“What’s Tibet like?”
“It’s okay.”
“Just okay? That’s all? I thought a trip to Tibet would be something special.”
She ignores me.
“Do they levitate mountains over there?”
A frigid look.
“I didn’t see any of that.”
“I don’t know, I figure some incredible things must go on in those frozen caves.”
“Not especially.”
Miz Mystic sits with her back against the Japanese screen. Her eyes are like those of a lama contemplating an edelweiss. Miz Suicide is working on her third tea. Mingus launches into a capricious piece that makes a crazy contrast with this mystico-depressing scene. Bouba is lying on the couch like the Dalai Lama of the Carré St. Louis. The fatigue of two sleepless nights is beginning to hit me. This planet is not going well at all. (“Dhul-Qarnain,” they said, “Gog and Magog are ravaging this land. Build us a rampart against them and we will pay you tribute.”) I formulate this vow, then fall into a cotton-wool sleep, diagonally across the bed. As Mingus plays “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”
I WAKE up with a start to see Miz Mystic psychotically pounding the bed. Then she makes a dash for the window and tries to jump out. Bouba grabs her by the waist. Miz Suicide has a hold on her foot. The insensitive needle scratches at the record. Miz Mystic is foaming with held-back rage. Her desire to throw herself out the window is so strong it seems legitimate to me. In cases of great conviction, we should make an exception. Let her do it. Someone wants to kill himself. So be it. (“Say: Nothing will your flight avail you. If you escaped from death and slaughter you would enjoy this world only for a little while.”) Miz Mystic has her torso out the window. Her skirt is pushed up to her waist. Dry, bare legs. Miz Suicide pulls her back desperately. Miz Mystic is making good headway toward the void as the indifferent cross looks on.
When it occurs to me what is going on, I get up. Bouba and Miz Suicide help me pull Miz Mystic back inside.
MIZ MYSTIC is sleeping now on the couch. A crescent moon like a hat beyond the cross. The Remington glows in the dark. Solemnly, Charles Mingus attacks “The Pithecanthropus Erectus” (1956). By the pizza box, in the middle of the room, one of Miz Mystic’s shoes. I can see the filigree of scrapes and scratches on the heel. Suddenly, I’m depressed. This room is the headquarters for every marginal character in town. The urban mafia of crazies instinctively turns to 3670 rue St-Denis, off the Carré St. Louis, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, America, Earth. My house. Will this honest, conscientious black cruise artist never find his paradise? I want Carole Laure! I demand Carole Laure! Bring me Carole Laure!
The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering
an Old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect
IT’S HORRIBLY HOT. The Carré St. Louis is full of bare-chested drunkards. The sticky air stinks of beer. Upstairs in the room we’re roasting. It’s hell, I’m telling you. Reason enough to go downstairs. Only Beelzebub could fuck in this heat. His moaning bugs me. Fire must be shooting out of his mouth up there.
The Carré St. Louis is not your average place. That mossy ground. All the filthy brats you could ask for. A girl photographing Pauline Julien’s house.
A bum comes up for a hand-out.
“Got any spare change?”
“No.”
“That’s all right, I’ll tell you anyway.”
He takes a tiny scrap of paper out of his pocket.
“Look. What do you see?”
“A map of Africa cut out from Time magazine.”
He looks me in the eye.
“You’re right,” he says. “How did you know?”
“It says so under the map.”
“Oh, you’re an intellectual!”
“I know how to read. And how to use my fists too.”
He raises his left hand to show he doesn’t want trouble.
“All right, all right. Show me your country on the map.”
“Ivory Coast. Right there.”
I point to the first country I can make out.
“Ivory Coast! Is that where you’re from? I worked in the Ivory Coast. I know your president.”
All bums know all the African presidents. Why doesn’t he introduce me to the Canadian prime minister? I haven’t even been introduced to the local crime lord!
I SIT DOWN on a park bench with the book I started last night. Written by a certain Limonov. A Russian dissident. The “different dissident” approach. Instead of wasting his time playing the prophet of doom, Limonov gets off with the blacks in Harlem. His book is called The Russian Poet Prefers Big Blacks. It begs a rebuttal: The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering an old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect. New Frontiers Publications.
The Iron Curtain seen as a giant chastity belt.
BOUBA CAME back from the SAVI, a kind of emergency center for migrants and immigrants. You practically have to provide a complete C.V. and a certificate of good conduct and safe morals before they’ll slip you twenty dollars. The working class has had its troubles since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Bouba sold himself today; tomorrow will be my turn. He came back and bought food at Pellatt’s. The usual fare: potatoes, rice and chicken (the neck only).
The Black Penis and the
Demoralization of the Western World
PLACE DES ARTS subway. The 80 bus, north. Get off at Laurier and Park. Bar Isaza. Steep stairway. Smoky landscape. Waves of black gold moving across the dance floor. Starched dashikis. Negroes in rut. A few dozen white mice come to play in the lair of the Black Cat.
“There they are.”
“Where?”
“At the back, to the right.”
“Okay, Bouba. I’m going to have a piss first.”
Men’s john. Two jet-black Negroes.
NEGRO ONE: You have to be quick with these girls, brother, or they’ll slip through your fingers.
NEGRO TWO: That’s the way it is!
NEGRO ONE: They came here to see black. We’ve got to show them black.
NEGRO TWO: What’s this black business?
NEGRO ONE: Listen, brother, cut the innocence.
You’re here to fuck, right? You’re here to fuck a white woman, right? That’s how it works.
NEGRO TWO: But a woman can be . . .
NEGRO ONE: There’s no women here. There’s black and white—that’s all!
STREAMING BODIES. Eighteen-carat ebony. Ivory teeth. Reggae music. Combustion. Black fusion. A white/black couple practically copulating on the dance floor. Atomic shockwaves.
BOUBA INTRODUCES me.
“My brother. We live together.”
The girls smile.
“What do you do?” one of them asks me.
“I write. I’m a writer.”
“Really? What do you write?”
“Fantasies.”
“What kind?”
“Mine.”
“Are they good?”
“We’ll see.”
The girl gazes sadly at the dance floor, then asks me what I think about it.
“Nothing—except that black and white are accomplices.”
“Accomplices! Where’s the murder?”
“The murder of the white man. Sexually, the white man is dead. Completely demoralized. Look at them dancing. Do you know any white man who could keep up with that madness?”
Hard-core cruise. Savage thrust. A few white guys gesticulating in the corner. Everything else is a black tide, washing over the dance floor, filling the room. Here and there a woman is trapped like a seagull with its feet caught in heavy oil. Brazilian music: slow, insinuating, languorous. The air is sticky. Opaque sensuality.
“Want to dance?”
It’s like moving into Amazon humidity. Bodies running with sweat. You need a machete to cut through this jungle of arms, legs, sexes and mingling smells. Spicy sensuality. She presses against me. No talking. The samba flows into our bodies. Sweat pouring down. Everything flowing. Effortlessly. We’ve got all eternity.
&
nbsp; We go back to the table.
“Your business about sexuality,” she declares, “is a load of crap.”
“If you say so.”
“You’re just reworking the Myth of the Black Stud. I don’t believe in it.”
“What do you believe in?”
“Black and white are the same to me.”
“We’re talking sexuality, not arithmetic.”
“Sure. But . . .”
“Since you’ve challenged me, I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. Black and white are equal when it comes to death and sexuality. Eros and Thanatos. And I think that when you mix black man and white woman you get blood red. With his own woman the black man might not be worth the paper he’s printed on, but with a white woman, the chances of something happening are good. Why? Because sexuality is based on fantasy and the black man/white woman fantasy is one of the most explosive ones around.”
“Emotions are black—isn’t that myth a little worn out?”
“It might be. But you can’t have whites winning coming and going. They say they’re better than blacks in everything, then turn around and want to be our equals in one area: sexuality.”
“What about whites who don’t think they’re superior to blacks?”
“Those whites, obviously, don’t have sexual hang-ups.”
A MERINGUE.
“Let’s give it a try.”
Koko, the Senegalese musician I met at the Clochards Célèstes, has a hot tip for me.
“This girl at my table is suffering an attack of the mystical heebie-jeebies over you.”
“Why would that be, brother?”
“She insists you’re the reincarnation of the Great God Ra.”
“As if I needed that.”
“If you want you can stop by my table.”
I let a couple minutes go by, then go over to where Koko is sitting.
“Hi, Koko.”
“Hi, brother. Sit down.”
The girl is as cool and composed as a pressure cooker.
“How are you doing?”
“Not bad.”
The DJ is playing reggae.
“You want to dance?”
“Okay.”
Brazilian music comes on.
“Should we stay?”
“Fine with me.”
It’s that easy when it’s working. Smooth as silk.
“Let’s get a drink at the bar,” she says. “It’s quieter there. We can talk.”
We sit down at the bar on the high stools and order drinks. I ask her what she’s up to these days.
“I’m reading.”
“What?”
“Hemingway.”
“Excellent.”
We finish our drinks. She asks me back to her place for coffee.
“I’ll come.”
“Are you leaving with that girl?” Bouba asks me as I get my jacket from the back of the chair.
“Looks that way.”
“The girl next to me says you dropped her because she didn’t agree with everything you said.”
“Tell her, Bouba, that all I did was beat her to the punch.”
“Looked to me she was hot for you. She told me it was the first time anyone’s ever put her down.”
“Tell her that times are tough for everybody.”
I wish them all a good night. The girl with Bouba, Miz Zodiac, smiles back. Miz Mystic too. A put-on smile. The other girl was waiting for me at the door.
The Black Cat with Nine Tails
SHE LIVES in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, all the way across town. A nice place. Across from a park. Another girl across from a park. But this park has nothing in common with the Carré St. Louis. She cohabits with two cats: Lady Barbarella of Odessa and Blue Salvador Nasseau, otherwise known as Mitzy.
Lady Barbarella is the playful, mischievous, romper-room type. Sir Nasseau the grumpy one. It’s obvious that the apartment belongs to them.
“A drink?”
“Daiquiri, please.”
Miz Cat moves into the kitchen and I hear her rinsing the glasses in the sink. She adds the ice cubes. I try to interpret every movement.
The room is divided into two unequal halves by a black oilcloth. The smallest half, probably the bedroom, has a yellow sofa and a tiny set of shelves which contain erotica only: J.J. Pauvert’s celebrated collection, Miller’s complete works (Nexus, Sexus, Plexus), The Story of O, the publications of Régine Deforges, Lucien de Samosate’s Oeuvre amoureuse, Aretini, Rachilde and Octave Mirabeau. The other side of the screen, more spacious, is less impressive. Prints, a wicker chair, a few cushions and photographs of cats all over the walls. Famous cats. Literary cats. Art critical cats. Communist cats. Aristocats. Vegetarian cats. Lustrée and Fourrure, Malraux’s cats when he lived in Buisson-les-Verrières. Bébert, Céline’s cat. Léautaud’s pussy. Remy de Gourmont’s cat. Huxley’s cat and Claude Roy’s cat. Cocteau’s feline. Colette’s creamy female. Carson McCullers’s stray cat and a few photos of Lady Barbarella in Cuba, Mexico (gazing at the ruins of an Aztec temple), Trinidad, London, China (walking on the Wall) and Singapore.
MIZ CAT is still working on my daiquiri in the kitchen. It is always hard to begin a normal conversation with a person you’ve just met, more or less a chance encounter. Besides, when we’re talking black man and white woman, who are already separated by light-years of metaphysical distance, the slightest physical distance increases the difficulty considerably. In these circumstances of separation—she in the kitchen, I in the living room—the conversation drifted (Allah knows why) onto the topic of famine and cats.
“What?”
“I said that . . .”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I was saying . . .”
“Talk louder.”
“In my country, people eat cats!”
This time, of course, she heard. At that precise moment I realized I had just committed the gaffe of the century.
“I don’t, of course,” I added as quickly as I could.
Too late. What’s done is done. She brought me my drink with a constipated look on her face, and bravely we tried to change the subject.
“I bet you like to read a lot.”
“I do. I spend a fortune on books.”
She glances at her library. Maybe she’s forgotten the incident. What man could love books on one hand, and on the other hand eat cats? I could have told her I appreciated the savor of human flesh, not as gamey as I like, of course, but a pinch of salt helps it go down. I could have told her that and she wouldn’t have blinked. A guy who eats human flesh isn’t necessarily any worse than anyone else.
But cats are another matter. Deep down, she’s right. Everyone loves a lover. Now she’s smiling sweetly at me. The alert has been called off. Suddenly I feel an irresistible urge to piss. The third door to the right. I empty my bladder. Whew! I consider my reflection in the mirror. The Montreal Cat-Strangler. I don’t look the part, but you can’t judge a book . . . What got into me to reveal such an intimate thing? The Devil made me do it. Beelzebub. The Spirit of the Bush that trips up the Negro every time he tries to scale the Judeo-Christian ladder. Perhaps it was a sign from Allah. To avoid compromising myself with this infidel. (“Speak of what has been revealed to you in the Book, obey the necessity of prayer, for prayer preserves you from the impurity of sin and all blameful actions. To keep Allah in your heart is your duty. Allah knows your actions.”) Why did I say, “In my country, people eat cats”? What made me pronounce such words? Fortunately, she does not seem too upset. But why do it in the first place? I splash my face vigorously. White teeth, fire in my eyes. Sexy. Ready for the war between the sexes. I emerge.
And see Miz Cat in the hall, panicky, holding Lady Barbarella of Odessa and the phlegmatic Sir Blue Salvador Nasseau in her arms.
If I don’t waste too much time in needless apology, I might still be able to catch the last subway at one-thirty.
The West Has Stopped Caring about
Sex, That’s Why It
Tries to Debase It
I WAKE up to the notes of Saxophone Colossus. Bouba is saying his first prayer of the day. Clean dishes, peonies next to my Remington. Manna in the fridge: cheese, pâtés, milk, eggs, yogurt, fresh vegetables. Miz Literature visited us as we slept. She left a note by the typewriter.
Dear Man, Are you still among the living? If so, let me know. If not, go to hell.
I offer you three choices:
1. Come by at noon and we’ll eat at the McGill cafeteria.
2. Come by this afternoon if you know how to play badminton and meet me in the gym.
3. Tonight Braxton is at the Rising Sun. Me too.—L.
I fix a quick but copious meal. The sun still uncertain. The Remington, always faithful, with its blank page stuck down its throat. Bouba winds up his prayer. (“We spread the heavens like a canopy and provided it with strong support: yet of its signs they are heedless.” Sura XXI, 33.)
I sit down in front of the typewriter. Bouba is having his breakfast.
“Did it work out all right last night, Bouba?”
“She’s totally crazy, man.”
“That’s the way you like them, I thought.”
“Not all the time, man. She wanted to do my astrological chart. Fuck the stars. She took me to her place on Park Avenue. A five-and-a-half, worse than the Oratory. Dark. Mystical bookshelves. Big blow-ups of the maharaji. Every crazy-man was hanging on her wall. She’s totally out to lunch. We sit down lotus-style on reed mats. She tucks her legs under her mystic ass. Legs that would drive the most ascetic bunch of Buddhist monks wild. We do a little meditation. My soldier is standing up straight.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Absolutely nothing. I got up and took a piss to show her that a human being, even a black one (especially a black one!) is made of flesh and blood, muscle and piss. She didn’t move. She uncoiled her legs and went into her room and came out with the tools of her trade. She wanted to do my chart at two o’clock in the morning. Date of birth, place, time, the whole thing: Jupiter influences Saturn and Saturn influences me, and I couldn’t influence her. Finally she remembered I was there. She got up to run a bath. I like a nice hot bath, but it really wasn’t the moment for it. It did smell good, like leaves. But I’m not the aquatic type. I was on fire. In the water. That kind of combination is hard on a man’s nerves. Then she put on a Hindu record, something like The Sacred Music of Plants of the Far East. You can listen all you like but you won’t hear a thing. Plant music, man. Plants aren’t too talkative. All that was missing was the incense. I’m telling you, brother, the West can’t get a hard-on without some kind of stimulant. No natural hard-ons.”
How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired Page 8
