Perforated Heart

by Eric Bogosian

  One thin guy with big brown eyes was the center of attention. He was so beautiful he could have been a girl. He was wearing a leopardskin headband. I gave him the once-over and he did the same to me and then, for some reason, I stepped up to him and kissed him on the mouth and he kissed me back. Then I fell in with his group and followed them to a booth in the back of the club. He seemed amused by me and then I realized that I was drunk off my ass and didn’t have any idea who these people were. So I demanded that this beautiful guy give me his phone number.

  Now I’m back home and I’m staring at this phone number trying to figure out if I’m a homosexual or what. I’m still really horny. Can’t think. Drunk. I’m drinking now. Everyone’s alseep.

  August 31, 1977

  Woke up at eight with a throbbing hangover and the phone ringing. I think I called that guy. Did he come over? Did we have gay sex? Am I gay? I can’t remember. I was very drunk and very horny and this isn’t something I want to do again. I think.

  I’m at the airport. The reason I’m at the airport is that Mom’s in the hospital. It’s definite, she has lymph node cancer. Dad kept repeating himself on the phone. I think he’s afraid. Now that Mom’s at the hospital, he’s got to deal with everything all at once: cleaning the house, cooking his own dinner, checking in on her. I called Mom and we spoke for two minutes on the phone. She sounded far away and weak and I’m not even sure she knew who she was talking to. She’s on morphine.

  So I’m headed up there and my head feels like a bag of angry cats. It’s hard to think about Mom because I don’t really know what this cancer thing means.

  Is cancer a death sentence? If it is, and if she dies, Dad will totally spin out of control. He may even kill himself. Then I would have to take care of the funeral.

  I want to feel bad or sad about this whole thing, but deep down all I feel is a strange fascination. Something in my gut likes disaster. Sis is completely freaking out. She’s angry at everybody for not telling her sooner how serious Mom’s illness was. Her hysteria is going to make all of this very difficult. But one way or another, something big is going to happen.

  June 24, 2006

  The Jerusalem Conference!

  Meaning, a short statement, followed by questions from the audience.

  During my statement, I decided to commit and criticize the war in Iraq. Probably not the right move. I assumed these were intelligent people, who also happen to be my fans. I had an obligation to be honest with them. Two mistakes right there. First question: “You are a famous author in the United States, what do Americans think of your anti-patriotic attitudes?” I replied, “First, I am not anti-patriotic, I love my country. Second, most Americans have never given a thought to my work or what I have to say about anything.” My interrogator furrowed his brow, unhappy with this answer. He thought I was being evasive, when for once I was telling the truth.

  I was then asked why the United States does not support Israel. I assumed the question was in jest, so I glibly said we should raise the annual support to Israel from four billion a year to a hundred billion, maybe two hundred billion. The questioner seemed puzzled by my reply. Although the questions were in English, everything I said was being translated into Hebrew seconds after the words left my mouth.

  Now someone returned to the main fault of my work, my “negativity,” my “embrace of the dark side of human nature.” I replied that in case the audience was not familiar with it, most of the Western canon is devoted to the “dark side,” from Sophocles to Voltaire to Dostoyevsky, etc. etc. I didn’t mention any German writers. I added that I was surprised that Jews, who more than most people have been intimately involved with the dark side of human nature, would shun such honesty.

  The questioner shouted something in Hebrew and stormed out of the room! Many heads were bowed over notepads. My interpreter made a statement to the assembly without translating. A reply (in Hebrew). A counter-reply! Scribble. Scribble. I shouted into the fray, “How ’bout that Primo Levi! Now there was a lighthearted soul!” A camera crew recorded my feeble sarcasm. Something was lost in the translation. The tension in the room grew. My interpreter attempted to refine my answer and now someone else was shouting from another corner of the room that I was “anti-Israel”! I shouted back that I was against any and all nationalism whether it be fostered by settlers or Nazis.

  At that point I lost interest in the fracas. I noticed that the translator had a lovely mouth. I wondered if she’d be interested in seeing my very impressive suite at the King David. But she seemed upset also. Everyone was upset.

  Later, at the reception, a man sidled up to me and asked: “Where did you find that interpreter? She was awful! Everything you said she misstated. Many of the people here are very angry with you because they think you have no respect for Israel! They think you insulted Primo Levi!”

  I wanted to know more, but I was steered away by Lev, who led me to a tall man in wire rim glasses, the director of the institute where the reading was being held. The director smiled politely, but didn’t engage me. After a few minutes, he drifted away. I found Lev and asked him if I had said something wrong and he said “No, of course not! These people are very difficult.” But for the remainder of the evening Lev also kept his distance.

  September 1, 1977

  So I’m here at Dad’s, which is très weird because Mom’s not here and the neighbors arrive every fifteen minutes delivering covered casserole dishes. They sit with Dad in the living room. I can hear the murmur of their conversation all low and depressed and then I hear the front door opening and closing and they’re gone again and the house gets very still. Sis showed up this morning before we all drove over to the hospital. Dad looked like he’d aged twenty years.

  Mom looked like she’s aged a hundred years. She lay motionless in her bed, her face the color of sand. There was this little plastic bag hanging off the side, half-full of her yellow pee. There was another plastic contraption that dripped the morphine into her arm. She was asleep most of the time we were there. I didn’t realize she was so fucked up. I guess it will be a miracle if she lives.

  While we were in the room, my grandmother arrived with Aunt Sadie. They stood at the end of the neat bed, smiling at Ma, holding back their tears. Sadie brought a plate of homemade hammentaschen. Then my sister had a total meltdown and had to leave the room. I stayed in a corner trying to make myself invisible. Sadie was curious about New York. I don’t think she wanted me to fill her in on the after-hours club scene, so I kept quiet.

  I felt like if I didn’t move, didn’t talk, then I’d be okay. I think Dad felt that way too and I think we had this understanding that neither of us was going to talk about anything of substance. That would make two fewer people emoting.

  So now I’m back here at his house with him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. He wanders around downstairs, sneaking peeks between the curtains. The phone rings every ten minutes. Sometimes the phone rings at the same time as someone is visiting. I want to go back to New York and write a story about Big John.

  June 25, 2006

  Lev escorted me to Yad Vashem today. He was very somber because an Israeli soldier has been kidnapped and the country is wired for action. Lev needed to make some final travel arrangements so he left me to wander about on my own.

  There was an old black and white photograph, blown up to cover half a wall. In it an anonymous woman stood before a railroad cattle car, her arms outstretched toward a child who was being dragged away from her. Was this taken outside the camps? Is she leaving? Is he leaving? The image was horrific. As horrific as it was, I thought to myself, this is going on somewhere right now. Today. Right now. As I stood there. Nauseating.

  I thought of Primo Levi’s memoirs. All memory is a form of fiction. But all fiction is a form of reality.

  How did the Holocaust happen? Why didn’t someone stop it? Everyone knew about it, didn’t they? Was there an alternate explanation? Or did they just not “see”? Not acknowledge what they were se
eing? Isn’t that always the way it is? Isn’t that what’s happening right now? “If we had known the truth, we would have done something.” A lie.

  The Nazis were the essence of the modern. Stalin and Mao were inspired by them. Now Cheney. In Hitler’s vision lay the germ seed of the modern admixture of desire and violence. Technology allows distance. Distance denies accountability. We can see it, but we are not responsible. Same now as then. We all deny responsibility. That’s not me burning that village.

  And what do I do about it? Nothing. I write.

  The act of making art is obscene because it is built on the premise that there’s a safe place and from this safe place, we keep an eye on the “other” place. We pretend that this safe place, this castle high on a hill, isn’t mortared brick by brick with bone dust and blood. We honestly believe that we live in a place that is not a product of tragedy. That we are civilized. That we are good. But how could that be? It’s never the case. Ever. Where there is affluence, there must have been horrific violence. All wealth is born of violence, there is no other kind of wealth, and to protect that wealth, violence must continue. Ask the Indians. Ask the blacks.

  Something happened to me: I flew to Israel. I entered a building that is a memorial to the victims of a grinding engine of bloodlust and hatred and horror. It is very probable that not ten miles from where I stood, someone was packing ball bearings around a wad of explosive, rigging a vest, blessing a bomber.

  Who am I to condemn that act? The coldness, the impersonality, this is my way too. I have no empathy for anyone in my own life. Haim’s indifference to me is evidence. What else could I expect? We once lived like family, I hurt him, or he thinks that I hurt him, and I forgot about him as soon as he was out of sight.

  Has anyone ever had any significance for me beyond what I could get from them?

  But, but! I have a saving grace! I possess insight and I tell the fucking truth! I admit my faults. I admit that I am selfish, that I am indifferent.

  At least I’m not lying to myself. Or am I? Because despite my objectivity, I subscribe to the biggest lie of all, that I am enlightened. I tell myself I’ve finally “got it.” That I’ve learned the great Augustinian lesson, that I am evolving toward a better life with my eyes open. Progress! I will tell you that I know I’m a sinner. And so in my heart, I’m certain that I’m a good man because I feel guilty. I confuse guilt with humanity.

  September 20, 1977

  Mom is in a coma. I have to go up there again because she will die soon and we’re supposed to be there by the bed when that happens. I feel nothing. I have been hanging out at John’s every night. I tape him and he doesn’t know it. I am going to write a story and make him the centerpiece.

  I’ve managed to get an apartment for myself. It’s actually a storefront down in Little Italy. Two hundred a month. Nothing in it yet. Just a piece of foam rubber on the floor for the past two nights. I’ve been moving my stuff down there. Haim and Dagmara are all upset. But what can I do? I have no privacy. I can’t get laid when they’re hanging around. Plus they’re both nuts. Dagmara got really angry at me, said “that wasn’t the deal.” Jesus!

  Bought a used black leather jacket. And I’ve cut my hair short. Since the mugging, I don’t want to look so innocent when I’m walking down the street.

  From Kenneth Patchen, The Journal of Albion Moonlight:

  I am an idealist in a quagmire…I am on fire…farewell Death…what burdens are mine!…I come with my guns blazing…I am going to beat in your heads and kick out your teeth…I’ll make you listen to me!

  I “christened” my new place with Katie. She came by and we had pizza and red wine and snorted some coke. I don’t have any electricity yet, so I lit candles and I think she dug that. We fucked, which wasn’t particularly exciting. I mean, I love her, I think, but she just kind of lay there like a dead fish. Later when I asked her to stay the night she said “Do you have any more coke? I have to get up early for this job at Barnes & Noble and I can only stay if you have more coke.” Logical.

  It’s okay. That’s life right? I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I love her and she loves drugs. So we made a deal. I don’t think she loves me the way I love her but I don’t care anymore.

  September 30, 1977

  My mother has died. I’ve been up here for a week. I don’t know what I feel. I’m forcing myself to write about it. Copped some coke from Zim before I left New York and have been completely wired through the whole thing. Even sat shiva fucked up. It’s so sad. But we all die, right? Everyone is hysterical because Mom’s death reminds them that they’re going to die some day too. They’re nostalgic for their own memories and past which will never return. It can’t be that they loved her that much. If they did, why wasn’t everyone happier when she was alive? I’m sad too.

  I called Katie long-distance and cried on the phone. She sounded like she was actually concerned. I stopped thinking about Mom and starting thinking maybe Katie’ll fall in love with me now. Deep down I want her to love me.

  I am a hypocrite. I am Satanic. My mother is dead and I don’t know what I feel about that.

  Sitting shiva, I ran into this second cousin of mine I haven’t seen since we were both little kids playing in my grandmother’s backyard in Newton. Very pretty in a JAP kind of way. Usually I don’t go for Jewesses. I imagine them old, turning into Zsa Zsa Gabor strolling the Miami Beach boardwalk. But she’s so young and fresh. Or maybe I wasn’t that attracted to her, I just chased after her because it was such a perverse thing to do. Anyway, I offered her some of my coke and we hid out in my dad’s attic and sniffed drugs and smoked grass and smooched. While we were kissing, I undid her blouse and kissed her breasts, she began to give me a hand job. Then suddenly she got all upset, like we had committed some major sin. I don’t understand people. Honestly I don’t. I mean, I know it was “wrong” but so what? We weren’t planning to raise a family, we were just fucking around. I mean, isn’t the taboo part of the fun?

  At the funeral service, I looked up to see old Aunt Sadie staring at me. Like we shared a secret or something. Creeped me out.

  I think about Mom’s body cold and alone in the casket underground. She’s not really there. She’s inside me. I will write about her too.

  I take the train back to New York tonight. I’ve got all my stuff moved down into my new place. I called Dagmara and said she should come see my new apartment. I think she’s afraid I’m going to rape her or something. (It isn’t like the thought didn’t cross my mind.) Getting her alone, having real sex with her for once.

  Maybe I’m a sex fiend? Or a drug fiend? But I should do these things. It’s essential to live life if you’re going to understand life. I have to push things to the edge.

  June 28, 2006

  Finally back in Connecticut. The departure from Tel Aviv was extremely stressful. They still hadn’t found the kidnapped soldier and a premonition of imminent war was wearing on everyone. The airport security personnel were on red alert for any move that might betray sinister intentions. (Lev informed me that not only were we all being scrutinized very carefully, but the people watching us were being watched by others.

  And even those observers were being observed from behind one-way mirrors.) I am paranoid by nature so there was something appealing about these structures of fear and suspicion. Especially when I could walk away from it all.

  As I drove up to the property I had this crazy expectation of finding Elizabeth on the porch, arms crossed over her chest, suppressing a grateful smile. As I emerged from the car, she would run up and hug me, admit that she’d been wrong to judge me. She would tell me she loved me too much to see me in pain and so she’d come back to me. We would sit by the fire and drink wine and I would tell her about the Wailing Wall and the press conference.

  None of that happened of course. It was all a pure fantasy. Because the other way never existed. No one has ever been happy to see me return.

  Fourth of July 2006

  Sarah called me
after a lapse of a few days. I guess things didn’t work out with her new love. (Of course it didn’t work out. We penis bearers are all the same. Except that in this case, he’s a liar and I’m a truth teller. It was all so predictable. After he got what he wanted, he stopped lying. Suddenly over morning coffee they’re looking into each other’s eyes and there’s nothing to talk about. So now she reaches out to me.)

  She said she wanted me to be her “friend.” Oddly and momentarily, I was at a loss for words. She had this idea that something had gone wrong that could be made right again. “Richard?” There was a desperate tone to her voice.

  I invited her up to the house but she realized that I expected more than a platonic visit. Not an uninsightful premonition. Why shouldn’t I have expected that? When did we not sleep with each other? Mind you, I made a point to avoid saying anything explicit about fucking. No. She probed for this information. Sensitive to it. Testing. In effect she asked: Are you going to be a “good friend” or do you “expect something” from me? Do you expect to get laid?

  “Yes,” I wanted to shout, “I expect something. I expect things to be what they should be.”

  But she didn’t want that. Had Sarah ever wanted that? She had been insatiable. But had she been faking it? Was that just something she had done to keep me around? Is every human relationship founded on a lie? Can we only get along with one another by hiding the truth? Are all projections of desire promises made, never to be kept?

  She: “I’ll be your fuck-bunny.”

  He: “I’ll be there for you. I’ll be gentle and sensitive to all your needs.”