by Nick Tosches
He let the silence of my response pass before he spoke again.
“You’d better be careful, mate,” he said, as if advising the devil on a chess move.
“In which way?”
“I’ve seen it. From what I saw, kicking it makes kicking smack look like a frolic in the daisies.”
I laughed. “Why would anybody ever want to kick it?”
“I hope you never find out why,” he said. “The few I knew who tried didn’t really survive to tell me. But I saw them. I saw it.”
“And what did you see?”
“The worst,” he said.
“And what was that?”
He seemed to be measuring his words, thinking them out before saying them. This was not like him. His was an eloquence that usually flowed quite naturally.
A couple of tourists spotted him. The girl asked him if it was all right if the guy took his picture. Keith looked at the guy.
“You’re the one with the camera,” he said.
A few more people spotted him. We made our way back into the restaurant. A waiter poured the last of the wine into our glasses. Keith leaned forward.
“Here’s the way it is,” he said. The easygoing man I knew was gone. His familiar grin and laughter, and all the traits of his manner of talking, were not those of the man who leaned toward me with long fingers on the stem and foot of the wineglass before him. “The way it is,” he said, “is you’ve got to turn around now, while you still can. Go any further and there’s no turning back.”
“And what makes you think I still can turn back?” I asked him.
“You’ve still got those fucking pinwheels firing away in those fucking eyeballs of yours, that’s what,” he said. “Once those die out, you’re done.”
“And what were you talking about outside? What was that about ‘the worst’?”
“I’ve seen it.”
The thumb and one long finger of his other hand were now tapping a cigarette on the cloth-covered tabletop.
“I’ve seen men, what was left of them anyway, screaming for death.”
The wine undrunk, the cigarette unsmoked, the words unsaid. The wine to soon be drunk, the cigarette to soon be smoked; the words to soon be said.
“I’ve seen things come out of them.”
He said these last four words in a slow spondaic cadence.
“What do you mean: ‘come out of them’?” I asked. “What sort of things?”
“I’ve seen it. Once in London. Once in Paris. And even I can barely believe it. That’s why I’ve never spoken of it. No one would believe me. But you, mate—right now—are in a very good position to believe me.
“I don’t know what it was that came out of them. I don’t want to know what it was.”
“And what about those ‘things’?” I said. “Are they still around?”
“You know, I wonder about that at times. I do.” He raised his glass by the stem, and a trace of that familiar grin returned. “Here’s to some things remaining beyond our knowing.”
I raised my glass to touch his.
“May you live forever,” I said, “and may I never die.”
We drank.
There was not a fiber of me that believed what he said. Not that he was speaking falsely. He was not. But he was confused in what he was talking about. He had to be. Whatever he had seen, he had seen. What he had understood it to be, or misunderstood it to be, well, that was a different matter. True, I wondered what he had seen, once in London, once in Paris. But I knew he could not have seen men who had become like gods. Only his words about the tides of color in my eyes, his seeming recognition—no, it was not possible.
I walked with him diagonally across the street to where his car and driver waited. He offered me a lift, but I told him that it felt like a nice night for a walk. Which it did.
As I stepped toward Sixth Avenue, his car pulled to a pause beside me, and I heard his voice through the open rear window:
“Don’t forget what we said, hey?”
I turned left on Sixth, figuring I’d walk down to Circa Tabac, stop off awhile, then walk on home. I didn’t want another drink. Maybe the baclofen was working. Maybe godlike men, by nature, were not drunkards. But I was restless. And there was the other craving, odd as it struck me to be in the wake of the previous two nights. So I would look and lust awhile. It would do me good. I put on my shades.
There was Lee.
“Nicky,” he said.
“Lee,” I said.
“What’s up?” he said.
“I just ate the best hamburger I ever ate,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
So I told him about the hamburger. The bite of the fresh lemon in the club soda tasted good, refreshing. I lit a cigarette.
Looking into the plumes of smoke as they vanished into the air, I found myself to be thinking of my little ebony-handled knife, wishing I had it with me, feeling for the first time that it should be with me, that it belonged in my jacket pocket as much as money belonged in my trouser pocket, that I was as uncomfortable without it as I would be without money, even if I had no need to use that money.
Then I saw her. The hair was different, shorter. But it was her. Yes, the fair Sandrine, who liked to be raped after bathing in warm water and milk and brushing out her hair. She was with a girl, a comely dark-haired girl, who looked even younger than she.
I approached them. I wanted to see if this Sandrine remembered me. I had been with her twice. She had put magic in my hands and mouth on those winter nights. For me, there would be no forgetting her. But had she forgotten me?
“How have you been?” she asked. “It’s been awhile.”
“You cut your hair,” I said.
There was distaste in me for myself when I said this. How could I stoop to such banal small talk? It had no place in my resurrected life. Gods had no need of this sort of thing, which defined the evasive, meaningless speech of men and women who lived dishonestly on a low plane. As I thought this, I smiled at the girl who was with her. Sandrine introduced us as I stole a glance at the attractive knees and lower thighs that peeked from under both their skirts. I wanted them, both of them, then and there.
“Marie and I grew up on the same street. She’s in town for the week with her parents.”
I said nothing. If I was not going to tell them that I wanted them, I would not resort to further small talk in place of telling them that I wanted them. I would be still unless spoken to. I wondered at how young this Marie looked. I wondered at how young and lovely Sandrine looked. I could almost remember the feel and taste of her. I wondered what the other one felt and tasted like. I imagined bringing my mouth to their bared knees. I imagined swiping the narrow sharp blade of the tosu across those knees as they sat there. I stood there smiling, unhearing of them as they spoke lightly to me, while I imagined these things. Then I felt Sandrine’s touch.
“Nick’s a writer,” she said to her companion.
“Oh, great. How cool is that? Anything I would know?”
It was better that I was unhearing of them. It was better that it was not the vapors of their mind that I wanted.
“I doubt it,” I said. “What’s the last book you read?”
“Oh, um, stuff for school.”
“Can you name the last book you read?”
“Oh, what’s his name, the, um, the guy that wrote—”
“Maybe you could recommend something she should read,” Sandrine suggested.
“Nah,” I said. “It’s bad for the eyes. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
There was suddenly a scent in the air, tallowy and vaguely acerbic, like that of a candle being snuffed. It seemed very real and very disagreeable, as if the unseen vaporing wick of an unseen extinguished candle were being passed beneath my nostrils.
The scent subsided, then returned, more complex, more unpleasant. Singed hair, burnt flesh. The quenched candle. The smells of vile sacrifice.
“Are you all right?”
>
It was Sandrine. She sounded far away.
“Are you all right?”
Her again, sounding even farther away.
I excused myself, or thought I did. Unsteadily, I made my way to the men’s room. The sickening commingled scents followed me. I sat down. Had the wine affected me? I had drunk so little, but it had been so long. Could the wine have acted adversely with the baclofen? It was not supposed to.
My head and heart throbbed. My left hand shook violently. Is this what a blood-pressure attack is like? I asked myself. Is this what a heart attack is like?
It was Melissa. Words without voice. The remains of a tenth-century temple to a goddess existed on the outskirts of a town in France. What goddess? A name that defied memory. It was made clear to me, then it was gone. The mythic one. She of the legends. Tenth century? Twelfth century? It was made clear to me, then it was gone. What town? It was made clear to me, then it was gone.
The moisture in the soil where the statue was found is good. The hydration capacity is something like fifty percent per square meter. Capacity? Pressure? Level? It was made clear to me, then it was gone. Fifty? How many? Percent? Units? It was made clear to me, even converted for me to fractional parts per square foot, then it was gone.
What did this mean? It meant that I must bring forth the words. I must set them down. The soil is good. The soil is moist. The soil can sustain much water, much nourishment. The soil can give much nourishment.
But the words come too fast. They come to me, then they are gone. I tell Melissa I must go before the words rush through me and flee me and are forever gone; for many words come, and from each of them pour many more, and from each of these, many more, and they spill through my grasp.
Words are set down, but then I cannot read them, or they are gone. To where? They are set down. I go out into the night on the outskirts of the town many times, and I encounter many strange people, all of whom seem to know me, and I see many strange things—why is the weight of the mere head of this serpent that has turned to stone so much heavier than the whole of this identical serpent that has turned to stone?—and these venturings calm me; and the cappuccino in this place is good, and the man who gives it to me smiles to me as if we have been friends for many years, though I do not recognize him; but I must return always to set down the words, the words that are from or about her, the mythic one, from or about she who is of the legends.
When I do return, I ask Melissa how long I have been gone, how long it has been since she has last heard from me. I cannot see her, she is not there, but she understands me, and she answers. “I do not know,” she says. “Maybe a few hours, maybe a few years.” This does not matter. All that matters is that the words are brought forth and set down.
I pray to a memory
I kneel before a weathered stele
All that matters is that the words are brought forth and set down: the words that are from or about she who is of the legends.
I utter the names of phantoms
I carry within me the soul of the savioress
And this time, how long into the night was I gone? A few hours, a few years.
I have written these words before. But now, from each of them, issue many more, and from each of these in turn, many more; and on.
And why is the weight of the mere head of this serpent that has turned to stone so much heavier than the whole of this identical serpent that has turned to stone? But I ask this only of myself, and there is no answer, as close as I can feel myself to be to one. Something to do with the insides of it.
How long had I been here? I felt like I was drenched in sweat. I rose, still unsteady, and left the men’s room.
“Are you all right?”
Her again. The one called Sandrine. Why was she asking me this? These words, even her voice, were beginning to madden me. I needed air. Maybe a walk around the block. I left the bar.
I stood drinking water from the bottle that I kept at room temperature in the kitchen. I was feeling better. I seemed to remember taking a long hot shower when I got home. That must have done the trick. That and the sleep that followed it. How long had I slept? That didn’t matter, I told myself. All that mattered was that I had rested. The water tasted good. I felt that I wanted to write, that I needed to write. It was still dark out. I went back to bed. The desire to reenter my dreams, whatever they may have been, was stronger than the desire to write.
When I woke again, the soft spring morning light was full. I was making coffee when the buzzer rang. I took my false teeth from the plastic cup in which they bathed, rinsed them under warm tap water, and stuck them in my mouth.
It was a couple of cops in cheap suits. The old cop looked like he was about ready for the glue factory. The young cop looked too young to not be wearing a uniform. He must’ve made detective the day before yesterday, I figured. Either that or he was on his way home from a wake. The young one asked me if I was who I am, and I said yeah. He nodded in a slow, dull way, as if to say, well, that’s good, we’re making progress here. I invited them in, leading them to the kitchen.
I looked from one to the other inquisitively. As I did so, I studied their faces briefly to see if I knew either of them from the bar on Reade Street, or from anywhere. The old cop looked somehow vaguely familiar but, no, I didn’t know either of them. Coffee dripped down into the bit of half-and-half that was in the cup.
“We’re talking to everybody who was at Circa Tabac at the time of the incident last night.”
Again it was the young cop who spoke. He had his back to me. He was looking at the calendar on the wall. It was a calendar from Our Lady of Pompeii. Year after year, hanging from the same masonry nail, there was a calendar from the same church. A round-cornered rectangular window was die-cut at the centerfold of every month, so that, no matter what the pretty picture was for that month—right now it was Bartolomeo Schedoni, The Three Marys at the Tomb—the same ad for the Perazzo Funeral Home showed prominently through the window under it. I thought for a second about the time, years ago, when the old building where the Nucciarone Funeral Home was, on Sullivan Street, collapsed and Nucciarone and Perazzo merged. A lot of racketeers had been laid out in Nucciarone, and the joke was that whoever was laid out that day must’ve been really bad. Then I thought of how odd it was that this cop was standing there staring at a calendar on my kitchen wall. I turned to the old guy with an expression that asked what was with the young guy.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said. It was the first he had spoken since they arrived. “I know this guy. He’s all right.”
He knew me? Why couldn’t I place him?
“What time did you get there?” the young cop asked, his back still to me.
“I don’t know.”
I probably should have asked if they wanted coffee, but I didn’t. They might’ve said yes.
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know. I went out to dinner, then decided to drop in on my way home.”
“Where’d you eat dinner?”
The old guy shook his head with slow, tired impatience.
“The Minetta Tavern,” I said.
“Who with?”
“A friend.”
“And what time did you leave Circa Tabac? Don’t tell me. You don’t know.”
“Come on, Charlie,” the old one said. “Let’s go fight crime or something.”
I didn’t say anything. I just sipped my coffee and watched numb-nuts stare at my fucking calendar.
“Nice place,” the old guy said.
“Thanks,” I said.
Numb-nuts finally turned around. He seemed taken aback to see the two of us old guys leaning lackadaisically against the counter opposite him.
“You got the list?” my leaning-mate said to him. “Come on, check him off and let’s get a move on.”
I walked them to the door.
“Have a nice Good Friday,” I said.
I could hear them exchanging words awhile in the hall outside
my door. Then they were gone.
After finishing my coffee and a smoke, I was struck by a curious appetite. I poured a glass of buttermilk, added two raw eggs to it, and drank it down. I realized then how good I felt.
What remained of the morning was spent writing. The words came more easily, more naturally than I remembered them ever coming. It was usually a torturous process, and had grown more so, not less so, through the years.
“The past is a very bad place,” I wrote. “It is not good to go there. Not alone. Not like this.”
What these words meant was clear to me, and at the same time unclear. Which part of the past? I wondered as I followed their inner sound, their call to me to come forth and be put down. Or should I have asked: which past, or which pasts?
The words that pursued these words did not speak to any of my questions, nor did they make anything more clear or less clear. I knew only that they sang to me, that their song was mine, and that they must be given form, metered to and arranged on the page in a way that captured and conveyed the sound and colors of their spell.
For the first time in my life, I felt that I had written the truth, without the artifice of veil or illusion to conceal and protect me, the writer, from the reader. Was this because I knew that I would not have these words go beyond me? Because I was the reader, the only reader, as well as the writer? Because there was no need to conceal or protect myself from the truth of myself? But did I know and understand the truth of myself so well? Could anyone know himself so well as to separate the veils and phantoms of a lifetime from the hidden truths they obscured? Maybe I should repeat only that I felt that I had written the truth. That I felt as if the distance among the three of us—me, the writer, and the reader—had been closed, if only because I was all three.
These thoughts brought to mind the old cop, who, though he was here not two hours ago, seemed now to be of the remote past. “I know this guy,” he had said. “He’s all right.” But I did not know him; he seemed only vaguely familiar, or not at all. What had he meant? Did he really think he knew me, and that I was all right? Was the distance among the four of us—me, the writer, the reader, and the old cop—one and the same, and ultimately unknowable? Were we all just our own old cops? Was I thinking of innumerable distances, ever in flux, as if they were a single shared and common distance?
