by Jay Fox
“That's no excuse to just fucking rage out like that. Did I ask for a fucking polemic against someone as…as…fucking marginal as Andrea Dworkin?”
“Polemic,” he giggles.
“…”
“All right. Fine. My bad, man,” Tomas begins as he looks around. “I didn't mean to explode on you there.” He stretches his arms out. “Hugs.” He receives a wry glance. “Hugs, man. Fucking hugs.”
People from as far as ten feet away are staring at us. To assume this to be due to the earlier commotion would be correct, but it misses the more important element here: there's no one within ten feet of us even though the place is fairly crowded. It's a very uncomfortable situation to be in—not that this is odd; it's been something of a reoccurring theme over the course of the past twenty-four hours. I think about this, the past twenty-four hours. Exactly one day ago I was being roused from sleep by a passing train, Vinati in my arms, the scent of her hair manipulating my dreams. And now I'm hugging Tomas in some shitty hipster club in Williamsburg. People are taking pictures. If I am to be defined by my presence on the Internet, the girl a few yards away potentially holds a large degree of my personal essence on her digital camera.
“You want that drink?” Tomas asks once I pull away from him.
“Sure.”
Equanimity has never been his strong suit. Furthermore, he's drunk; and when he's drunk, you never really know the contours his harangue will assume. This is the first time it's been directed at me…well, the late Andrea Dworkin and me. Typically it's just the dead, the powerful, or both: Goldwater, Buckley, Reagan. At times it's the typical whining that one encounters when discussing politics with those on the left—about their rationality and open-mindedness vs. the evil chaos propagated by the right under the auspices of freedom and democracy. Then again, this is better than discussing politics with those who are so far on the right that they honestly believe that their opinions have been marginalized even if said opinions are little more than snippets of populism taken from headlines and the soiled oratory that goes by the name of punditry. I guess it's common for people on both sides to claim their opponents' positions to be ubiquitous in the media, Hollywood or otherwise. What they both fail to recognize, however, is that the media, by its very nature, is a business, and that, as a business, its only goal is to have as many consumers as possible. Consequently, the news is neither liberal nor conservative (or, if it is, it is only so accidentally)—it is sensationalist, knowing only that bloody waters equal profits (unless that blood is seeping from a portion of the conglomerate of which they are a part). This is the sad fact of news: sensation and alarmism both sell a hell of a lot better than conscientious reporting, which has a nasty habit of painting everything in oatmeal gray.
“Again, I'm sorry about that, man,” he says as we stand waiting behind a dense wall of people at the bar. I turn around to see Lindsay by Aberdeen's side. He raises his can of beer and shakes it. I guess this means he needs a refill. “I just have this thing about Dworkin.”
“And you decided to take it out on me.”
“Look man, I'm not blind, okay. I know that you think that James and me use our…I guess fame to, you know, get laid. And you're right, man. You're totally right. But wouldn't you do the same fucking thing, man? I feel like any guy's going to do the same fucking thing.”
“Well…”
“Okay, fine, if you weren't afraid of fucking girls, you'd totally—”
“I'm not fucking afraid of women.”
“Women!” he laughs. “Of course not. But riddle me this: How come you never stick your fucking neck out there, man?” he says as he smacks me on the arm.
“What do you think I've been doing for the past two and a half weeks? So, what, talking with complete strangers every fucking night isn't sticking my neck out there?”
“You have no problem talking with men. And it's not that I think you're into dudes; I just think that you have this idea that…women…need to be respected—which is good, it's beyond fucking necessary—but that, you know, you don't just respect them. It's like you think that respecting them means avoiding them.” I scoff. “Look, I'm just saying this because that's how I fucking used to be, dig? I used to think that women couldn't be approached because it…what's the fucking thing in football? You know, where the defense jumps offsides, but it's different than offsides for some reason.”
“Encroachment.”
“Yeah! Encroachment. You're like a portable dictionary, you know that?” I nod slowly. “Yeah, but you think any advance, you know, encroaches upon them. Upon their independence. I thought that way, too, but I've found that women respect a man capable of approaching them without being creepy about the whole thing, dig?” He notices a derisive look. “Hey, if you think I'm just blowing smoke up your ass, then tell me to shut up. Shit, man, just say that I'm wrong, and I'll just drop it.”
“You're babbling like a fucking fifty year-old lush, and, more importantly, you're wrong.”
“Okay. Then fucking riddle me this: When was the last time you got laid?”
“Twenty-four hours ago.”
“…”
“You were saying something, Tomas?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait? Hold on. You gotta go back. What the fuck happened?”
“I don't know. It just kind of happened.”
“I always love that. It? 'It' just happens when you blow a transmission or break a glass. Getting pussy requires skill, tenacity, fucking genius, man.”
“I didn't do anything special. One thing just led to another.”
“Fine, fine, I believe you.” He slaps me on the back. “So who was the lucky lady? Did you finally bone the notorious…uh, what's her name? The Indian broad?”
“I've never told you about her.”
He shakes his head. “You fucking drunk bastard,” he laughs.
“What?”
“You don't remember telling me all about her. The Indian chick. What's her fucking name, man?”
“Vinati.”
“Vinati. Exotic shit, man.”
“Yeah.”
“So you nailed her. That's fucking great man. Fucking solid.”
“Wait…how the fuck do you even know about her?”
“Remember the other night, like, last week sometime. We were in that shithole in Windsor Terrace—the one with all the TVs and the really fucking fat guy in the Snee jersey. Remember? Snee! Who the fuck has a Snee jersey?”
“…”
“Anyway, you wouldn't fucking shut up about her; you just kept going on and on about how much you dig her: how beautiful she is, how smart she is, how you thought you had your shot some night a few weeks ago. Yeah, you said that you totally could've fucked her had it not been for this shit that the bartender made you. It was called,” as he rubs his temples. “It had something to do with sodomy.”
The girl standing next to Tomas turns. She has a look of dumb perplexity on her face.
“A butt-fucking cowboy,” I say.
“Butt-fucking cowboy,” he repeats with a laugh. The girl shakes her head and turns away. “And then you passed out on the can.” The girl goes to turn around again, but decides against it.
“I didn't pass out on the can, man; she—”
“No, dude, I'm talking about the night in Windsor Terrace. You passed out on the can, the bartender threatened to call the cops, and I had to drag your drunk ass into a cab. Snee helped out.” I'm staring to him blankly. “We were with fucking Randy, man. We slept at his place. Remember? On Seventeenth Street, by that one house with the cross in front of it.” Pause. “You know the house, man,” with what would be italics.
“The Golgotha?”
“Yes! And you totally fucking called it that, too. The Golgotha! It sounds like a metal band—like a Swedish, you know, like intense as fuck, metal band.”
“It's the site where Jesus was crucified. Apparently.”
“How do you know this shit, man? You're like what…fucking twenty-two?” I don't re
spond. “I can't wait to see the Coprolalia article, man. There's going to be references to, like, fucking Gilgamesh and shit.” He laughs. “You're a fucking madman, you know that?”
“Sure.”
“You don't remember any of this, do you?”
“…”
“Holy shit, man. I fucking knew it. You got into that big fight with Randy over Ayn Rand. You said that his…what was it? Yeah, his concept of…of…uh, bourgeois individualism was juvenile and…and-uh…his misunderstanding of Hegel and Marx was astonishing. And then you called him a fucking idiot or whatever it is you would call someone who you thought to be a fucking idiot, and then you told him that he had to read something less…jejiune…jajun…jejune? Is 'jejune' a word?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So less jejune than a paperback novel if he ever wanted to seriously engage in a philosophical discussion.”
“That doesn't sound like me.”
“That was you, man. And it was beautiful. He hated you for a while, too, but you two patched your shit up because you're cool like that.” Pause. “And you don't remember any of this, do you?”
Blush. “No.”
“And the two of you promised never to bring up politics or anything like that again.”
“Is that it?”
“No. You also talked to that one chick at the bar. Remember her? What was her fucking name…like Roberta or some shit like that?” He pauses. “Oh yeah, Roseira! Yeah, she was this cute South American chick. I think she was, like, Columbian or Bolivian. She looked kind of like…um, the housekeeper from Bottle Rocket—you know, the one Luke Wilson nails.” Roseira's face appears from the oubliette of drunken oblivion. The image is tenebrous at first, but the shadows eventually fade. And there she is. Hi, Roseira! Her features are so overwhelmingly sensual that you want to possess her in ways that are not physically possible, kind of how you wish to live in your favorite song. She is one of those people who cannot avoid passion; she attracts it wherever she goes. The second greatest tragedy about her is that, while passion doesn't age, relationships and people most certainly do. The real tragedy is that she'll never accept that passion and love need not always coexist. “And you just went on and on about this Vinati chick until she left.”
“And then I passed out in the can.”
“Yeah.” He's as animated as a toddler. “And she was like telling you all the shit chicks tell guys when they're too afraid to approach a girl they like. You know, shit like be yourself, don't come off as nervous, she'll like you for you, women like men who are caring even though, so far as I can tell, you have to be a conceited prick to get noticed by about ninety-five percent of broads…”
A spot at the bar finally opens up. Tomas sneaks into position. “What do you want?”
“I don't know.”
“Bennington Special?”
“Do they have Guinness here?”
“There are more bars in this city with it than without it. I was at this little dump in Fort Greene the other day, and the only beers they had on tap were Guinness and Bud. Kind of funny, right? Maybe you should put that in your article.”
“Sure.”
He orders, shells out twenty-five bucks, and then turns back to me. I add that Aberdeen needs a beer. This is ignored. “Anyway, I won't go over everything you said and did because I know how embarrassing it can be to listen to stories about how drunk you were, dig? The point is that I know all about the Indian broad.
“But you never tell me the real shit: that you pounded your dick to her more often than Connie, that you wanted to motorboat those mangoes, that you imagined her fucking snatch smelling like fucking masala. Did it? Did it smell like—”
“—I'm not going to answer that.”
“Why are so ashamed? Why don't you tell me the good shit?”
“Look, I just don't talk like that. I don't even think like that.”
“Yes you do. I can see it in your eyes whenever some hot little walks by. But you never fucking let loose when it comes to broads. You need to let yourself go. Unleash your inner pervert, man. Because I've fucking seen it, dig? I know it's there. You want to bury the fucking bone just like every other dog.” Where does he get these sayings that are below even cliché? “When you see a serious piece of ass on the street, you're thinking what every other guy is thinking: How can I get inside that? I know it, man. Dig it! I can see the look. You're a fucking predator. You just need to embrace it, man.” The drinks arrive. I notice that people are once again staring. The bartender makes no attempt to conceal her incredulous grin. “So how was it?”
“How was what?”
“What? Are fucking serious? How did that pussy taste?”
“Can you believe that guy?”
“He's fucking disgusting.”
“I know, it's like, seriously, we're not in college anymore.”
“Yeah, he's like fucking gross. He's like some fratty hipster, who…”
“Tomas, look, I'm not—”
“Yeah, yeah, you're not one to kiss and tell. I'm sure. Tell you what, let's you and me get all liquored up, and then we'll see how true you hold to that.” He picks up his shot glass, clinks it against mine, and then flips the liquor into his mouth in one quick motion. He closes his eyes slowly, almost gurgling the viscous booze as it makes its way down his throat. The shot glass is clumsily placed back on the bar, where it falters for a few seconds before becoming stable. “I'm guessing she pulled some Kama Sutra shit, huh? C'mon, you can fucking tell me. Was she a slapper? You know, not in the face so much, but that shit can be fucking hot, right? Did she like getting her hair pulled? They all love that shit, but you gotta' be a little sneaky about it at first. You know, you can't just go in like you're ripping fucking carrots out of the ground or some shit—you gotta go high and tight, you gotta have some fucking finesse, dig?”
“You're serious?”
“Of course I'm serious. You're the one who's being supererogatory.” I am? “All I really want to know, though, is whether or not you're going to blow that shit out again. You're gonna slap them titties around again, right?”
“Tomas, I don't—”
“Are you going to fuck her again?” he yells with his eyes to the ceiling. Yes, hi, I see you. Please stare some more. This isn't fucking embarrassing enough. “Please tell me,” he exhausts, “because I'm fucking dying to know.”
“I don't know,” slowly. “It's too early to tell.”
“Yeah buddy,” he laughs, “You're totally gonna hit that shit again. Just don't go for the anal until a few weeks in. Trust me, they never go for it initially…unless they're down with that shit to begin with.” He nods ponderously. “Down with the brown,” he adds absently.
“You're a fucking pig,” one of the nearby girls finally says. She walks away.
“And to think,” meditatively, “I didn't even get started on the pink sock.”
Maybe it's that I'm more sober than normal, but Tomas seems like that guy at the bar. We all know that guy—there's no need to elaborate. The majority of the people in close proximity are giving him less than furtive glances, tacit in their acceptance of what the drinks in front of them can do to anyone over an extended period of time. A song by the Sea and Cake attempts to overcome the cacophony.
There's a pale-faced man at the bar. Fish-faced, too. He's bloated, discernibly agitated, sporting a leather jacket scarred by a life of payday loans and drug addiction. He looks to Tomas. “You look like you've had enough, champ.” He looks to me. The word “aquiline” pops into my head, but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't apply. “You can take down whatever he's got left, right? You look like you know how to handle the sauce.” He's local, but it's not so pronounced as to make you think him the type who remains in the area because he's incapable of leaving. He's intelligent, but, unfortunately, misguided.
“He's not fucking touching shit, man,” Tomas explodes. “I paid for that shit, and I'm fucking drinking it.” He grabs the pint off the bar, almost falls over,
and then takes off towards Aberdeen. James' can of beer remains unordered. My shot glass remains on the table, perhaps thinking whatever it is inanimate objects think about before they remain inanimate.
“You know'm or is he just some drunk asshole talking your ear off?”
“He's a friend.”
“He do this type of shit often?”
“Usually he's not this bad. I guess he's had a bit too much tonight.”
He shrugs. “He seems like a horsefucker to me. Probably from a long line of horsefuckers. Equestrian,” he adds casually.
“I couldn't comment.”
He laughs glacially, takes down the last of his beer, and then retakes his anonymity among the people in the bar. As he disappears from sight, my attention turns to the girl next to me. She is alone and eagerly awaiting the bartender. “Do you want to buy a shot off me?”
“What did you put in it?”
“What? Nothing. I just don't want it.” She squints. “My friend bought it for me.”
“I'll pass.” She turns away.
I'm left to ponder at this altar of Dionysus. It's a familiar situation, which I suppose is kind of pathetic. I am a connoisseur of lonely moments. It has given me ample time to reflect upon and appreciate the distinctions of each bar I've visited. This is the first place I've been to in a while where most of the bottles behind the bar have been placed in front of neon lights, making the liquor inside appear phosphorescent. It's not an antiquated look by any means, but the apex of the trend subsided some time ago. True to any trendy place in Brooklyn, however, the bar has been lined with a number of small, white candles that have been placed in dram glasses. The majority of the wicks stand at cold attention, barren like dead trees. The bartender is clearly too busy to bother relighting them, and the hectic environment seems to bring out an earnest disposition that would still be pretty prominent even if the place was dead. Her candor strikes me as somewhat abnormal for an individual partial to the hipster genre of fashion. She sports a Mod-Rock haircut, a mangled shirt featuring the name of a band from the late-seventies, pink dance pants, and a ragged pair of Converse All-Stars. She has no time for small-talk, she says, even if it is referred to as “chit-chat.” She accentuates the “ch-” to such a degree that it makes her look like a rabbit nibbling on a carrot. When a twenty-something man asks her what she recommends, she lets him know, in a less than implicit manner, that it's incredibly selfish to try to flirt with someone who has several customers to appease in a very limited amount of time. She adds that his act is pathetic, that his spurious androgyny is offensive to people who are actually gay, and that he should spend more time reading books as opposed to websites dedicated to Andy Warhol—who she refers to as “That fucking snake-oil salesmen, who ruined art.” When she brings him a PBR, she tells him it's the “House special.” She adds, “Drink up and shut up.” She does not receive a tip from him, but the next two patronesses dig deep.