Lurid & Cute

by Adam Thirlwell

  in its new-found machismo

  Not that Hiro and I had come back with a sea chest spilling with doubloons but still, it was something. To have money of my own was very pleasant. Qat, I suppose, would have been one option now open to us, we could have sat outside the grocer’s with those fronds protruding from our mouths like the red-eyed geeks who sat on garden chairs and looked into their inner space on the high street, counting cars. But my wildness was more different and more sweet. Now, for instance, it was possible for me to take Candy out for dinner, or buy her small treats at the African delicatessen, and to be able to do such things, which I had not been able to do for some time now, made me feel at least slightly if privately enlarged. Sure, naturally it’s very sad when violence occurs, in no way does anyone want to be doing violence, but at the same time these things do end, finally, nothing continues always, and there you are on Geranium Avenue or some such boulevard, and really things couldn’t be prettier. And then of course there are still restaurants in interesting parts of town, and little theatre openings that people tell you about. You can’t let the memory of violence overshadow everything, or at least that was how I liked to think. And also, I had to admit that there was even something pleasant, in talking to someone when making them look down the barrel of a gun, just a fleeting delicious moment of knowing you have absolutely gone too far. And the memory of that sensation allowed me this lazy largesse in my general demeanour. We sat there in the pomegranate pubs and in the small-size newspapers read about the fascists taking over everything, their triumphal marches in the TV studios and the giant slums. Then in the bigger newspapers we read about our friends. Because what happens if you’re hypereducated is that in the newspapers you recognise many people from your childhood or early youth, which is a problem if you want to preserve a sense of universal respect and public optimism because it does reduce your sense of gravitas a little – that there is the parliamentary secretary who once bored you over dinner, there is the cinema critic in the sadsack figure of Nelson. It tends to lower your estimation of the social world.

  that may require more violence to continue

  Even if very quickly the issue of the social world did start to impose itself, in the need for making more money. For largesse cannot continue, not indefinitely.

  — Still, we do need more, said Hiro.

  — I don’t have any, I said.

  — That’s why we need to make more, he said.

  — Oh, I said.

  — How much money you got? said Hiro.

  — I don’t have money, I said.

  — Doesn’t Candy make money? said Hiro.

  — That’s not why I married her, I said.

  — I never said that, said Hiro.

  — I don’t have any money, I said.

  And while to make someone stare down the barrel of a gun has its definite temptations, my preference certainly would nevertheless have been for less violent schemes, if they could also be pursued without exertion. One method for getting rich quick in comfortable surroundings seemed to be online gambling, and especially the online poker competitions, but this was not, we soon discovered, where our particular gifts lay. We did not have the temperament. Then for a moment I considered if the general global vibe could be our friend, given how many products there are in the world and how many disparities in their pricing, and wondered about turning my parents’ house into some Internet depot or warehouse where we would buy up special editions of chocolate or magazines, or rare forms of sneaker, then sell them to foreign buyers for enormous profit. But the obvious problems of capital and distribution, of market knowledge and know-how soon defeated this idle dream. It seemed that at this moment the considered small intrusion on legality might be our very best option, or this was how Hiro tried to argue. It had a neatness to it. And I always wanted to see the best in Hiro’s reasoning. Always it seemed very impressive. This manner of entering the world that Hiro offered seemed valuable to me precisely because it was so piquant and unusual. I saw no need for any other classroom – just Hiro and his arguments. Perhaps in addition I think I did feel altruistic, like in the creation of this troupe that was always my ideal, I wanted very much to assist Hiro in his effort to live well. If he needed a student or laboratory assistant, I could fulfil that role with ease.

  this opaque mood

  Definitely this was a time of many fiestas, but the scene I am trying to describe is much longer than any one fiesta: it is the whole time frame of my need to live in truth and perform grand theatrical confessions. For of course, it was also difficult explaining the source of my money to Candy. She worried that I must be once again borrowing from my parents, and did not like it, for if money was a problem why couldn’t I just be content with borrowing money from her, if it in no way upset her? And I had no obvious way of telling her she was not right, because sadly it’s difficult to be clear about the sources of one’s wealth, and it made me sad to be doing violence to her wish only to be generous and considerate. I thought about confessing everything to her, but then, I further thought, she might be in some way worried or upset about my behaviour, and I did not want to be pressed on what I was doing, because I knew that in some way it would be difficult to explain, and yet at the same time I was very sure that at the moment this was the right way to act, if only because it was making things so free. Perhaps this was all that had been the problem, perhaps with this new sense of freedom we could use our marriage as the enfants terribles might use a playground? It did at least seem so. Because to be able to pay with money that I had come by, if not by my own efforts precisely, but at least through my own innovation, was a surprisingly emboldening situation. Even if the means were arguably very wrong, now that I had achieved the goal of some small largesse it turned out that I wanted to enjoy the benefits of that goal – I felt that I deserved it. In the night-times, I would reason with myself in this kind of way: why else achieve a goal if not to enjoy its fruits? Not to enjoy the fruits would be to deny that the goal had meaning, and I did not want to admit this of our complicated adventure with a pistolet. It could not surely be true that all that planning and anxiety had been for nothing? Not to mention the possible hurt we may have caused to various people who happened to be in that nail salon on that particular afternoon. No, I could not allow that possibility. And also, the fruits this event had opened out for me were the fruits of ardour and sangfroid, beautifully outside my normal thinking – like the way you might try to imagine something a little larger than the universe, not massively bigger, just a little. When that happens, when you have access to such things, it seems only magnanimity on your part to continue them to the end, and investigate the paraphernalia that are now at your disposal.

  where greatness may be possible

  That paraphernalia, of course, being how it might be possible to be with Romy after all. Not, of course, that it really was so possible. The impossibility of the situation, however, was what made it all so thrilling. Temptations floated everywhere in the luminous air, and so if I made myself laughable to Romy, I also liked to play the sexual buffoon. Our illicit and obscene communications increased. I would send her small photos, endowed with little captions: Think about my tongue, in your legs, your thighs. And sometimes teasingly she would reply, like: Why do we now always talk about sex? And I was expert at convincing her that this was not only about sex. This talking about sex, I said, was really talking about something else inside out. Perhaps you’re right, she said. I only need to hear your voice, I said. Sometimes not even your voice, she said. Just to know you feel that about me, and I’m gone. These moments of small triumph for me made me very happy. Once, I wrote to Romy that I was definitely getting fat, to which she replied: Darling, imagining you fat just makes me feel even more tenderly towards you. That tenderness made me joyful. I felt totally the masculine, in a manner of which I was sure my father would have been proud. Of course, I also had my doubts. Was this right? I sometimes wondered. Could it be that happiness was possible? Because to mishear
and come up on stage to accept the jackpot prize when you are not the one who has been chosen, that’s surely a fate worse than death, or nearly? And what of the other cases? What of the person who might well have been chosen, and might well consent to such a fate, but is so busy with problems at home, so many problems of unemployment and multiple love affairs and skin complaints, that he does not have the time to devote himself to his appointed and necessary task? Is he still chosen, or not chosen? I did not want to be the one who missed my opportunity for greatness. In this suspended state I think it’s therefore obvious that questions of before and after would perplex me – as if just maybe the chocolate egg of the world had broken and all its liquor was oozing out, like those stories where the future is folded in among the past, all heavily and thickly. By which specifically I mean that in this rainforest season I began to wonder much more than I ever had about my horoscope. In some milk bar, hiding from the rains, eating assorted blueberry galettes, I picked up an old Chinese newspaper that came free in the local kiosks. And on one particular day it said: Something extraordinary will begin this month in your love life. A major change will occur, but it will be a good one. I checked the date. The date was still good. But still, at this time, I doubted it. New fluorescent birds were screaming in the park. Things felt heavy and mysterious, as if portents could be everywhere occurring. Late one night I was walking down the street and suddenly saw Jordan, whom I had not seen for at least fifteen years. Jordan, I said. Jordan. She looked at me.

  — Why, it’s you, she said.

  And we smiled at each other. I didn’t know what else to say. I had never thought I would ever see her again, not ever.

  — Hey you, I said.

  We paused but also we did not pause. Very gently we continued to walk away from each other in opposite directions, and I could not really understand if she had really been there or not – because maybe, I was wondering, what I saw was not a real sight, and in some way she had at that moment died, in some other city, on the other side of the hemisphere. Perhaps she had. I never tried to discover, or knew how I would if I wanted. So yes, it’s true that trouble was the general atmosphere, as if the general web of mana were just breathing in and out a little more deeply than usual, but still I really was not prepared to believe that my horoscope was right, and that there would be some new crisis in my amours. I thought that Fate had surely done enough already.

  but only if he can talk privately with Romy

  My one intent was to find myself alone with Romy and say what I urgently needed to say. I didn’t care about the general fiesta background. That we should be here among a community of various immigrants, lolling on plastic chairs, while behind us was projected a film of another party simultaneously occurring in some favela town across the unfinished ocean, it perhaps did seem like some irony or dandyism, but at this point I was not analysing things with such elan. Chorizo imported from across the seas was being grilled and it made the air heavy and red. In a fluoro skater’s vest a girl was grinding against her chubby amorato. And I suppose I also had to admit that if the people here were trying to combine what might be called work and what might be called a party, then they were in their way no different from what I was trying to achieve in my own miniature circle. Me too I was trying to make my life a work of art. For while naturally much good comes of parties, they allow the socially awkward – the kind who cannot meet your eye when they address you, who prefer to talk from behind the shield of a cupped and nervous hand – to blossom and feel more at ease, for me I would say they formed a kind of trial or even inquisition. Because the helium balloon that was this feeling I had for Romy was now desperate for release. It was very important that she should understand how much it was possible for me to feel, that she did not think that I was without feelings or without passion. It’s important I think to tell people everything you can. Not that this was easy because at this particular party Candy and I and Hiro had arrived in let’s say a flustered state – with Hiro in one of his wigs and not everyone smiling – and that isn’t ideal, for the party atmosphere. Candy herself had changed her hair as well, like shaved the sides so that the oversweep was an imposing mane. I’m not saying it was so feminine but I thought it did look sharp. And we were all the more flustered when we discovered that what we had assumed would be a simple drinks party, the sort of party you just enter for two minutes and then leave, was in fact this demonstration and happening, with political discussion and installations – not because we disapproved of such demonstrations but simply because it’s difficult, when your social expectations are confused: a little like turning a page and discovering that in fact the last paragraph you just read was also the end of the book, or like when you see a child walk past then notice she has breasts and is a dwarf instead. It’s no problem, obviously, but it just requires a miniature replay and readjustment. Whereas there was no time for such a readjustment because already Romy was there in front of us.

  — Hey, she said.

  — Hey, I said.

  This was how we talked. And it was how therefore we continued to talk for we had no alternative, there is never an alternative to the prevailing tone, and I resolved not to be upset but it was difficult, especially because Romy could see that I was sad and dismayed and angry or all at once, and then she asked me, with Candy beside me, what was so wrong. And I was mad at her because if you arrive very clearly in a state of some conflict, and also if very obviously you have this ferocious need to talk very privately with another person, and they see that you are in a state of conflict, which is not a state you would have liked to display, then the polite thing is just to ignore that you have seen what you have seen, whereas she was instead asking me what was wrong, with Candy next to me, and I disliked this not only because it made me feel uncomfortable but also because the fact that she felt she could ask such a question so casually and even blithely surely seemed to prove that for her there was now no conflict, that she was simply with Epstein and so the false position between us all was totally resolved. And therefore or nevertheless, at the same time I was also thinking that now it was all the more urgent to work out how to find myself alone with Romy. Very much I regretted that I had officially given up smoking, for smoking is one of the great ways of delivering yourself alone with other people, and most of life I think is trying to construct private conversations with other people. But that option was no longer possible, and in fact it seemed no conversation would be possible at all – so bleakly did Epstein stand there with his beautiful poise, or lead her away into a group around a beat-up stereo, playing ancient Communist canciones. I walked away, therefore, leaving Candy with Hiro to chat about their usual topics – tap dance, for instance – with the rough idea of finding a bathroom but really because I was very sad. I was overwhelmed.

  prevented in a kind of fold by another girl

  While I waited to find Romy on her own, I roamed the dark scene. In one corner of the room there was a television, and I find it difficult to avoid a television – not because I am so intent on the game shows and confessions, but just because a moving image is very difficult to ignore. If I’m trying to read on one of those ancient planes where they silently display the film on a screen at the front, I keep looking up at it and losing my concentration, just as in the airport lounge already I will have been distracted by the silent news, and the mini frenzy of its montage. So naturally I paused and began to watch. It was one of those miniature portable televisions, placed neatly on an upturned crate. I sat down on a plastic chair and looked at the label on my beer bottle, where a pink sunset doused a surfing scene. Then a girl whose name was Dolores was beside me, a name as outmoded and international as that – and immediately I was interested because there was such a contrast between this name and the way her face was like the most modern and erotic invitation I had ever seen. She had the most open face I ever knew: it was cartoon in its immensity and lavish eyes.

  — This is what I think, she said.

  And I did like this way of op
ening she had. Barely had I looked at her but she talked to me as if we had been talking all that evening, maybe all that life.

  — Sorry, she said. — But this annoys me.

  — Tell me, I said. — I’m listening.

  — So OK, she said. — Everything you see on screen happens like a dream although it doesn’t seem like that, it seems just entirely normal.

  — OK, I said.

  — Does that make sense, she said.

  — Perhaps, I said.

  No question, this was not the brand of conversation I was used to, I mean this abstract opening. However, if she wanted to talk television then I could do it, because in this era you spend a lot of time analysing shows. The screen is often on, in the background, as pretext or whatever for conversation, the way a castrato might have been on, in the background, in the old theatres, while everyone arranged their assignations and bedroom tricks.

  ME

  You said what you said?

  Because as usual I was narcotic already, being as I was supplied by Hiro, and it makes you much more pliable and intriguing in conversations. On the TV screen there was one of those series that go on for ever, like without any resolution but just a system of glissando events that never reach a finale. That’s probably why TV is our most popular art form – but that will change, it always does, everything that seems unassailable and for ever descends into blizzard and desert. On this show it was either very dark inside a house, or outside and very white in the bright and desert light.

  — Now look at this, she said.

  & in this fold talks screens

  This man, said Dolores, wishes to prevent a showdown between his friend and two dangerous dealers on a corner – but as soon as I even say that, she continued, I am already talking like a dream because the man has no way of knowing when or where this showdown will take place. He is relying only on his intuition. Because although in reality there are always many things that are possible, in a dream or on a screen everyone knows everything, their ability to predict other people is unerring.