all bleeding into one maelstrom of cacophony. Ibanez wears the solo/orgasm face even as he tunes. SG turns to Barazov with obvious frustration. Barazov, meanwhile, continues to drill at the drums absently until SG finally yells at him. Barazov looks to him with a sudden catalepsy that has various undertones that range from apologetic to just plain startled. The bassist has the face of a child who finds herself in possession of a new toy. She activates a pedal that makes her tone almost aquatic, slides way up the neck, and laughs when SG reprimands her. She turns down, says something to Barazov, and then starts laughing again. Barazov hits the crash with abandon. SG looks to him with daggers. Ibanez maintains an uneasy grin.

  “Where’s your drink?” Tomas asks as I approach him, Aberdeen, and… “Oh yeah; this is Lindsay, our other roommate.”

  “Pleasure,” she says with a slight bow and an extended hand. She is cute in that murine way that most straight women fail to comprehend; some men and many lesbians, however, find it irresistible. She’s like a librarian: the type of girl who is both well-read and scatterbrained enough to forget about the pencil in her hair as she explains the meaning of “tensegrity” and the brilliance behind the octet truss; who wears a long skirt and a cardigan over her blouse. Her outfit makes her look like the up-and-down type, but you eventually find yourself catching glimpses of a very different story. She becomes strabismic at the mention of acronyms like N.F.L. and M.L.B., but considers sports to be an acceptable and symbolic psychosocial (and homosocial) activity—the healthiest manifestation of libidinal aggression, provided all of the participants abide by the rules of conduct. She will assign further reading, much of it only recently translated from the original French. She wears very little makeup, smiles without showing teeth, and sports an eyebrow piercing, which says more about her than any one piece of ornamentation probably should.

  “The same.” We shake. She smiles nervously (without teeth, as has been established). Aberdeen finishes his can of beer.

  “So where’s your drink, man?”

  “I’ve got to live a little less prodigiously until this Friday.”

  “Prodigiously?”

  “What?”

  “Fucking prodigiously? Are you serious?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you really have to throw that one out there?”

  “You do know what it means, right?” Aberdeen asks.

  “Of course I know what it fucking means.”

  “Then why are you berating him?”

  “Whatever,” he sulks.

  “We can cover you,” Aberdeen says sympathetically.

  “Totally, man. We’ve all been there before.”

  “Really? I mean, it’s not like I have to drink tonight.”

  “To enjoy this band you do,” Tomas counters between two shallow burps.

  “And, well, we do kind of owe you.” Tomas and Lindsay both look to Aberdeen with curiosity. “We never did apologize for that fake Coprolalia from the other night.”

  “Oh. That.” Tomas is quiet for a moment. “And I guess I did kind of ditch you the other night. Well…I guess other nights.”

  Aberdeen looks to him. “What other—”

  “Boots.”

  Aberdeen nods uneasily. “But about the other, other night. We just needed you to come out because—”

  “Did you guys need, like, a ride or something?” Lindsay asks.

  “Wingman,” I respond.

  “I think she dug you, man. And she seemed like your type, too.” He pauses. “Fuck man, for all the shit you’ve said about that Connie girl…you know, it really seemed like that Jane chick was right up your alley.”

  “I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend until the following morning,” Aberdeen explains. “Neither one of us did.”

  “I think she totally dug you, though.”

  “You two are incorrigible,” Lindsay proclaims. Tomas rolls his eyes. “I’m going to the washroom.”

  “Seriously, though; she was totally fucking into you.”

  “She was a little put off by the incident at the end of the night, though.”

  “The incident? There wasn’t a fucking incident.”

  “You didn’t offer her a ride.” Tomas opens his mouth, but Aberdeen quickly puts a cap on his predictable wit. “A cab ride.”

  “I was going the opposite way.”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter, man.”

  “Plus it seemed intrusive.” I pause. “Maybe presumptuous is a better word.”

  “Presumptuous my ass.”

  “You can’t abandon a woman.”

  “You two are serious? You’re really going to reprimand me for this?”

  “You just can't do that, man. I don't care if she has a fucking boyfriend—who's two states away, might I add. I don't care if she's not interested in fucking you. If you're the last person that she knows in a bar or at a party, you are responsible for her.” He parses out each syllable like a postman. “This is not because women are weak, mind you.”

  “Are you trying to mollify a feminist somewhere?”

  “Mollify!” Tomas howls. “You have to love this fucking guy!”

  “He's just letting you know that you have certain obligations. You should listen to him.”

  “And feminism has nothing to fucking do with it, dig. Set your spite, your fucking resentment, aside and cognosize where you live.” Cognosize? “This is the real world, man. And in the real world women have a serious chance of being fucking raped if they're out on their own. If there's so much as another chick out with her,” he shrugs, “then the situation isn't as percacious.” Huh? “But if she's alone, you gotta man up, man. Call it a double-standard if you will, but it's the imperativious thing to do, dig.”

  “This is the world in which we live. Brooklyn may be safer than it used to be, but there are still some dangerous people floating around.”

  “I'm loving this little lesson on chivalry, but—”

  “Chivalry!” Tomas scoffs. “This isn't about fucking chivalry, man; this is about preventing some serious shit from going down. Look, if you want to profess some type of Dworkinite bullshit, then be my fucking guest; but don't try to tell me that men and women interact in this world the same fucking way. Sometimes women need to be protected, man. More importantly, sometimes they need to be fucking fucked.” He notices a look from Aberdeen, myself, and at least two innocent bystanders. “Yes, broads want to be fucked, dig. Believe it or not. Believe it or fucking not,” with hands waving in a kind of boogieman impression. “They don't just want to make love; sometimes they want to be fucked: penetrated, groped, fucking ravaged, fucking fucked,” with exuberant pelvic thrust. “They want that shit, man. They want to feel that shit in their diaphragms.”

  “Tomas,” I begin.

  “Yeah, I know. You're going to throw me some line about the majesty of love and all that other bullshit. But I'm not looking for love, man. I am looking for sex. And I've got it fucking easy, man. I know that I exploit what I have going for me. But to say that I'm doing it because of some type of misogyny is bullshit. I am not defiling chicks by fucking them—because the vagina is not sacred. It's nothing more than the inverse of my cock. And that's it. It holds no mystical value, dig? It holds a mysterious value for men because, guess what, men don't have fucking pussies (several looks). Men wrote the myths because only men were writing. And guess what? They didn't understand the vagina—or women for that matter. It, the vagina, the pussy, the bearded-clam, the darkness at the end of the tunnel, doesn't require reverence. It doesn't even deserve respect because it's just a fucking orifice. Women deserve respect, just as every fucking person deserves respect. And they'll get it from me. Every person in the world has my reverence until they give me a reason to feel differently. But the vagina is just fucking flesh and blood—”

  “—Among other things,” Aberdeen adds coolly.

  “—And that's fucking it. And this is not to say that I don't love vagina, man. I
love vagina more than any man or fucking dyke in here (even more looks). But to ask me to see a woman as anything other than my equal is asking me to support fucking chauvinism. It's not reverse-chauvinism, like some asshole Reaganite might say; it is chauvinism. Look it up in the fucking dictionary: An unjustifiable belief in the superiority of a cause or a viewpoint or a belief. That's your pal Dworkin, dig? No justification. The vagina deserves to be fucking worshiped because it is a vagina, because she has one. Fuck that, man. I don't revere my dick. So fuck all that bullshit. Fuck it just as much as fucking male chauvinism. My dick is a piece of flesh that I love, but I don't ask other people to fucking love it. Well,” he pauses, “That's not entirely true.” It's suddenly as though he's awaiting a laugh track. “But you see my point, right? You see, we're no different than them when it really comes down to it. Yeah, we're different because of brain chemistry and hormones and other physionomical shit, but that's it. That's what separates us. Women are just as good as men, and women are just as evil as men—there just haven't been enough women in power to reveal that cruelty knows no gender. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal. It's a fucking fact about human nature.”

  “Are we done here?” Aberdeen asks.

  Tomas halts, sucks on a molar, looks as though he is going to say something, and then clears his throat. “Yeah, I'm fucking done.”

  I feel my ribs jingle along with Barazov's erratic drumming. SG becomes audible: “What the fuck, man?”

  Aberdeen yawns. “You shouldn't have provoked him by mentioning Dworkin. He really hates her—especially the arguments she put forth in Intercourse.”

  “I didn't even mention her!”

  “Maybe it was implied.”

  “Implied by what? He just went off the fucking handle, man, about fucking God knows what. And what's this shit about the physionomical? Are you just making this up as you go along?”

  “Hey, I'm just a little wound up right now,” with a finger on the nose.