THE WALLS

by Jay Fox

IDONTCARE fits. Let's go with that.

  Vinati has not called. I have not called her in some time. Events transpired rapidly once the Sheeps began their set. The first song, a heavy, fifth-ridden march with the refrain, “All I know of love, I learned from you,” was a vicous attack against the father(s) of the lyricist(s), who was evidently a piece of shit. Standard issue in this day and age, but not quite up to the standard set by Death Cab for Cutie's “Styrofoam Plates.” Most of the other songs were filled with equal parts angst and rancor, an exhibition of how Punk Gründlichkeit knows what it wants to say, and says it without things like melody or something as faggy as a major seventh getting in the way. I cannot say this for all the songs, unfortunately. Tomas left for the bathroom during the fifth song in the set. He evidently ran into one of the barbacks there, who emerged from the encounter with a generous helping of vomit on his pants. Suffice to say, we didn't get the chance to see the Sheeps' sixth song, though we did manage to get Tomas out of the bathroom—which probably featured a Coprolalia, though I cannot confirm this—before the bouncer injured anything besides Tomas' pride.

  Eight down has to be ORE. One across has to be a simile. Yeah, that's the only way that S can make any sense. Let's see…AS-A-blank-O-blank. Porky. Pig. Hog. FATASAHOG.

  Tomas spent no more than a minute in a headlock after he exorcised some of the more mischievous demons for which his stomach had served as residence. The bouncer begrudgingly released him once Aberdeen and I offered to see him out. As we carried his dead weight through the narrow bar that stood between the Sheeps and the street I ran into someone I had met on Smith Street. He and his girlfriend came outside with us. He said his name was Rob. I vaguely remembered him until I took a good look at his girlfriend, Samantha, who had perfect eyebrows. He told us that he and his band had the next slot (a quick look to the chalkboard out front of the venue told me that his band’s name was the Ribs), but understood that we were not going to be able to stay. Tomas said something perverted to his girlfriend, which luckily resulted in a good laugh. Aberdeen groaned. “Did you get the chance to check out our myspace page?” he asked as a cab pulled up on the curb. I replied in the negative, apologized, and then said I'd try to see their next show. “We're playing her again next Tuesday,” he yelled as the door slammed shut. “Oh,” as the window came down, “And we're looking for a new bass player. You mentioned you played.” I nodded. “Yeah, our guy right now just found out that he's moving to Boston in a few weeks, so we kind of need to find someone kind of soon. I don't know, man. If you dig our stuff, you should send me an email. It’s on our myspace page.”

  That's KEISTER, which means that this is FINK. 'Fink' is a bit of a stretch. How the hell did Aberdeen get ACREAGE without any letters? That makes seven down HAIRDO. So habits are picked up at NUNNERIES. Clever, Shortz.

  And so this is where I find myself. I am gazing upon one of the rising stars of the art world, who has drunk himself into moribundity. I'm slightly buzzed, smoking even though I could have counted the number of cigarettes I had had in my lifetime on my fingers and toes three weeks ago, and completely wide awake because Aberdeen gave me half an Aderol and fifty bucks to watch Tomas until five in the morning (an arbitrary hour, true, but one upon which Aberdeen insisted). He also gave me his pack of Luckies, a book of La Rochefoucauld maxims, last week's Onion, a book of Brassai photographs, and a nearly blank crossword puzzle from last Saturday to keep me occupied. I am even welcome to take all of the beer I want from the fridge, which has been recently stocked with a twelve-pack of Newcastle, a twelve-pack of Amstel, a bottle of Delirium (a temptress that attempts to seduce me every time I open the refrigerator), and several sixers—Ipswich (which I didn't know was sold outside of Boston) and Radeberger, to name two. At present I am drinking a Newcastle, avoiding the desire to over-analyze the particularly lucid dream from two hours ago, and trying to come up with some new approach to this whole Coprolalia thing—between attempts at the puzzle, of course.

  Twenty-one across is clearly SADDEN. What the hell could twenty-two down be? Is it Latin? Rob worked in the courthouse, I remember now. Maybe he'd know. Maybe I should save this puzzle until next Tuesday. It'll be a nice segue after we joke about Tomas.

  Jeff may be right about my incentives. I am beginning to feel as though I am simply denying the future by refusing to step out of the past. I went to college without any real idea as to what I wanted to do. I figured something would work itself out. It would just click—I'd realize that there was some small, niche occupation for a person like myself that I had been ignorant of, I'd get the job, and then I'd work there for a time until whatever band I was in took off. That, or maybe I'd just stay in school even if it seems useless to dedicate one's life to writing esoteric treatises on novels or poems, to ignore the rawness of art, to end up contriving theses based on discourse in terms of sexuality or class in an era by which we are divorced by several generations. I never could stomach the idea of writing elegies for culture while ignoring the fact that I, as an academic, should be the one creating and propelling culture. Worse, I can't imagine spending my life putting words into the mouths of dead men. Then again, I haven't had much luck realizing that niche that I presumed would be there waiting for me. Even worse, I never found a band that was capable of writing music deserving of a serious record contract (I, of course, share this blame). In fact, I have learned that I am so much like every other kid who has moved to this city to make it. We're no different than the lottery junkies; we're just more self-righteous because we believe ourselves to be endowed with some type of unique, intellectual gift that will ultimately allow us to egress from the less-than-illustrious world of full-time employment. Some call us lazy, some quixotic, some delusional. Some people blame us for the end of the American Empire. Some say, correctly, that we don't value hard work, that we are so rigidly independent that we refuse to take on careers—we only take on jobs because our real ambitions are going to one day land us on the cover of Rolling Stone or People. Yes, it's all tentative. Corporations don't offer lifetime employment any longer, and we don't want it anymore. The Marxist clichés hide the fact that we could never survive in a socialist state because we pride ourselves as either artists who ought to be financed by the state or intellectuals who should be granted entry into the politburo. No, we are not Marxists because there is no such thing as post-industrial communism. It cannot exist, and we cannot imagine ourselves outside of the post-industrial paradigm. We, the so-called Creative Class, are nothing more than a byproduct of the vanity and self-absorption of the sixties, the petulant cynicism of the seventies, the greed and blind optimism of the eighties, and the corporate individualism of the nineties. We demand not only the right to be heard, but the right to have someone broadcast this message for us.

  Okay, I need a break from the puzzle. I've been through the Brassai. I've read every article in the Onion. Twice. Let's see what this La Rochefoucauld fellow has to say. Maxim 391: “Fortune seems never so blind as to those on whom she has nothing to bestow.” Why the hell is Fortune personified as a woman? Honestly. Does it sound better in French? Everything does, doesn't it? It also looks more elegant, but seems contrived when English-speaking authors just kind of throw it out there. There are exceptions. “Coup de grâce” is far superior to “mercy kill,” but I personally like “savage capitalism” better than “capitalisme sauvage.” Latin is even better. Latin gives everything a kind of mystical authority. Regardless, the maxim is fitting, given the circumstances.

  It's difficult to maintain the will to continue, especially since I've exhausted all of my money and betrayed my parents for the sake of a vain dream that's rooted in all of those generational attributes for which I have so much contempt. I don't even think about discovering Coprolalia any longer. Not really. I think of the bars that I will visit, that I may see something done by him. I think of the faces that blur into a mélange of colors and shapes that dissolve into moments of weak light—Monet-like—both harrowing and beautiful. These faces,
these anonymous fragments of life, glow in the sallow hues of each pub's incandescent flambeaux. I am there with them: another face amidst another crowd of old white men attempting to deny the fourth dimension. I enter into the bathrooms, these rooms dedicated to the removal of waste, and study cryptograms that others regard without serious interest, that others see but don't comprehend or even remember. I feel as though I am beginning to fall in line with them, that I have lost the ability to appreciate what was once so unique and earnest. He, Coprolalia, Mordecai, has become Meal Ticket. He is just a means. Maybe he always was, even if I was at one point so adamant in my denial of this.

  I don't think of how I will find him, of what happens if I do. I don't think about writing the manuscript. This is secondary—the words will just materialize on the page. I think of what happens after all of this: of life's clemency after the publication, of the dreadful future awaiting me if this never comes to pass. I can't imagine working at a coffee shop for the rest of my life. I can't imagine working in a kitchen, either. That was far worse than the coffee shop, where I was surrounded by guys who were in their thirties and forties who couldn’t accept their lot in life, yet seemed oddly accustomed to serving lattes to yuppies. The kitchen workers were more malevolent. Their only means of exhausting their resentment lay in farting on the crab bisque of a finicky customer or complaining about how worthless the husband or wife is. They would refer to different kids without names, just adjectives (“the good one” or “the independent one” or “the stupid one” or “the other one”). Most conversations revolved around television shows and the lives of celebrities. They were envious, sometimes bitter and spiteful. Those who were almost criminal in their jealousy would constantly discuss their plans once they struck it rich. And that was the most difficult to endure. That was when I felt as though I was hearing the Swan Song of the American Empire, the chorus a throng of peasant Mammonites. Yes, when they struck it rich—as if they could simply tap the earth with a pickax to unleash a geyser of riches. It is a familiar version of American Dream, the one in which becoming wealthy is accomplished by doing virtually nothing. They wanted to win the lottery. They wanted to become various types of personages (actors, singers, rock stars, rappers). They wanted to have a great idea (“A million-dollar idea”). They wanted to have a great idea! How does one have a great idea? One reads. One studies. One thinks. One does not pontificate to a room full of kitchen workers or fatten the wallet of a charlatan posing as a man of God (who would not only mock the austerity of Christ, but probably order Him crucified for assaulting several moneychangers). And yet these were considered credible paths to success. They did not read. They did not think. They did not invent. They did not write songs or lyrics or even learn to play instruments. Sometimes they didn't even make it to the store to “play their numbers.” It was this form of complacency—not entirely complacency, of course, but simply the lack of urgency, the lack of effort—coupled with their outrage over the fact that nothing good ever happens to them, that made me realize just how disgusting it is to see an adult expect to be catered to by fortune, chance, the entirety of the human race. This was the denial of reality for the sake of a potential world that exists virtually at the asymptote of probability. This was middle-age America living on minimum-wage.

  Who would be able to translate the French into English? I guess the English back into French. Patrick translated whoever that one poet was from Latin to English. Maybe he knows whether or not that Commodus thing Coprolalia did is a turn of phrase. The guy knows Swahili for fuck's sake. Wait, he said Kiswahili. Maybe it's a dialect. Maybe it's how the Swahili people refer to themselves or their language…what's that word again? Is it an endonym? Is this “Echoes?” I haven't heard this song in years. The last time was probably in Kevin's basement after we tripped in the park. I can't imagine listening to this while peaking. Jesus, that was almost three years ago. Time flies. What was I just thinking about? Oh yeah: Patrick. He certainly knows French.

  But who says that an occupation has to be like that? Just because there are so many unhappy people out there doesn't mean, necessarily, that every hour between nine and five must be tedious and draining. After all, this search has proven to be more draining than I would have assumed, but I have enjoyed just about all of it even if I have nothing to show for it, save a shaky friendship with Aberdeen and Tomas. I may have become an alcoholic in this time, too. In all honesty, the only positive aspect of the situation concerns Vinati, though the relationship between the two of us seems far more ambiguous than it did a few hours ago.

  Maxim 571: “When you cannot find your peace in yourself it is useless to look for it elsewhere.” Story of my fucking life. Is he breathing? There we go. Keep it up, Tom. Maxim 572: “We are never as unhappy as we think, nor as happy as we had hope.” Well that's a pretty dour sentiment.

  I have met people who are content with their jobs. Maybe even happy. This is not just over the past few weeks, but throughout my life. They find their calling. They find love. And yet so much of this is phony, and I guess I always knew that. So many seem fulfilled on every level until they get to the bar, to the point of inebriation where they become fountains of grievances. Is it because the alcohol causes them to renege on their forfeiture, their forfeiture of that vain belief that they are entitled to something more? Or is it far more superficial than that? Does the alcohol just reveal that they have been feigning all along, and that they have learned only to wait, to endure?

  What if Sean was right about Mordecai not being Coprolalia? I guess I have to entertain that possibility. Still, who else could it be? Patrick…. Patrick was a poet. Could he be Coprolalia? No, it wouldn't make any sense. He drew too much attention to himself. I can't imagine him being quiet enough to evade the notice of someone. People remember him. Those women at the bar were ready to jump on him like a fucking trampoline. And I don't think their husbands would have minded all that much, either. He's just too much of an extrovert. Someone, somewhere, would have put the pieces together. And it's not like he had big ears, let alone a Brooklyn accent.

  I thought I was satisfied with Connie. I did. Even during the Animosity, I took the incessant fighting to be normal. To a certain degree, I still do. All relationships have their troubles, their fights. It would be incredibly juvenile to assume that monogamy can exist without jealousy, without some amount of frustration, without some display of frailty on the part of both parties. And it's the last part that both creates the problems and allows everything to work. It's what allows the relationship to flourish as opposed to remaining just an insouciant association between two subjects. You make yourself vulnerable. That's why everything becomes so polarized—the highs and the lows. Especially the lows. They know you too well—because you haven't lived without them for so long that losing them can occasionally appear refreshing, but still, even in the bitterest turmoil, impossible. It seems that this type of love can only exist when one abandons all pretenses and all boundaries.

  If Patrick is Coprolalia, then I can't believe anything that he told me. It would mean that the A-R-E doesn't exist, that all of those people there that night were participating in a prank. But that would require too much time, too much energy. It would have to involve hundreds of people, months of planning. If it were so, the A-R-E would have to be nothing more than a joke. The JOKE.

  This is why people cannot love the world.

  It's all on me, isn't it? It's not that intricate of a plot. Someone owns a loft, they throw a party, and they just need to not let on when they talk with me. Patrick, Daphne and Willis were the only ones who really said anything about Coprolalia. And they just led me to one another—Patrick to Daphne, Daphne to Willis. No. There's no way they would simply decide to do something so elaborate just because they noticed a post on Craigslist. Which was Tomas' idea. Could he be involved in it, too? Yes, he could. That random woman from the bar down the block just happened to be there a second time, and we ended up there because of Tomas. She was there because Tomas told
her to be there. She even went out of her way to mention Mordecai's derision of an article on Coprolalia. And I was to assume that it had been written by Sean. She knew that would happen. It was meant to appear coincidental. From Tomas to Patrick, from Patrick to Daphne, from Daphne to Willis. Esther was there only to corroborate. They were all there to corroborate, all of the people claiming to be members of the A-R-E. And why were they all involved? Because they are all Coprolalia. That's why no one can verify what he looks like. He is really They. It's one big prank that's been set up to…what would the reason be?

  This is why people cannot love their fate.

  Sean has to be the mastermind. Think about it. He's the leading expert. He's made a name for himself by writing all of that bullshit on Coprolalia. He's tenured at a top university. He's about to publish the definitive volume on Coprolalia. It will end up in hundreds of thousands of homes. It will make him a fucking millionaire. Every asshole hipster will have to have one. Anyone overcome by nostalgia for the former grittiness of the city will have to have one. All Sean had to do was hire out a few artists, remain patient, and create a buzz. He probably commissioned all of those pieces. That's how he knows about them. This has all been one scheme almost fifteen years in the making. Even worse, I have no real part in it. This is not a plot that required some naïve fool in order to set it into motion. There was no step blessed by Até, no one tragic blunder in which confidence betrays judgment. No, I am an accident—I was never considered. I am nothing. And no one will believe what I have to say because all of my evidence relies on the testimonies of those who have colluded with Sean.

  Tomas stirs. His head turns as though he is addressing me, but I cannot tell if his eyes are open, as the washcloth still covers roughly half of his face. “You don't want the eggplant, do you?”

  Vulnerability.

  “Wake up, Tomas.”