Perforated Heart

by Eric Bogosian

  These are competing fantasies. What we project on the situation, not what is. And then she discovers the hidden stash of porn in the underwear drawer. Or he discovers that she wants to organize every minute of the rest of his life. And have kids.

  Her endless neediness forces him out the door and that’s it. Game over. Women stop wearing high heels once they’ve had children. They trim their hair short. Their insistence on attention is just one of endless demands. Men turn surly, impatient. Men become drunks. Couch potatoes. Because it’s all pretense. All a dance. No one will say out loud what they want. “Be there for the children we will have.” “Swallow my cum then go away.”

  Or do we even know what we want? Even our desires are stand-ins for other desires. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t let me get hurt.

  Sarah’s sixth sense triggered her fear of me, so she’s not going to visit. She came up with a shabby excuse at the last minute and never showed up.

  The town fireworks boom a few miles away. But I can’t see them from the house, all I can see is a glow silhouetting the wooded ridgeline. I could drive over to the Little League field and watch the colors, watch the crowd, but who can enjoy fireworks alone?

  October 3, 1977

  I have quit my job. Mom’s passing has made me think about what I’m doing, how little time there is to do it. I have to write full-time. If I can sell three stories a month, that money plus unemployment insurance should be enough to pay the rent. I can always drive a cab if I really need cash. My new apartment is only two twenty-five a month.

  And I’ll be saving money on subway fare because it looks like I’m not going out to John and ’Gitte’s for a while. He caught me audiotaping, which pissed him off.

  This is a transcription of the tape of my last night at John’s. We were talking about my writing. John:

  Used to enjoy a cocktail every now and then at a place called Musso & Frank’s. One day this old dude sits next to me at the bar, orders boilermakers and starts knocking them back. One. Two. Three. This caught my attention because the cat was old and old guys usually avoid that kind ofhard-core drinking. Anyway, he started complaining about how Hollywood stole his stuff and never paid him right. Blew my socks off when I figured out this guy was Jim Thompson. You know, The Getaway? With McQueen? He wrote that. Fucking great writer.

  You know what Jim Thompson told me, young scholar? He said the writer is the same as an addict—there’s no way for either one to be an upright citizen. Just can’t happen, it’s against the laws of nature. They can pretend they are good, responsible people—even fool themselves that they are, but that can never be—because the artist and the addict has only one responsibility: himself. Will sell his own children to get his fix. Just the way it is.

  See young scholar, what’s gonna happen is, you’re gonna write and then you’re gonna hope someone buys your shit so you don’t feel like a total jerk for wasting your time and ending up broke—but, even if, and I’m just saying if, you succeed in doing all that, the world’s just gonna wait for your next story or the story after that and sooner or later you will fall on your face and then they’ll call you a worse failure. And that’s how the addiction starts.

  Because it ain’t about money. It’s not even about fame. Why does a serial killer kill? Something deep inside he can’t control. It’s a tapeworm in your gut. It’s a sociopathological drive. The artist must be a lunatic.

  When you fail, and you will fail, they’ll all be laughing while you lie facedown in the mud. Remember, Big John warned you. Because you have to be able to take it. It’s not about winning no game, it’s about taking the punches, getting knocked down and getting back up.

  (John didn’t speak for one full minute here. We passed the pipe. I knew he didn’t want me to speak either. Abruptly, he resumed.)

  You can’t fool me. You are the most ambitious little fucker I’ve ever met. You’d sell your soul to make a name for yourself. I hope you’ve read your Faust. Makes no diff. What will happen will happen. So, okay. That’s you. That’s your fate. You got no fuckin’ choice. Just remember this, if you’re gonna do it, do it. Don’t compromise yourself by thinking about money or fame or any of that shit. Picasso was the richest artist in the world. And he fucked everything that moved. But before any of that, he was the best. Life is too fucking short to write one word you wouldn’t want to read yourself.

  (Pause)

  Don’t think. Every time someone has the world all figured out, the world turns around and tosses their ass sideways. Like all those Popes who never saw those Albigensians coming. Freaked ’em out. They even had a Crusade trying to stomp out the “wrong” way of thinking. Didn’t work. Inquisition of the heretics? Only made things worse. Next thing you know, old Martin Luther is nailing shit to church doors and the rest is history.

  And every time it all shifts, it shifts again. Don’t forget that, young scholar. There is no absolute truth. No one knows what’s good writing or bad writing. Even Shakespeare was forgotten for a hundred years or so. Fuckin’ Bach! Guy spun gold, and he was treated like one more chump.

  No one knows. Only you know. The hoi polloi make rules about what’s good and what’s bad. But only you know. Just when it’s all going one way, it will turn around and go the other way.

  I mean, what kind of literature do you think ants would make if they could read? Not F. Scott Fuckin’ Fitzgerald, not Joyce or D-D—D-Dostoyevsky, not even friggin’ Steinbeck. Wouldn’t make any sense to ’em. You ever read Nabokov’s Lolita? Best book of the twentieth century, but old-fashioned my friend, old fuckin’ fashioned. Same old story over and over again, one more guy mesmerized by his own dick, wandering around the wreckage of his life. Who the fuck cares about that? Give me the Knights of the Round Table! Give me Merlin! Or better, the “wine dark sea”! Much more interesting.

  (John took a massive hit and held it in. Blew out a long blue stream of smoke.)

  All you got is your memories. If you can’t remember who you are, you’re nobody. So your personality is all in your head. Anvil clunks you on the head, or your skull gets crushed under a d-d-d-dump truck tire, that’s it, it’s over: reality, time, self, the whole universe.

  So talk, talk, talk. Write. Write. Write. “Truth.” No truth. No such thing. Ask an aboriginal. They think dreams are truth. A geologist will tell you that a chunk of rock is two hundred million years old. But if there’s no geologist standing there, telling you about the layers in the rock, then there is no time.

  And if you remove time from the equation, then you remove “fate.” You remove ambition. You remove “luck.” You remove “success.” Animals don’t know time. Don’t know ambition. Don’t know who the fuck they are.

  So think about that the next time you sit down to scribble, young scholar. “Ah, but you say, how will I know what to do?” You won’t. You can’t. Best thing to do is lie on a couch like Bukowski did. Get drunk and pop the pimples on your ass. Because there’s nothing you can do. You will do only what you will do. That’s God. That’s what’s called the…

  (Click of the tape recorder running out of tape.)

  John stopped.

  “You hear so me thing?”

  “Uh, a…my tape recorder.”

  “Tape recorder?”

  “I was taping you. Talking.”

  “You’re taping me? Why would you do that?”

  “I was going to listen to it again when I got home. So I could think about what you were saying.”

  “You done this before?”

  “Some nights.”

  “Why would you do something like that?”

  “I told you.”

  “Yeah but you’re lying to me, young scholar.” John doesn’t stutter when he’s pissed off.

  “I thought—”

  “You were going to write something weren’t you? Write something about your pal John.”

  “Maybe.”

  “This is my home.”

  “Sure, I know.”

  “This is where I
eat. Where I shit. Where I ball my old lady.”

  “I know.”

  “You are spying in my home.”

  “No.”

  “Big Brother. In my home. Lemme have that tape.”

  “No, John.”

  “Give it. Now.”

  I took the tape out and gave it John. “John, I didn’t mean to—”

  “But you did. You did.” John examined the tape. “Changes things.”

  “No.”

  “It’s an attitude. Difference between being inside and outside.”

  “I’ll never do it again.”

  “True. You won’t.”

  We sat. John said nothing for a full minute. It was strange to be in that room and John being silent. John held the tape in his hand, then without looking at me again, gently placed the cassette on the coffee table pile in front of me, stood and left the room.

  I saw ’Gitte out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a funny sad smile. Then she followed John. I picked up the tape and split.

  On my way to the subway, through the old dark streets of Brooklyn, I tried to distract myself from the emotional situation that had just happened. I thought about what John had said and what it had to do with ambition. But ambition is not about seeking fame, but using fame is a tool. It’s something you have to have to protect the work. It’s all about the work. So it’s up to me to protect my work by any means necessary.

  I realized I have to force people to think of me as an exciting person. Then people will notice me, notice my work. I should have controversial girlfriends. Develop a reputation for being undependable, but in the end be brilliant. Show up late everywhere, talk about how hard I work, how I work through the night, get in fistfights, drink more booze than everybody else, do drugs in public, even narcotics, hang out with criminals, etc. This is important. It’s as important as making the work. I need to get as much publicity as possible. Celebrity earns respect.

  July 15, 2006

  There is one percent of human experience that has nothing to do with relationships and this honest experience exists in maintaining solitude. In solitude there is truth. In solitude, instead of planning the next lie (which is necessary in order to preserve the “relationship”), one concentrates on living, pure and simple.

  There are writers who embrace solitude with their eyes open. Who have the courage to do this. Roth. Coetzee. Naipaul. Truth tellers. Courageous men who only want the truth and understand that it is their mandate to seek it, that it is their obligation to report the truth, unobscured by sentiment. They don’t romanticize friendship and love and family. They are beyond that. Memento mori!

  She gazes into my eyes and wants my truth. She wants my courage and my intellect. But if I give it to her, she weeps. So I have a choice, be honest and be alone, or lie and enjoy some kind of companionship.

  This is the ageless struggle between the male and the female, positivism and romanticism, science and superstition. In our time, Venus is ascendant. She is so beautiful, we forget who we are, what we are capable of, and we dreamily follow her as we stroll off the cliff and fall to our deaths.

  I’m too old to change. I can’t do this.

  Oh, today’s news: Joe Versa, Leon’s wunderkind, was awarded a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. I have nothing to say, I’m too busy gnashing my teeth.

  July 17, 2006

  Woke at four a.m. and could not get back to sleep. Couldn’t get Leon out of my mind. How he’s never really respected me or my work. I was actually talking out loud to myself, lying in bed having conversations with Leon. When I realized I was moving my lips, forming words, I forced myself up. Brewed coffee as the sun came up over the maples. Showered, dressed, drove to the minimart. Ended up sitting outside waiting for Don to unlock the place at six. He said something like “You’re up early.” I bought my New York Times, a corn muffin, more coffee. These are the solid elements of reality that reassure me every morning, let me begin my day.

  I got home and settled down with the paper and my muffin. Pulled out the magazine. Got about five pages into the accursed thing and who was being interviewed? Elizabeth! I pressed on and read the article. Why should I deny her her life? What she does is not something I could do, be in the public eye continuously, talking to reporters, photo sessions, and on and on.

  Of course, in the interview she dithered on about her involvement with “the animals rights movement,” the benefit she did for PETA at the Hollywood Bowl and the wonderful relationship she has with her English springer spaniel, Joey. (Named after Joey Ramone.) Discussion of her “activism” ignited a flurry of snide remarks about George W., global warming, etc. There was a brief mention of her stint in the rehab for cocaine abuse. (She had once tried to get me to go. I wasn’t the one with the problem. She quit when she wanted to get pregnant.)

  I don’t mind that she never mentions my name, not even in the past tense. I know that she does this to protect herself. I understand that. But about halfway through this particular interview she commenced to expound on her love of literature. Now I scanned the pages for my name. We were together for fifteen years! But no, it wasn’t my work she was reading. No, she was reading Brett Easton Ellis. “Can’t get enough of him.” Claimed to have read Glamorama twice. Twice! How is that possible? She has erased me.

  It’s not fair. I’m not bothering anybody. I’m just living quietly by myself in the tranquil Connecticut woods. I never asked that this information be laid at my doorstep. When I read the Times in the morning, I want sustenance for my life, not disruption of it. I want to learn about chaos far away from my country estate. I want to read about poverty in Rio or the lastest clash between the Israeli army and the Palestinian troublemakers. Along with all that, I don’t mind a little seasoning, the odd dumb review of Updike’s latest effort or the sports page.

  I felt woozy, untethered. An anger bordering on madness tightened like a wire around my skull. I shivered. My teeth chattered. I had to do something. Killing myself was an option, but not a very good one, since I knew that I would never carry through.

  I left the house and stepped into the great New England out-of-doors. The air pulsed fresh and clean. No sounds, nothing but balm. A brand-new sun warmed the dew-stained grasses. I was drugged by the gravitational pull of beauty.

  In an amnesiatic state, I tripped down to the barn, unhooked the latch and let myself into the dark. The air hung chilly and damp, scented with the aroma of pinewood and ancient straw. I ascended the ladder to the loft. There I found the old army cot Elizabeth and I hauled up there almost twenty years ago when we would loll around and smoke grass and fuck. Twenty years ago!

  In the hayloft, it was dry and warm. Small cracking sounds peppered the roof as the sun heated the slate shingles. I could hear wasps orbiting a nest outside. I slipped down onto the cot, exhausted and fell asleep. Ninety minutes later, I awoke minus my bearings. Cautiously I made my way back down the ladder. Still dizzy, I almost broke my neck. Safely in the house, I brewed yet more fresh coffee, polished off the muffin, sat down to write. What else could I do? Nothing.

  I wrote all morning and into the afternoon. I broke out of my trance to discover it was already five p.m. I knocked back a middling tumbler of whiskey and drove into town for a steak. Though I was happy to be alone, the proprietor, Ed, a pink-faced guy with a massive potbelly, stopped by my table and we made small talk about the Red Sox, my Yankees, the local mayor. Ed filled me in on his daughter’s wedding. And that was that.

  I headed home. The tousled newspaper was where I had left it, splayed on the oak table. I was afraid to touch it but because I knew I would see it in the morning, I scooped it up and took it out to the recycling bin in the barn. No sign of raccoons.

  So that was that. Another crisis, another day. Good night.

  October 11, 1977

  The editor invited me over to have dinner to discuss publishing my new story. What he really wanted was to fuck me. My writing’s good. I don’t need to do that to get it published. Again he w
as saying things like “Doesn’t this feel good?” And I was so drunk, I didn’t even realize he was down there. I didn’t have the energy to threaten him. Also he frightened me in a way. He’s not a small guy. I let him do what he wanted but I couldn’t cum. He asked me to take all my clothes off. He said, “I just want to look at you.” I said I wasn’t feeling good and left.

  I ended up over at Zim’s. We snorted some cocaine, but he also had some heroin. I guess he’s been buying it since I showed him the cop spot.

  This time the H lingered in my bloodstream after I left. I was weirdly energized. I wanted to come home and write but instead I wandered all through the Lower East Side, rode the trains for a while and ended up in Times Square. I perused the porn for an hour, smoked some cigarettes, ended up back at my tiny storefront apartment.

  I drank half a beer and woke up on my own linoleum floor around four a.m. I thought my heart had stopped beating. I got up, made coffee, tried to write. Nothing came. Still angry at that fucking editor. Writing this. Agitated. Need more. Something. What? Gonna get as drunk as I can.

  October 12, 1977

  Woke up with a monster hangover. I had been drinking vodka. Only had about a third of a bottle. Remembered going out the front door. Don’t remember anything else. This morning my head feels like someone stuck a knife into my eye and left it in there. My teeth hurt.

  Also something else, there’s blood on my pillow and there’s a huge bruise on my right arm just above the elbow. The knuckles of my right hand are red and scraped. My eyes are swollen. Did I get in a fight? I can’t remember. I don’t remember coming home. No, wait, I do. The sun was coming up. I was eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. Where do you get pizza at dawn? And I remember dropping my keys about ten times trying to get in the front door. I smoked a cigarette. I’m lucky I didn’t burn the place down.

  I have to slow down.

  October 13, 1977

  Woke up in the middle of the night. Katie lying next to me asleep. All I could think was, who is this woman? She feels nothing for me. I think I love her, but it’s because she rejects me that I want her even more. What is that? I want someone in my life I can feel real affection for.