Confessions of the Fox

by Jordy Rosenberg

  But he loved the Scent, the taste most of all. Sweet marshmallow and warm breath; saltwater threaded with Violet. All these bouquets—and more—and more. He toyed with her between her thighs until she shiver’d magnificently in his arms.

  Then Jack reach’d for the handkerchief he’d pinched from the Kneebones. The one he kept in his pocket.

  He took it to her and slowly dried her. Lovingly. Quite lovingly, in fact, touching her cheek intermittently, bending down to kiss her lips while he massaged the handkerchief just at the softest place where her upperest Thigh plumped out, then tunneled into the hot tang of groin.

  When she was lying limp and easeful in his arms—smiling up at him—“You won’t tell the other bats ’bout this, will you?”

  “ ’Bout what?” Bess teas’d.

  Jack twist’d and perspired, his mouth searched for Words of tenderness unknown to him.

  “ ’Bout how I’m touching you.”

  “How are you touching me?”

  “Oh, Bess…” Frustrated, his fingers gripped tighter the Rag. He couldn’t find a term to capture the way her madge called out to him—how he knew how to pet it to make it flutter under his fingers.

  “I don’t give language to things that are beyond it.” Her forehead crunched in concentration. “Things that aren’t a matter of free will. I mean, in that Spinoza-sense.”

  This occasion’d silence.

  “D’you know Spinoza?”

  He shook his head. Was “Spinoza” a person?

  “Dutch philosopher. And lens-grinder. Liked to watch Spiders catch flies in the brown corners of his ivy-riddled cottage. Was the only good thing to ever come out of Amsterdam.”

  It was Amsterdam, Bess said, that had taught the world profiteering. Had sent its surveyors to drain England’s fens, to starve the common folk.

  “The Dutch’ve innovat’d every technique of efficient Cruelties,” she said. “And Spinoza—because he watched it happen—knew something about the World we’re now coming to inhabit.”

  He was still stroking her hair in his lap. It was terrible, what she was saying—but, then—something was also so perfect: touching and talking at the same time. One or two Doors inside him were peeking open.

  “London will be just like Amsterdam soon—a place of only merchants and commerce. Still, some things are beyond our will—those things that connect us—and that’s where we can be free.”*4

  “Isn’t free will…freer?”

  “It’s better to know we’re connected to a vast universe of living things.”

  When Bess said it, Jack could feel the air stir around his Body. We’re connected, he thought. Connected.

  Then, without further ado, Bess’s hand was unlacing his Trousers.

  Jack push’d her hand away.

  “I want to make you feel good.” She pulled at the Lacing on his breeches. “Connected.”

  “I do.” He inched backwards on the bed.

  Bess sat up. Brought her knees against her chest. “You’re being Odd and stubborn.”

  Jack didn’t want to be Odd and stubborn. He imagin’d other coves—easy, unstubborn coves, losing themselves joyously with her. Not having this conversation.

  He lay down, pulling her next to him. Wasn’t it enough how I touched her?

  She laid her head on his smish. He felt her furrowed Brow against his chin. With time, it relaxed and she slid into Slumber. They slept.

  Sometime in the night she woke with a Terror.

  “Popham’s Eau!” she called out, her voice thick with dreaming.

  Jack sooth’d her back to sleep. He knew enough of Terrors—and of Secrets—to know not to ask what Popham’s Eau was.

  *1 Who is this capable of letting a woman see him when he’s broken?

  Clearly this is just my problem. I oughtn’t universalize it.

  So, just me then. Me, the fucking fetishist of my own self-sufficiency.

  Yes, I’m stewing.

  NB: This stewing is relevant, as I consider the jealousy (nay, misery) the text provokes a register of its “authenticity.”

  *2 Of course this is what you get for allowing a woman to see you in your vulnerability. She’ll show you hers ten times over. Note to self: could you please fucking try to remember that.

  *3 Remarkable that Jack’s genitalia are not described in detail. Unlike almost any other sexological or protosexological document from the period (and after), which exfoliate layer after layer of prurient fantasies about the sex organs (e.g., George Arnaud de Ronsil, A Dissertation on Hermaphrodites [1750], or, really, just about any colonial “first contact” narrative—as, for example, John Marten, A Treatise on Venereal Disease [1711], which is less about treating venereal disease and quite a lot of speculation about genitalia in Guinea. Or the odious Johannus Riolanus’s fascination with hermaphrodites, etc.: “[t]he Clitoris grows inordinately long, and counterfeits a penis; it is called a Tail with which women abuse one another” [A Sure Guide: or, the Best and Nearest Way to Physick and Chyrurgery, 1651]).

  “Best and Nearest Way” my ass.

  Look, I’m not saying that I haven’t lovingly “abused” a woman or two with my own “tail.” But to be compelled to pull it out and wave it around for some so-called scientist…?

  *4 “Spinoza’s thought is monstrous,” writes Antonio Negri from Rebibbia prison.

  What Negri meant was that Spinoza’s thought did not exist separately from the monstrous violence of Dutch capitalism. Spinoza-the-lens-grinder peered at the world through a ferocious prism. He saw firsthand “the savage adventure of accumulation”—capitalism’s desire.

  Capitalism desires, said Spinoza, to persist in the cruelness of its being. This desire is neither rational nor bound by law. It cannot be lawyered away or reasoned out of existence. And thus only the desire of the multitude to persist in its being can oppose the desire of capitalism to persist in its horrible own (cf. Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics, University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

  15.

  It isn’t that Jack is so spectacularly good, Bess thought while she dressed for the market.

  Jack was still deep in sleep, the edge of his lip curled up, with a crooked tooth peeking through. Bess rustled into clothes, took a Piss. He did not stir.

  Though it’s charmingly obvious he thinks he’s spectacularly good. It was in the messy, pleased smile he flashed at her afterwards.

  And, she suppos’d, he was good, but not in a way that would be impossible to achieve with someone—really, anyone—else.

  It was something else. Something to do with his Body’s relationship to Retrospection. Or the Lack thereof.

  When other coves gave themselves over—at that moment of happy release and Splendor—they were transformed, however briefly, into Children. This phenomenon, Bess thought, was consistent across men. One moment, she was being embraced by a full-grown man; in the next, a hairy young boy was struggling away inside her, spiraling backwards before her eyes into some gleeful Youth. Some became again the Babes they were when their mums washed their nethers. When they giggled in loving arms with perfect Openness.

  How boring, thought Bess, swirling her cloak onto her shoulders, nodding goodbye to Jack’s glinting Tooth, and clicking out the door.

  How infantile, how easily given to abandon, how secure and pleased with themselves are these sorts of men. Such men have no idea that in that flash of joy they felt—in that flash of what they imagined was so-called union—Bess saw them clearly for the nurslings they were. For in that flash, men were lost in a Carnival of the free and simple childishness that lived inside their sugar sticks*; lost to their partner; lost to Togetherness. And while Bess knew other doxies who reveled in producing this spinning backwards in time, who puff’d with power at the moment of male
descent into babyhood and happy babbling, Bess found it lonesome.

  Throughout her erranding-walk—the mist of dirty dove-feathers, the inescapable Soot, the shouts of cherry-vendors—she mused on this.

  Jack, alone amongst the coves she’d ever been with, showed no sign of childishness when he felt pleasure. Not even the slightest hint of infantile Joy.

  When he toyed with her and she squirmed in his arms, Jack groaned with pleasure. But it was the groan of an adult. And this—what she could only think of as his relentless and slightly irking masculine Composure; his body’s foreclosed relationship to time, to traveling backwards, to becoming a child again in pleasure—impelled her to want something from him. Some cracking-open. Something.

  Did it exhaust him, this untouchable adulthood? This refusal to lose himself? While the other coves were only too eager to undo themselves for her, to throw themselves back upon the arms of the past and become the boys who haunted their own arborvitae, Jack was the only cove she’d wish to see undone in just this way. Precisely because he was the only cove who refus’d to let himself be so undone.

  * Penises

  16.

  Nightfall and Jack was wandering the Shore, recalling the occasions Kneebone had warned him against gleaning. There’s provisions ’gainst that, you know, he’d said more than once, nodding at vagrants picking garbage from the Sewers and at Thames-side. Property of the Municipality, that is.*1

  The black water crawl’d with weeds and dusk-Beetles plinking against the riverskin. Lost in remembrances, he stumbled over a reclining Form in the dirt.

  A man sprawled like a toppled statuary. The figure jolted and stirred, striking at the air in front of him. Jack skipp’d to the side, but half-heartedly. Part of him wanted to be pummeled. ’Twould replace the ache of his own “odd stubbornness” with something else, at least. The man grabb’d his ankle, tripping him to the ground.

  “You a constable?” He wiped his face with a large palm. Jack realized with a start that it was the speckle-bearded man from Lamb’s Conduit alley. The one who had tried to pawn off nicked goods on him.

  “Are you in jest?”

  The man barreled over and pinned Jack facedown in the wet shoresilt.

  “Why’re you out here? Looking for some buggery?”

  “I—” Jack panicked.

  “Answer in cant, or I’ll know you’re a constable.”

  “I do cant,” Jack rushed.

  “Then answer that way.”

  “You’re a molly,” Jack said stupidly, his mouth crammed with dirt.

  “And you’re not?”—small, gruff laugh. “We’re on the Thamesshore at dusk, after all.”

  Fair point. But how to explain that he was not even a—

  “I’m not looking for any catting. I’m jus’ strolling.”

  “Jus’ strolling!” A puff of laughter. “Where d’you live? Answer in cant or I’ll snap yer neck.”

  “Under the rose*2.”

  “What game d’you go on*3?”

  He searched. “I’m music*4.” He repeated this, shouting over his shoulder, “I’m music.”

  “Not without a game you’re not.”

  The man pressed down harder. The silt smelled of sewage and Oysters gone to rot.

  “I’m Jack Sheppard.”

  The man lifted slightly, and Jack sat up—rearranged himself opposite—breathing hard. Silt shadowed his cheeks with the false outline of a beard.

  “Sheppard that just broke out of Newgate?” Scowling. Head cocked.

  “No gaol can hold me.”

  “A bit scrawny for Sheppard.” The man squinted. “From what I’ve heard.”

  Jack’s heart skipped. “I’m not.”

  “Not Sheppard?”

  “Not scrawny.” Jack chewed his lip. “Not overly.”

  “Sheppard”—the man’s voice gentled—“they say, is come to claim his crown as the Gaolbreaker General of all London.” The man was studying Jack’s hands. Regarded him up and down slowly. “But I hadn’t realized Sheppard”—brushed the dirt off Jack’s cheeks, ran his hand over the smooth skin—“was kin.”

  Jack managed not to flinch.

  “If you want to learn knapping I could use a nimble pall*5.” The man removed his hand.

  “You work for Wild?”

  “Never.”

  So there was at least one other unowned rogue.

  It was only just beginning to dawn—a rouge Laceration at the horizon.

  “Nor I,” said Jack.

  The man grinned, and the beard covering his jaw, cheeks and neck flex’d like some underwater body rippling an ocean’s skin.

  “Blueskin Blake,” he said. Paused. “Well, that’s what they call me in the Newgate Register. I’m Aurelius Blake by birth—descendent of the Aurelian Moors at Abavalla. Aurie to rogues.”*6

  * * *

  —

  Now Jack and Aurie were catching their breaths against a brightly painted wooden parapet on a roof in Covent Garden. Purple rain clouds blanketed the sky, delaying full Daybreak. The market stalls were empty down below. They had time for the quickest jilt.

  Jack bent over the parapet. Lilllihammer’s Toy Shop.

  “This’s a good one to jump,” ’splained Aurie. “Crammed with bebobs, but centinels’ll overlook toy shops for more profitable Endeavors. It’s a good mark—opens late—the children don’t tumble in ’til their mums have lounged sufficiently and been dressed for London paradings. Rich little sprats. Their shop deserves to be— Hey!”

  Jack was swinging off the splintered candy-colored boards and dropping into the Alley alongside the shop. A thud and Aurie landed beside him.

  “—robbed,” Aurie finished.

  Jack was studying the windows.

  There was a small Glaze set into the birch with one of the newer Sash-types that had become increasingly popular around town. With older wrought-iron casements, the wood surround would buckle, leaving gaps, easy to pry open. But the newer sashes were set flush with the window box and fastened with thick glazing bars. Unskilled persons would have trouble with these, and resort to kicking in the glazes, which made a most noisy crashing Sound.

  Aurie had already balled his fist, ready to break the glaze.

  “No.” Jack had produc’d Kneebone’s file, and in moments the heavy glaze was aching free of the sash with a small but audible Creak.

  Setting the glaze against the inner wall, Jack slipp’d through, and Aurie followed. The toy shop was suspended in the deep dark of After-Hours.

  And then the quiet broke. Sound flooded from every corner. Something of the chatter at the watch-maker’s—or the Newgate-voices—but this was a still more unleash’d version. A tripling, quadrupling of sound. Vivid and desperate.

  Jack jumped, then spun, trying to fix on the source. He raced along the walls, grabbing at bebobs, sending them scattering.

  “Ordinarily we try to be a bit more deliberate in our choosing…” Aurie muttered, frowning.

  But Jack could see where it came from now.

  The sounds came from things.

  * * *

  —

  A blond-haired doll in the window wailed. A stack of Chessboards emitted muffled groans. A roar emanated from clusters of marbles. All these objects shriek’d out to Jack, begging for something. Begging for release.

  Aurie was inspecting baubles, peering carefully at the shelves before selecting an item and placing it into a sack. He seemed unaffected by the Chaos.

  Unless.

  “Do you not hear all that?” Jack tapped at Aurie’s shoulder.

  “I hear you pawing at the shelves like a lunatic.”

  “You don’t hear the…other sounds?”

  Aurie shot him a look. “I hear you wasting precious moments overwrought about phantoms,” he gru
mbled. “We’re exiting this shop extremely shortly, so unless you mean to do so empty-handed, I suggest you choose your items now or not at all.”

  Jack gazed back at the shelves. The Mayhem was unrelenting, but it was resolv’ng into a kind of meaning. It wasn’t just sound—it was desire.

  Iron jacks squawk’d— The wilderness of wolves—birthed in the white vapor and the smoke-dark Blue, forest kilns of Killarney— We smelt in the relentless Air, in the furious Hollows. It was nonsensical, but Jack could hear what he felt sure was a wish. To be tangled, thrown, caress’d.

  A row of straw-haired dolls begged to be held.

  A pile of wooden Blocks jockey’d to be stacked.

  They all wanted something.

  They wanted him to take them.

  The room filled with righteous yowling—it had turn’d churchlike with the sublime thrum of holy truths. Rain rumbled closer up the Thames. The air throbb’d with charge, prickled and heated.

  * * *

  —

  One sound called to Jack louder than the rest. A groaning thump from the center of the store. Rhimey rhimey rhimey rhimey. It was a syncopated, repetitive swarm of Sound.

  Jack stumbl’d past child’s mobiles, sport balls of all kinds, and dollhouses, seeking the source. Once he saw it, he couldn’t turn away, even though at that moment he knew for certain how cumbersome the Heist would be. Not dangerous—though surely a tad idiotic.

  It was a rocking Horse.

  Not even the most beautiful rocking Horse he’d ever seen. Not like what he’d spy’d through the large-paned glazes of the fancier cribs near Marylebone. The gray dappled steeds of the bourgeoisie; Stallions riding high on iron legs affix’d to smooth, oiled planks.

  This was a simple thing. A raw, unpainted Horse without legs. ’Twas just a dome of linseed-oiled elm mounted atop a crescent-shaped Base. But it was transfixing. Some kind of legless horse-ship with a glossy Pommel that Jack could feel in his palm before it was even in his palm, and then he was lifting it while it breath’d—he could hear it now—ride me ride me—the words getting softer and softer now that he held it.