THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

  I have no idea how old she is, but I would guess that she is either young and from the city or a bit older and from somewhere else. Obvious, I know. There is a certain lack of patience in her voice that is, again, earnest. She is a bartender; bartender is an occupation; an occupation is an activity that one does for money, not for fun; hence, “Shit or get off the pot, bud; I don't have time to dillydally here.” True, customer service requires a certain amount of obsequence—even if it is more often than not feigned, if not hostilely sardonic—, but this is not a venue for punctilios and grace; this is just a place to get drunk. The music begins to fade. The Sheeps are to begin soon.

  “Do you want this?” I ask her.

  “What?”

  “This shot. Do you want it?”

  She takes it down without much in terms of restraint, and then relays that the next drink is on the house. I ask for Aberdeen's can of beer. “Oh,” she adds as she cracks the top, “Don't let me see your friend trying to buy anything, otherwise I'm getting security to throw his ass out.”

  “There's security here?”

  “Why you gotta be such a wise ass, huh?”

  I exhaust slowly. “Has he been a problem all night?”

  “No, but I don't want to lose business on account of his shit. Just keep an eye on him, 'kay.”

  Before I can assent, I learn that Barazov uses a double bass pedal.

  It's autumn. The leaves have yet to take on the warm, moribund hues of the season, yet the scent in the air is one of stoic anticipation for the rites of the coming chill. The breeze off the East River is serene, no longer suffuse with the stench of putrefied waste. These are the halcyon moments, the transitional days that carry us from era to era, the threads that keep so many patches of memory from falling into famished disuse. The cement exhales the last of the sun's warmth as the western sky grows velveteen with plush clouds and the fading light of sunset—irrational contours and miasmal layers of color. In the summer, the distinctions seem more vivid, even if the rest of the day seems to bleed together.

  “If nothing is true, everything is permissible.” It's a man's voice. His words are addressed to me. It's difficult to place his age, though I am certain that he is significantly older than me. His intonation is strenuous, as though each syllable is given a special gravity before it is articulated. To call it calculated would perhaps be more accurate, as his presence radiates a certain erudition that would hold misplaced pauses and other gratuities of speech in contempt. Then again, I have always had a compulsion to refrain from calling people calculated, as I feel the word implies something nefarious.

  I am walking with this person, but I do not know who he is. He clearly knows who I am, knows the pace at which I walk, the manner in which I conduct myself. I would like to compare conversing with him to playing a game of chess with God, but this is certainly impossible, as one cannot play a game against a being with knowledge of all the moves that can be made. Perhaps He does not know what you will do, but He knows all that you can do; and He knows all of the potential consequents of any of those actions, and all of the potential consequents of all of the originally potential consequents, which are now antecedents, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. So maybe we have free will; it's just that He knows all, both truth and falsity, and that these two concepts lack definition until future becomes present, present recedes into the past. But then God ceases to be outside of time, no? How then can He be omnipresent?

  I cannot remember from where the two of us departed, nor can I recall just how many steps we have taken. I only know that we have traversed a great deal of space and time, that his steady gait has yet to diminish in its sense of urgency.

  “I thought it was: If nothing is true, then everything is possible.”

  “Such a proposition is absurd—a self-contradictory statement. Beyond asserting that the non-true can possibly be true, and that the true can possibly be not-true, it allows all things to be possible not only in the future, but in the present, as well. This cannot be the case. Possibility is not a concern of the present. The future is the realm of possibility, potentiality: What will be, what will not be. The past is what was. The present is what is. These are definitions.”

  “I understand this.”

  “What is cannot both be and not-be. The present is determined by its composites, and its composites are; they do not reside in the realm of memory, potentiality, or negation.”

  We continue walking, the sun static in the sky and the fragrance of grass and car exhaust mingling together in the doldrums of the evening.

  “If everything is permissible, does nothing fall into this realm, this realm of permissibility?”

  “I don't understand you.”

  “What do you not understand?”

  “How can nothing be something?”

  “That is my question to you.”

  “Wouldn't that negate the rest of the statement? If nothing is accepted, then everything is negated; and yet nothing is part of everything. You speak in paradoxes.”

  “No, I am just introducing a proposition that you must rethink in order to understand.”

  “Is this your way of telling me that nothing is permissible?”

  “Possibly.”

  “…”

  “You clearly do not understand the gravity of these statements. You are like a judge unfamiliar with the law. Set aside your gavel. Become but a witness. You will learn far more, thereby making you less ignorant. I believe we will both agree that being less ignorant is a positive thing, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are not a judge. Recognize your ignorance so that you may come to accept it. Accept it so that you may work to overcome it. Work to overcome it because being less ignorant is a positive thing.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you are ignorant.”

  “I understand that.”

  “This is a baby step towards a big-boy step.”

  We continue walking, upon a sidewalk lined with brittle-leafed trees that rustle like paper, among faceless day-laborers and their kids, unicyclists, new couples proudly taking the walk of shame hand in hand, people I think I recognize but have never met. A park expands in either direction, in all directions. It is a park, too. While I may not be able to see its limits, I know that it is confined, that a fence has been thrown up somewhere, and that this environment is somehow bereft of the variables of urban life. And yet it is not the superficiality of suburbia. Its fecund verdancy has been prepared; it has been planned, but it has not been subjected to anything more imperious than a few green thumbs.

  “How does a judge come to be a judge?” he asks.

  “I don't know.”

  “How does he establish himself to be a capable judge? Does he simply pass a test with a series of essays and, perhaps, a multiple choice section?”

  “No.”

  “Does he demonstrate his abilities? Is judgment demonstrative?”

  “Yes.”

  “To whom must man demonstrate his judgment?”

  “People.”

  “His peers?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does his judgment represent?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is not his judgment founded upon something?”

  “I guess.”

  “What does a judge's judgment reflect? Surely his knowledge must be more arcane than simple phronesis. It must be knowledge of something.”

  “The law?”

  “Is that all?”

  “…”

  “What is the law supposed to represent?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Justice, perhaps?”

  “…”

  “Would I be correct in asserting that a judge must know the law? Would I present a fallacy if I were to state that a judge can only operate within the framework of law?”

  “No.”

  “If there is a law, then must there be a judge to affirm or deny that the subjects of
this law have acted in accordance with or trespassed against it?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “So a judge is sufficient for law. Now, a law cannot be said to be a law if it is impossible for one to transcend it. On the other hand, a law cannot be said to be a law if it is universally observed without penalty. These postulates are entailed by the definition of law, correct?”

  “Law entails freedom, in other words.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. But here is the more important question: Is it possible for there to be a judge without law?”

  “No.”

  “So the two, judge and law, are linked biconditionally: One is sufficient for the other.”

  “This seems to be so.”

  “But if everything or nothing is permissible, can one say there is a series of laws, let alone one? Isn't it the case that a law is a restriction on the permissibility of an action? Isn't it the case that a system of laws is a series of restrictions on the permissibility of actions?

  “If there is a Law, then nothing or everything is no longer permissible.”

  “So there is no Law.”

  “And there are no judges.”

  “There is no Judge.”

  “If nothing or everything is permissible.”

  “…”

  “Do you understand the gravity of this statement?”

  “I believe I do.”

  We continue walking.

  “God's Grace is meant to deliver reason to faith,” he says after a while. “Yet we agree that there can be no Grace if the gavel rests silently upon the bench. And if there can be no Grace, then there certainly cannot be a God of justice. How do we confront this situation? It seems as though we are left only with the options of acquiescing to faith we know to be based upon an incomprehensible and bizarre Justice, or proclaiming all or nothing—either we are not subject to Law because it is impossible to transcend it or there is no Law to transcend. In all of these cases, we are left with an absurd conclusion, but the latter two cases concern me the most. You do know why that is, correct?”

  “Because either nothing is permissible or everything is permissible.”

  “A parrot is a wonderful pet, but a very poor pupil.” He is silent for a moment. “Do you believe nothing to be permissible or do you believe everything to be permissible?”

  “Everything.”

  “Does this not leave man alone in the universe?”

  “Alone but for his peers.”

  “Can this absence of transcendence admit a reason for existence?”

  “I don't see how it can.”

  “Is there a reason for man's solitude or his life if existence itself has no meaning?”

  “No.”

  “Do you consider a man to be a rebel if the antagonist against whom he rebels does not exist?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a point to rebelling if this rebellion is against nothing?”

  “No.”

  “So a man who has not only cast doubt in, but has rejected the authority of Law on the grounds that it does not exist—what does he have left?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And yet he remains. What, then, does this man have?”

  “He has his life.”

  “What is he to do with it? Mankind has always presumed existence to be linked with purpose. And yet this seems to be a fallacy. For what is he to strive?”

  “I don't know.”

  ”Should he maintain his integrity?”

  “Why bother if nothing has meaning?”

  “So suicide, homicide, genocide…all of these are permissible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should they be permissible?”

  “If one cannot think of 'ought's, how can one speak of 'should's?”

  “By what, then, can man abide?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Do you recognize the similarity between the words 'suffer' and 'suffrage'?”

  “I guess. They don't mean the same thing, though.”

  “To a man or a woman, an adult, they very often do.”

  “…”

  “Is this troubling to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you understand how this relates to all things being permissible?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see that you have freedom. You know that you ought to approach the situation, not with timidity or criminality, but with joy and creative will—with integrity. As opposed to abnegating his responsibility, seeing it only as cumbersome, man must establish the conditions for law, for happiness, for both himself and his peers. And it is in his freedom that he creates it; and it is only with his integrity that he can remain subject to it, to justice. If everything is permissible, only man can create and enforce his limitations, which he must do because the only thing in which he can take recourse is his integrity.”

  “This sounds like an impossible task.”

  “But will you walk with those who have borne this responsibility, not as their subordinate, but as their equal?”

  “I will.”

  “Then you will walk among the eidolons.”

  15.3

  “Hey, wake up. We're home. Help me with Tomas.”

  16

  “Porky.” What the hell does that mean?

  Toilets are not particularly well known for their comfort, and the one upon which I find myself is no exception. Tomas is supine in the tub, his eyes shielded from the painfully bright lights of the vanity mirror with a washcloth. The washcloth is cream colored and stained in a number of places with a rust colored substance that is probably dried blood. Hopefully dried blood. He breathes with effort. They are shallow breaths, truncated as if his diaphragm has been punctured.

  “The Novel of the Future.” How come I never know the literature references?

  The time is four in the morning. Perhaps a little later. I can't tell if it's still drizzling outside because there are no windows in here, which is something of a common feature in loft bathrooms. Still, I can feel the moisture in the air, and the smell of wet cement faintly saturates the whole apartment with a comforting aroma. Aberdeen has gone to sleep. He stayed up for one beer once we returned to their place. He ate an apple with cinnamon. He would sprinkle it on the flesh of the fruit right where he planned to bite. My father used to do the same, only with salt.

  Aberdeen candidly spoke of Tomas, as he, Tomas, passed out pretty quickly after being transported from the cab to the tub. Aberdeen seems to think that Tomas' drinking problem has exacerbated since the publication of his book. On the plus side, with the exception of a few hours ago, he hasn't purchased a bag of cocaine in over a week, which is apparently the longest Tomas has gone without doing so in a number of months. He adds that Tomas knows that I look down upon those who use the drug (and I do). “He doesn't want to disappoint you. Kind of funny, right? I don't mean to sound silly, but he really values your opinion.” I asked if there is a history of alcohol abuse in Tomas' family, and received a hesitant and circumlocutionary response that I easily distilled down to a very potent yes. Tomas' grandfather, known only as the Czech, poisoned himself by drinking his less-than-loving wife's perfume. While the act certainly could have been taken as a mad and operatic gesture (if it were, say, a Russian short-story from the fin de siècle), the truth of the matter was that the Czech was only thinking about the fact that perfume is on par with moonshine in terms of alcohol content. So the romantic element was the accidental in the story—the Czech just needed a fix, and it ended up costing him his life. He was forty-two.

  Tomas never had the opportunity to meet the Czech; he only observed the man's legacy by witnessing his mother's behavior, which was predictably antipodal to that of her father. She was open with her rancor, as she had seen her mother widowed while still in adolescence. And while she may have been more than willing to express her rage and bitterness over the events that transpired, she evenly distributed the blame. She resented her mother for being a frigid authoritarian, and d
espised her father for his lack of will power. He was a rather miserable man, too: Chronically unemployed, perhaps even unemployable; stubborn when it didn't matter, passive when it did. Aberdeen could not remember if the Czech had fallen from grace, if he was simply harboring at rock bottom, or if he had always been there, a permanent fixture, a pitiful yardstick by which the rest of the community could measure their good fortune.

  So she had to overcompensate for their failures—what came as a consequence of the joyless tyranny of the mother, the gluttonous lassitude of the father. She was an odd amalgam of refined comportment and liberalism, a woman for whom civility was sacrosanct. She granted freedoms, but only did so because she was under the impression that such freedoms would never be utilized or expressed. And Tomas did not disappoint so long as he lived in her home (and it was her home; the man who had knocked her up was removed from history, just like Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera). He was never much of a drinker, never much of a party-goer, never much of a lady's man in high school. He was more or less a nonentity, a bulb in a strand of lights upon a grandmother's Christmas tree—one that finds its home in the corner of the basement; one that is covered by an ugly blanket and left idle except for that one day out of the year when it was revealed and illuminated for the whole family as they gather in the unfinished basement that may have been able to fit one generation, but not two, and certainly not three; one that could have featured any number of burned out bulbs, but no one really knew or paid any attention to the tree, just as no one bothers examining the smiles of hockey players while the puck is in play. Even during college he rarely came out of his shell. He had one girlfriend during that time (the bulimic), and she was just about the only entry that he could have put on his sexual resume with the exception of one ephemeral relationship during high school, which never went further than a few sloppy hand-jobs and one or two bare-titted grope sessions, and the girl to whom he had lost his virginity while visiting Brown during his senior year of high school. She had no name, barely a face. Aberdeen is fairly sure that the event took place at a fraternity party (though I can't imagine a place like Brown having fraternities), but can't say with complete certainty because Tomas refuses to speak of the incident in much detail. Tomas evidently still considers himself a college student, which is why, Aberdeen believes, he has taken such a shine to me. “He's typically very confrontational and disdainful of men with whom he is not familiar.” He walked away shortly after saying this, evidently to take a call from Lindsay. A few minutes later he returned to inform me that she had gone to her boyfriend's apartment. He then went to bed.