We arrived and I parked in the back alley behind the bar.
I’ll be right back, I said. I’ll go and buzz her.
I left and I entered the bar.
A clown went straight to the alley. Opened the passenger door and sat next to the hater of books and laid his hand on his own waist.
I have a gun, the clown said. I strongly suggest that you read this passage I am giving you. Do not leave the car and do not resist the book in your hand.
The husband looked surprised. He opened the book and stared at the first page.
Out loud. Read out loud, the clown said with authority.
And the hater of books started to read, but before he’d finished the first sentence, he looked up and said, What is this, some kind of a joke? Did my wife put you up to this?
Just read, asshole.
He resumed reading but again he stopped. There’s not enough light, he said. And I don’t have my glasses. And I don’t have to read anything.
Then you keep the book, Otto said, and again I strongly suggest that you read, and that is for your own welfare. You are to write a summary of it: that will be your assignment. I will find you again and assess your progress. Never underestimate a clown with a book. Now get out.
Mary’s husband walked away shouting, Is this some kind of a joke? Is this some kind of fucking joke?
Otto left the car, making sure his clown hat didn’t fall and that the gun was well secured in his bag, and disappeared.
And when I went back, the husband and Otto were gone.
That night I met Otto and I asked him, How did the book-hunting go?
Fly, man, your library is big but disorganized. Nothing is in alphabetical order, or in any order, for that matter.
Yes, but do tell, what book did you finally assign him to read?
On my way out of your place, I grabbed Finnegan’s Wake from the shelf at the entrance.
Good. Let the fucker suffer, I said.
GIRAFFES
LAST NIGHT I picked up two women in love. They talked and kissed in the back seat of my car. They didn’t mind my seeing them kissing each other, but they didn’t want me to hear a word they said. They kissed and whispered and stroked each other’s hair, and I watched the road in front of me and peeked at Ecstasy and Ecstasy in the mirror. I drove across the bridge and above the water and down to the other side of town. It was a clear and spectacular night that these two butterflies were missing. Had they been paying attention to the world, they would have seen a low moon, bright and big, suspended above the swinging bridge. I went underneath it and drove south. I like going south; I like the idea of going towards the warmth. I was thinking this just as one of the girls’ heads disappeared, and the eyes of the other closed, and her chest heaved. I took Exit 64 and waited at the ramp for the green light to come. I kept my silence; a faint red reflection from the traffic light bounced off the dashboard and shone on the back seat. I watched the upper body of one of the women extend and contract. Little, quiet moans that sounded like the faint squeaks of small animals rushing up the trees. .
When the traffic light turned green and replaced the red reflection, I accelerated slowly, not wanting to deprive anyone of a romantic touch under a spectrum of colours and the delight of the full moon. The moon should be colonized, I thought. Mankind should seek a happier beginning, and humans should be free to stroll hand in hand regardless of their weight and orientation. The ultimate weightless existence of a species, effortless in an environment where everything floats. Floating lips, floating sighs, floating shoes, and knees and stockings floating above the dashboard, around the mirror and the seats. Life in space, I thought, should be modelled on the current situation inside my car as we speak, what a great model, what a great premise with which to experiment with the loss of gravity: the elevation of the superwoman. And as I drove with all the windows shut, everything started to levitate: I witnessed the rising of toes, the upward flowing of hair, the inflation of chests. And I heard a howl rise towards the moon.
We reached the address they’d given me and I announced our arrival at the requested destination. Immediately two heads reappeared above the back seat. They stopped, took deep breaths, fastened their clothes, looked at each other, and giggled. And then Ecstasy opened her purse while Ecstasy fixed her hair. Ten dollars and sixty-five cents, I said. The first woman gave me the exact change and said, You got your tip, didn’t you? And she winked at me.
Now, as I get older, I prefer money to watching other people’s flights and pleasures. I would like to amass enough to one day play dead, or clown around on a beach full of ballplayers, divers, and bouncers, a beach of women happily and horizontally suspended under large umbrellas, in strings parting their luscious moons, a bit of sand on both sides of the shore, with topless skies above and the cheers of the waves and the clapping of clams.
Once I picked up a professional clown dressed as a giraffe. He told me he was late for a kids’ show, where by now, we both laughed and assumed, the audience would be filled with sweets and drinks, awaiting the performance. His face came out of the middle of the giraffe’s long neck. He opened the window and stretched the giraffe’s head outside. I drove him fast and he held the animal’s head steady and it stretched above my car roof and towards the sky.
We laughed, but I knew how sad a kept creature could be. A giraffe is a sad thing, I said. Yes, I know, he said, it doesn’t fit into low-ceilinged houses or basements. Always bowing its head, always feeling big and small.
You should live on the roof if your basement is getting too small, I told him. You should eat meat if leaves are scarce. You should be fighting for those kids instead of trying to heal them with balloons and laughter. You’ve wasted your life, and you could have been tall and above everything, I said.
Drive, the giraffe said to me, drive. Look ahead and not at the car’s roof. You are a lousy traveller. All you do is think, talk, and go around and around in circles. You are as poor and as miserable as any of us kept animals. You are a prisoner of your own windows and point of view.
I was raised by clowns, buffoons, comedians, and cannon fodder and they are the saddest creatures I’ve ever met, I said to him.
Don’t forget the sons of freaks like you, he added, and held his head more tightly against the wind. If your father had loved you, you wouldn’t have felt sadness around laughter and the wonder of kids’ joy.
Here, he said, as we arrived, here is your fare and a lollipop, which will keep your mouth shut. He yanked his long neck inside and opened the door and bounced down the sidewalk and towards the house, where a few kids with painted cats’ moustaches and dogs’ ears waited for him to blow balloons and shape them into birds and mice and little kangaroos.
SALLY
THE DRUG DEALER left a message on my phone. The fucker never says anything but Yeah, we are on tonight, same, same, and he hangs up.
I waited for him at eight at the usual place. We drove around and checked on a few dealers of his. He shook and slapped a few hands, and then he wanted to stop at a strip club for some business, as he put it. Wait here, I’ll be back in an hour, he said. Park in the back alley, I’ll tell the bouncer that you’re with me. Just keep cool, I’ll be back.
I waited and watched as the dancing girls arrived. They carried their bags on their shoulders and waited for the bouncer to open the door and let them in. Neither acknowledged the other.
I knew a dancer named Sally once; I used to wait for her every Thursday and drive her home late, after her shift was over. She was smart, well-read, she was studying French literature at the local university, and we hit it off. First we talked about books, because she saw a book lying on the dashboard of my car. I believe I was reading Jean Genet at the time, Our Lady of the Flowers. And when she saw it her eyes brightened. A reader, she said, and smiled.