THE WALLS
Page 64
Faxo takes a small sip from the dram glass. He stares to it for a long time. “It could have been anyone.”
“I know.”
“It could have been anybody. The only thing that mattered was being in that place at that time. And that's what's so heavy. It could have been anybody, but it had to be him.”
Someone once said—or, if they haven't said it yet, someone will eventually say—that all eloquence is pain. It's true, but it's conditional. It speaks of pain that's been digested and ruminated upon, even if only for a short time. The initial pain, however, deprives eloquence of its wealth and rotundity. And if this eloquence is to be considered poor, then Faxo is in poverty.
20
“This is not an article about Coprolalia; this is a fucking elegy,” Sean says over the phone.
“What?”
“What you sent me. This is utter nonsense. What were you thinking? What are you thinking?”
The clock reads Sanskrit. “What time is it?”
“Are you drunk?”
“What?”
“You're drunk. It's nine in the morning, and you're drunk.”
“No, you just woke me up. What the hell are you so pissed off about?”
“What am I so pissed off about? What am I so pissed off about? You have to be fucking kidding me.” He takes a long drag. “Your article makes me out to be an elitist and a charlatan. Are you trying to undermine everything that I've said and done for the past fucking decade?”
“It's not that—”
“Then what, huh? What is it?”
“It's that you were looking at each piece. It's not—”
“Oh, yes, it's about the context.” Frustrated sigh. “This is simply too much. And the epitaph, which reads…let me see…ah yes: 'It is not that I would forbid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting, such as may be expressed not in some foreign substance, or by the help of art, but in our own lives'. What type of pretentious shit is this?”
“It's Tacitus.”
“I know it's fucking Tacitus,” with jackhammer enunciation. “But Tacitus? Really? And not just Tacitus; no, it’s some fucking obscure, Victorian translation. You honestly expect me to believe that some random Jew from Midwood has Tacitus written on his tombstone?”
“If you knew his father, you would.”
“Oh, yes, the deli owner: a peddler of porn, cigarettes, and beer just loves his fucking Tacitus. What? Is he a retired philologist?” He lights another cigarette.
“Well, actually he kind of is.”
Another sigh. “This is pathetic.”
“Why is this pathetic?”
“For one, you completely dismissed the fact that at least three new Coprolalia exhibits have appeared in the past week and a half. The first is a reference to Midas in some shithole down in Red Hook. It was the same bar I told you to examine, and yet you managed to miss one of the most obvious examples of Coprolalia's wit that I've ever seen. The second is a portion of a haiku recently discovered in Park Slope. Finally…” He takes a long drag. “You think this is funny?”
“Actually, yeah, it's pretty amusing.”
“And why is that?”
“You were about to tell me about the piece called Et In Arcadia Ego. I already know about that one.”
“So you've been reading my blog?”
“No.”
Caesura.
“Furthermore, the Midas thing in what you call a shithole is actually a reference to one of the regulars there. And finally, the haiku, provided it's the one that appeared on a toilet, is the work of none other than Tomas and James.” I light a cigarette of my own. “And sorry for erasing it. I guess I should have let it dry.”
Caesura.
“Hello? Sean, you still there.”
“You little motherfucker.”
“Excuse me?”
“So you weren't looking to find him at all. You just wanted to learn his style so you could duplicate it. Yes, and you want people to believe he's dead because you want to take credit for everything that both he and you do from now on—”
“Wait a minute, Sean. That doesn't make any sense at all. I was only after the truth.”
“You do realize that what you said could potentially ruin my reputation and my career. If anyone takes this shit seriously, I’m out of a job.”
“I'm fully aware of that.”
“After what I did for you?”
“You didn't really do much of anything, Sean.”
“It won't be published in the magazine.” This is not a guess. “It's my word against yours.”
“It is.”
Caesura.
“So what will you do with this…this abomination?”
“I'll probably shop it around some.”
“You do know that I will deny everything you say?”
“Yes, I figured that. I'm not that worried about it anymore.”
“The Rubicon is not a shallow river.”
“Let the die be cast.”
Epilogue
Union Square is always a problematic meeting place. It is large, filled with landmarks, pedestrians, protesters, canvassers, skateboarders, lunatics—the typical New York melee, though this is perhaps its apotheosis. It is the navel of New York City, or at least Manhattan. Whereas Midtown is the voice, and therefore mouth of corporate America, and Wall Street is the cock by which the rest of the country is repeatedly sodomized, Union Square is where all of the forces meet and coalesce—Apollonian and Dionysian, Capitalist and Socialist, Republican and Democrat.
Like so many other solitaries, I am waiting for someone. This person is Vinati. I am on a bench in front of Carlyle, one of the NYU dorms. I watch as the kaleidescope of characters march past, and I cannot help but think, Am I witnessing the nascent signs of renaissance, or has decadence merely assumed a new posture? She is running late, but I don't really care. I have nowhere to be. Scratch that. I am waiting to be with her.
She finally called after getting my number from Ilkay, who returned to the city just yesterday. “Some prick stole my purse from the restaurant,” she explained before the unfamiliar number identified itself. We quickly set a location, a date, a time, to meet.
This was yesterday, a day that should have been filled with celebration and jubilation. But I received a second call that day, one that was a little less pleasant. It was from the magazine. It did not last long.
After hanging up with the editor, I phoned the only person I considered worthy of a call.
“So it was rejected.”
“Oh. I am sorry to hear that.”
“I really wish I could have…I don't know…provided a kind of eulogy for your son. Perhaps something of an epilogue.”
“That would have been nice. On what grounds did they reject your manuscript, might I ask?”
“The editor simply refused to believe that he's dead. In a way, I'm the evidence against myself. I don't really feel like explaining.”
“This comes as a surprise to you?”
“What?”
“Rejection. You did not expect to find my son. Even once you knew he was the artist you were looking for, you did not want to believe it. My friend, even when you were here you did not want to believe that your manuscript would be published. Rejection, you feel, keeps you motivated; it justifies your continued efforts. Without it, you feel as though you would fall into complacency; and, even with your limited experience with the world, you are wise enough to know that complacency very rarely suffices for virtue. This is why you do not have a job right now, why you have refused to look for one. You look for perfection, and yet refuse to believe that it exists.”
“You sound like my roommate.”
“Is this a bad thing?”
“No. It's just that I've heard it a lot lately. I just don't want to lose the desire to…I don't know…I guess create.”
“I felt the same way when I was a young man. But it is juvenile to believe that creativity is stifled by imposed production. Production is a necessity; it is a fundamental trait of humanity. And while it is not necessarily creative in the artistic sense, it is not necessarily a source of fatigue—if you will—for your more creative side. You will learn to separate the two. All real artists and scholars eventually do.
“As I told you when you were here, your desire to maintain creative integrity keeps you in a state of becoming, an acolyte of Pindar, who so ingeniously implored his readers: 'Learn and become who you are.' You refuse to accept the present; you do not accept a specific future. Acceptance is a state of being, my boy, an acquiescence to a reality that is speciously set in stone. By denying this, you are free in the truest sense of the word.”
“And I wish to remain free.”
“You can. You see, man constructs his own prison so that he may dream of a life beyond it. Each bar is a fiction erected to rationalize his history and to anticipate a future that is contingent upon the suppression of infinity. It is neither pious nor judicious to allow oneself to remain tied to a determinate history, nor is it becoming to presume that the universe will simply conform to one's desires. Luck is not apposite to Justice, and, unfortunately, luck has far more of a hand in the creation of fortunes than either Justice or aptitude. Still, a man must act with real courage if he is to engage his fate.”
“How?”
“How?”
“How do I engage my fate?”
“A man who demands such wisdom will never be able to receive it, my friend. You will have to figure that out for yourself because the question you ask has no complete or absolute answer.” He began to chuckle to himself. “Isn't that the ultimate joke?”
The conversation ended shortly after this. So, too, does this replay into the past, for Vinati is now in front of me. She smiles, all immaculate teeth and haunting beauty. “So I guess I owe you something for kind of disappearing for like a week.”
“I hope it's not an apology.”
“An apology?” she laughs. “No, I was thinking of something a little more tangible.” She pauses. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“How's a fish to live without water?”
“You're such a fucking dork!” she roars. “I love it.”
I stand and approach her. We kiss for long enough to attract the attention of a nearby sax player, who prematurely ends his city serenade to say something perverted enough to make the two of us laugh. We stop kissing, but stare into one another's eyes for a few moments. His next song is dedicated to “The two lovebirds.” We don’t stay to listen, though we do tip him with a small degree of ceremony.
The streets are obscured by her words, my responses—infatuated palindromes. She eventually motions with a hand as we approach a higher-end place in the West Village, and it occurs to me that I have not even bothered to note where we are. In fact, I cannot even cognosize (to borrow from Tomas) the route we took.
“So you're done?” she asks. “You're just going to keep trying to get your article published.”
“More or less. I sent it out to, like, fifteen different magazines yesterday.”
“Any responses?” she asks as we take our seats at the bar.
“Just the automated responses, you know, ‘Thank you for submitting your work to us. We’ll respond if we’re interested.’ I’ll wait a few days before I follow up.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
I look to her. “I can think of a few things.”
She smiles. “Well…when I’m at work.”
“Maybe I’ll finally go to see Andy Bates.”
“The mental patient?”
“Yeah.”
“You two ready?” the bartender asks. Vinati has yet to pull off her sunglasses.
“I think I need a minute,” she responds.
“I know what I want.”
“Is it a butt-fucking cowboy?”
“A what?” The bartender smiles because he thinks he heard something really odd, and, oddly enough, this is exactly what he has heard.
“It's an inside joke.”
“Literally,” the bartender responds with a Jim Halpert grin.
He lingers around as Vinati silently studies the taps. His presence seems unnecessary, but I guess it makes sense. We're the only people seated at the bar.
“Yeah, but I'm still kind of curious about him.”
“Who?” as she continues to squint at the forest of taps.
“Andy Bates. I mean, there's so many people who still think he's the real deal.”
“Sorry to interrupt, dude,” the bartender begins, “but are you talking about Coprolalia?”
Vinati laughs. “It's all he ever talks about.”
“Yeah, I've kind of been consumed by him for the past month.”
“Oh, man, then I'm sure you've heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Dude,” the bartender begins gingerly, “That he's dead.”
Ω
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Fox was born in Birmingham, Michigan in 1983. He graduated from Birmingham Seaholm High School in 2001 and from NYU in 2005. He is a frequent columnist for staythirsty.com. THE WALLS is his debut novel.