Paul explained his situation to Randi, as briefly as possible. Randi, for whom nothing was new, said she understood. She went into the back room where the girls lounged between customers, smoking and watching television. She led back a young girl, between sixteen and nineteen, in a black aerobics outfit and white tee shirt cut above the navel. Randi introduced her to Obern, placing her hand in his. “This is Tanya.”
Obern looked at Tanya. She smiled. She gently tugged at his hand and led him back to the room that was hers to use. Although he had never met her before, there was something familiar about Tanya. Paul wondered if he had seen her elsewhere, a face on the street, a shopper at the mall, an eye turned his way in a bar. As he could not place the occasion, Obern concluded that he had seen her out of the corner of his eye on some past visit, perhaps caught a glimpse of her through the curtain that marked the employees’ lounge. Then again, he thought, perhaps there was something about her that reminded him of some other woman, a woman he had been with before, had met, perhaps danced with, who knows?
Tanya’s hair was fluffed out and seemed on the verge of turning red, yet there was an Asiatic quality about her. It was something with her eyes, which were brown, reminding him of cinnamon. As she disrobed, he noticed how fine her skin was. Smooth, tanned, scented with soap from frequent showers, overwritten with perfume that partially masked it and her own strong scent. As he pulled her close to him, she was cautious, wary as a cat, yet not wanting to displease. Paul ran his hand through her hair, lifted it towards him, savored the rich smell of it. It was a simple thing. Just hair. But, it maddened him now. Tanya saw his awakening, and moved to justify it. She placed her hand around the object that pointed towards her, and gave a squeeze. She led him to an area with showers. Scrubbed him. Rinsed. Allowed him to wash her if he chose, then led him back to the room.
Paul had brought pen and paper with him. He had placed the items on a chair next to the bed, on top of his clothes. There they would wait, at the ready, as soldiers at arms, until such a time as they could be called upon. Obern had asked the girl to avoid the tendency to hurry. Art cannot be rushed. He needed to take his time. So they both did. The moment came when he reached towards the chair, grabbing pen and paper. An idea had come into his head, a few words, a phrase, then more that followed. Obern rewrote it, experimenting with metrics, assonance, simile, things he remembered distantly from college, which had been reawakened in him by his recent reading of poetry books.
It was a short piece, but he liked it better than the first thing he had written. He saw the skin of Tanya, smooth and firm. He was again reminded of parchment. She giggled a bit, said it tickled as he wrote the words out along her stomach. After copying the poem, Obern stared at the completed work. Tanya turned towards him, beckoning that there was work to be done. As the task neared completion, he became fascinated with her inner thigh. Obern seized the pen and wrote there, in a flowing hand, the poem known as “Tanya’s Thigh,” featuring the famous lines: “My fingers travel/ north to heaven./ Kisses follow./ The heart stays.”
Obern spent the better part of the next two days at The Club. By the time the open reading came round, he had several poems he felt confident enough to read. Rebecca/Betsy was surprised when Obern’s turn at the mic came. She seemed genuinely pleased with the poems. There was even some applause from the sparse audience. Paul felt pleased in a way he had never felt before. He felt somehow vindicated, as if he had found his niche.
As the weeks passed by, Betsy/Rebecca drifted out of Obern’s life, and into obscurity. This is unfortunate because Betty/Belinda has the right to claim the title as Obern’s first muse. It is she who we all can thank for pointing Obern in the direction of poetry and his life’s work.
Obern could not remember precisely what had led to the split, but thought it had something to do with art. One night in bed with Rebecca/Belinda, he had reached for his pen. It was a habit he had gotten into. For many nights she had tolerated his scribbling on her, as both desk and writing pad, but on this particular night Rebecca/Betsy had objected. She now knew his habit of writing. She had never seen him write anything except in bed. She questioned where he had written his other poems, the new ones, the ones she had not read first in a mirror. Obern had answered vaguely, referring to kitchen tables and offices, but not mentioning who was on and in them.
The moment passed. The poem was lost. The distance grew. They saw each other less and less. One day, Paul called Rebecca. Her number had been changed. It had been some time since she had called him, but he had placed no special value on the circumstances. It gradually dawned on him what might have happened, but by then it didn’t matter. She was nearly forgotten. Obern went on with his life. But, later, he remembered that someone named Rebecca or Becky or Betsy or possibly even Brenda, Belinda or Bertha had introduced him to poetry.
Once he had gotten into the habit of writing, Paul found it difficult to get out of it. There was something about the applause, the heads nodding in agreement, the shouts of, “Heavy,” or “You got that right!” or “Wow,” at the open readings. It made Obern feel bigger, something more than a man who had inherited money. Paul felt guilty about his wealth, but not of his taste for women. “All men share the same desires,” he figured, “only I am fortunate enough to be able to indulge.” (See Autobiography, page 217.)
Sometimes, Paul would meet a woman who interested him at a reading. He would notice her in the audience or at the bar. Obern would try to get her attention, catch her eye, make it known to her that he was reading for her ears only. Sometimes, on occasions such as this, Obern would call out as he stood at the mic, “These poems are dedicated to the woman with the blonde hair seated in the third row,” or “I wrote this at the bar after seeing the young lady in the corner.” These efforts were not always successful, but he had other avenues should these fail.
Shortly after his break-up with Brenda, Obern began to place advertisements in the classified sections of local newspapers and magazines and make Internet postings. No two advertisements were ever worded the same. Obern also read the classifieds, circling interesting possibilities, and scanned social networking sites. What’s a phone call anyway? What is an e-mail? A sample line, merely practice for the real thing, the poem. Now that he was a poet, he needed inspiration, a constant well of beauty he could fall back on for sustenance. When things were slow, or he felt “writerish,” and there was no one available, he still had The Club.
Sometimes, a man or a woman would approach Paul after a reading and ask him to submit poems to his or her magazine or website. At times he did so. Gradually, his name began to become known, first in literary circles in the city, then spreading outward, from reader to reader, magazine to magazine, like creeping communism, out to conquer the world. People at readings began to ask Obern if he had ever published a book. Paul had not thought about it really. He had been satisfied simply with writing and with going to the open mic sessions.
One day, an editor of a small press walked up to Obern after an open reading. The editor, a bearded man who was used to living beyond his means, offered to publish a thin volume of Obern’s poetry. The proposal was discussed over beer at a bar. Terms were settled on. Paul went home and selected thirty of his favorite pieces from the accordion folder where he kept his writing. As he held each piece of paper in his hands, Obern imagined he was feeling the flesh of a woman. For him, each poem conjured a vision of the woman upon whom it had first been written, and possibly about which the poems had been written. Often, Obern had trouble with names, but he recalled sensations, images, feelings. Putting together the draft of the volume took Obern only a few hours, but made him restless. He could not sleep afterwards. He had purposefully gone home alone in order to work on the project. His body tossed and turned thinking of poetry and women. Although it was three in the morning, Paul found himself getting out of bed and putting on his clothes. He had to go to The Club.
Obern was not known for keeping late hours, except in his own house. Randi was s
urprised to see him. She was sleepy herself, and was in the habit, as were the other girls, of napping between rings of the doorbell. Obern situated himself with a young girl, new to the establishment. As things developed, he reached over to where his supply of paper and his pen should have been per custom. The new girl had not known to provide such items. The words were pounding in his head. He needed to let them out, set them on paper or, he feared, his head would explode. He shouted to Randi who came running, fearing some disaster. When she learned of the problem, she looked at the new girl and at Paul, scolding both of them with her eyes. Randi quickly went for a pen. She came back with a fountain pen used by her bookkeeper and some sheets from a legal tablet, left them on the bed, and departed. Paul thought he saw more than anger or exhaustion in Randi’s face, perhaps a twinge of jealousy, or so he later recalled. Perhaps he imagined it. Who understands fully the motivations of people? It is enough for us to know today that Randi “Patrice” Lee-Smythe needed a Paul Obern, and Paul Obern needed a Randi “Patrice” Lee-Smythe, as their lives and work demonstrate.
I once asked my stepmother about this passage in Obern’s Autobiography. “Were you jealous? Envious?” She just laughed, and said, “What do you think?”
Paul was not used to writing with a fountain pen. The tip scratched the paper; the ink came out in blotches or did not flow. As he experimented with the device, Obern occasionally pressed too hard. The needle-like tip would puncture the paper, the girl beneath him would wince in pain, say something rude, try to change the position, or snatch the paper away from him. “You’re hurting me,” she would say, not in anger, but as a matter of course, an observation in a career that frequently involved pain. But Obern held fast as a cane toad, seized as he was by his muse, and no matter how much she struggled, he would not let her move. She could not have struggled a great deal, however, for if she had she would surely have been able to grab the piece of paper, crumple it in a ball, and throw it in a corner. (Although Dr. Johnson disagrees.) Her protests were limited within the range of decorum for her profession and The Club. So Obern wrote his poem.
When Paul had completed his draft, he moved the paper aside to search for a suitable patch of skin on which to copy the finished product. He was surprised to see that his pen had made blue dots and scratches, and sometimes drawn blood from wounds it had made on the young woman’s skin. Obern pondered this, but not for long because he was in the possession of his blood. The muse had stolen his mind. Paul scratched the fountain pen across the girl’s bare skin. It scratched the naked flesh. She winced, balled the sheets in her fists, bit the pillow, seemed on the verge of tears. Obern barely noticed the scratches that the pen left, as if carved with the tip of a knife. He only saw the blue ink, shaping words on her shining skin, the parchment stretched out before him as a living scroll.
Afterwards, Paul ran his hands across his creation. The girl also gazed at it and burst into tears. Her beauty was her livelihood, and she felt it was now marred, her future uncertain. Obern tipped her handsomely, reassured her of her value, pointed out how this addition might become an added attraction, a beauty mark, an alluring guide, much like a well-placed tattoo. The girl was not easily persuaded. She spoke of scars and pain and permanency, for by then it had become apparent that the words, at least some of them, had been carved into her flesh, tattooed with indelible ink.
There was talk of infection. Poisoning. Obern promised to cover any medical expenses that might arise. The girl said she would need to have the poem removed. Obern begged her not to. He had become fascinated by the possibility of the word made flesh. He offered to pay her a tidy sum for promising not to have the poem removed. After much haggling over price, the girl assented, and even agreed to let him go over the poem again with a better ink at a date and time to be scheduled. Obern was thirty-two when he made this creative breakthrough.
Randi had heard the commotion coming from the room, and had gone to investigate. She was shocked to see verses in blood and ink on the back of Ann Lynn, the new girl (not to be confused with Lin Min-Hua). It took time and money to calm the irate manager. Paul had fallen in love with both his lines and his calligraphy. He explained the meaning of each line to both women, and taught both women to appreciate the poem both as an aural and visual medium. When Paul left The Club that night, he felt Randi and Ann Lynn had reached a higher understanding of art. This was not only because Obern was sure of his words. It was also because, for the right sum, he had been able to observe Randi and Ann Lynn as they rolled together trying to unravel the true meaning of the poem.
For my stepmother, the night was a spiritual turning point. She began to see Obern for the first time as a real artist. However, it would be some time before she took any action with regard to her new convictions.
For a few months, Ann Lynn became Obern’s favorite at The Club. He liked to retrace his words with his lips and tongue, sounding them out as he went. At times he would ask her to read along with him. As a woman who lived by her body, Ann Lynn needed to understand it, so she had memorized the poem in short order.
For a time the other girls at The Club shied away from Paul, with the exception of Randi, who still spoke to him as if he were an old chum from high school. However, as the months passed, this changed. Apparently, word was getting around about the girl with the poem on her back. Members began bringing guests to see the poem, to experience it. Some of these guests required the full treatment. Others, quiet little men mostly, with eyeglasses and a bookish quality to them, came only to look. They paid Ann Lynn to stand with her back towards them, and let her kimono slip down until the poem was revealed. The men would read in silence, breathing irregularly, gasping as if they were fish drowning in air.
Things were happening. For starters, the slim book of poems by Obern had made a small stir. It had received a quiet little award of moderate status. The prize, which was given in the name of a small bookish man with glasses who is no longer with us, garnered some publicity. One thing led to another. The Club had a few members who leaned towards the arts, or decorated their offices with it at any rate. Obern’s name became mentioned in certain circles. Ann Lynn’s poem, which by a stroke of genius had been included in the collection, became noticed.
Ann Lynn came to like the attention the poem brought her. She seemed transfigured. She walked around The Club as if she were a princess. She wore jewels men had given her, men who had come to read the poem. Men, who had no knowledge of art and had not previously spent time with Ann Lynn, thought that it spoke well of themselves as one of the elite and cultured members of The Club if they pretended to have heard of the poem, or had paid to see it for themselves. The other girls began to envy the poem-bearer.
The legend of the poem’s creation began to spread as well, slowly, through circles within circles. A legend can be a great thing. It creates interest. It creates celebrity. It feeds memory. But all of this takes time. While time was still at its beginning, Obern tried to coax Ann Lynn to allow him to use her further as a canvas. She declined. Later, she would wish otherwise, but would have to content herself with having been the first, and live with the aura and responsibility that came from such a fate. Such is life.
Around that same time, Paul was asked if he had another manuscript available for publication, a longer work. Girls at The Club began to seek him out, in private, speaking in whispers. They would corner him in the reception area, drag him into bathroom, follow him home, and knock on his door. They all wanted poems. Short ones, preferably, so as not to greatly spoil their flesh unduly. Paul was happy to take them up on their requests. Sometimes he invited the girls to his home so that he could work at length. From these experiences came some of his most famous epigrams, as well as some of his longer pieces.
Obern practiced his calligraphy and studied with an acknowledged expert, all to add richness to his texts. He often expressed sorrow to Randi Lee and others at having to work with Roman letters. Obern wished he was heir to a more visual style of writing such as Chinese
or Japanese. Over the course of his lifetime, Paul would make several attempts to learn one or more Asian languages, but lacked the discipline to learn more than a few phrases and characters.
After the publication of his second book, at age thirty-four, Obern received a call from a man who was writing an essay on his poetry. The critic, Samuel Wassermann, wanted to know if Obern was depressed. The critic asked him questions about his childhood, his upbringing. He wanted to show a link with Obern’s art.
“You see,” Wassermann explained, “it has been demonstrated that writers, artists, poets in your case, are prone to depression. Many of the great masters were always in the doldrums. There is also a link between depression and hypersexuality, and a link between hypersexuality and art. I would like to explore these themes in your work.” (See Autobiography, page 276. The account is presented from Wasserman’s perspective in his article in The Tefry University Journal of the Arts, Vol.7, No. 3.)
Paul would have liked to have helped Wassermann with his essay, and told him so. It sounded like an interesting topic, but, as he told Wassermann, he could not help. Try as he might, Obern could not recall being depressed. At least not for any great length of time, especially since his father died. Then again, he had not given his father or his mother much thought in the intervening years. Obern had been too preoccupied with life, and, later, with the demands of his art. When he put down the receiver, Obern could not help but feel sorry for the critic. Wassermann had sounded so despondent when Obern had told him the truth.
But, after the conversation, Paul became more introspective. “Maybe I should be depressed,” he thought. He brooded over his childhood, and found much that could make him sad. In a few weeks he was miserable. To some degree Obern felt that his writing improved as his mood declined, although he still took much pleasure in writing, and found this a contradiction. After a few months, Obern called Wassermann back. Obern explained that he was now genuinely depressed, and that the man could proceed with his article. The critic was overjoyed.
Dadaoism (An Anthology) Page 18
