The mist begins to pick up a bit as we continue making small talk. Tomas proposes an indoor venue after a gust of wind sends an empty soda can rolling down a street that appears to be filled with nothing but low-density industrial buildings and dumpsters. The idea is met with no resistance, and soon we begin in the direction of wherever he has in mind. The two describe the neighborhood in esoteric fashion as we walk: where the best bar is (where we are going), where the best Cuban sandwich is (Franklin and Huron), where the best coffee is (Franklin and Huron), where to score just about any drug under the sun with the exception of psilocybin, opium, and those goofy pharmaceuticals that smarter dealers know to eschew (wouldn't you like to know). Aberdeen tells me that Magic Johnson owns the property around the corner. Tomas complains that the nearby pizza place, “which fucking sucks anyway,” charges twenty dollars for a large Hawaiian even though the same pie with ham and pineapple runs just sixteen. “Fucking bullshit, man,” he adds with an amount of venom that isn't really warranted. “Praeludium” (BWV 1007) can be heard coming from a window above us. It is being played by a cellist with an erratic right hand.
“Introibo ad altare Dei,” Tomas proclaims as he opens the door for Aberdeen and me.
Aberdeen rolls his eyes. “Sean thinks the piece in here is a fake, but we're not so skeptical,” he states. We walk to the back, past the few patrons and bartender, and stop at the threshold of one of the unisex bathrooms. The ski-ball machine to our right begs for quarters with dancing red lights. The nearby jukebox is a gray mass of technology. “It's obviously a Coprolalia,” Aberdeen continues as the bathroom door is pushed open. He reveals the four small, block letters that comprise the piece, as the others in the bar look to us with curiosity. I don't think either Tomas or Aberdeen notice the attention we draw to ourselves as we stand looking just above the paper towel dispenser from the small ante-lavatory — a space that moonlights as a cigarette lounge, something that evident from the faint redolence of smoke and the flattened filters of white and cedar-speckled gamboge that litter the floor. A rather large pillar obstructs the vantage from behind the bar. This explains why the location serves the secondary purpose it does.
The bathroom is anything but prosaic. More than a few eccentric articles implore attention: an ancient scale, an advertisement for the same deodorant from last night, a table full of free magazines that cater to alternative demographics. “Its simplicity speaks volumes,” Aberdeen says as he walks into the lavatory. “To find truth in brevity like that. It's so perfect.” He pauses to take it in. “FUCK.” He turns to us. “That's all he needed.
“It's reminiscent of a work by Friedman,” he concludes.
“I think it's more like one of Joyce's epileptics,” Tomas counters (apparently because he's on something of a Joyce binge). Aberdeen scowls with a tinge of arrogance before turning back around to examine the four letters with greater scrutiny.
I suggest a Salinger reference, but the two quickly dismiss this for reasons that are neither clear nor debatable. To be honest, I didn't believe my conjecture, either. It's not because I believe either one of them are correct; it's because I am not convinced that we are gazing upon a Coprolalia. It's not ironically juvenile; it's unadulteratedly juvenile. Furthermore, it is not on Sean's list. And while this is not something I feel the need to bring up, it is something that I take note of.
We walk back into the main chamber, the argument now transcending the initial topic. None of the tables is occupied, not even the pool table. A young couple plays darts. They talk about Ilsa Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, though they refer to the latter celebrity as either Bogey or The Humpster. Blondie sings of rapture at a volume that discourages all but the most vigilant of eavesdroppers.
“I think I'm just going to get a soda,” I say as the three of us wait to be served.
“What? You fucking sick or something? Tomas asks.
“No,” I begin, “I'm just hungover.”
The bartender approaches. “Three bloody maries,” Tomas announces. He turns to me. “I'm buying,” he adds before launching into a tirade about the hair of the dog and dialectics of self-realization, which arouses a crooked brow out of me and a derisive shake of the head from Aberdeen. “This, alcohol, is a form of fucking catharsis, man; it's the only means we can abolish the super-ego, the self-for-others, and all of the other shackles that bourgeois society has imposed upon us. Dig it! It eradicates the…the…” as he turns to Aberdeen. “What's that fucking Hegelian word that I'm thinking of? Shitsklit?”
“Sittlichkeit?”
“Yeah; that shit. Fuck it! We need not be prisoners of society's puritanical morality, a morality that is as fucking antiquated as it is profane.” As the bartender looks for the celery stalks with which to garnish our drinks, Tomas begins to speak about his fight against the post-9/11 ethos of fear and repression, at one point referring to himself as “A Luddite engaged in a war against the mechanisms of Conservative nihilism,” perhaps to convey a love for words that sound more important than they actually are.
“So how do you guys know Sean?” I ask once we take our seats at a horizontal Gallega arcade game. Tomas has calmed himself by this point. “You were students of his?”
Tomas nods. “We graduated, what, five years ago.” Aberdeen nods. “Since then, we've been trying to make art our career, dig. It's only been the past year or so that we've been able to quit our day-jobs.”
“And you live around here, right?”
“Yes,” Aberdeen responds. “We live in a loft on Green Street. It's right around the corner.”
The question and answer session continues for a while. I discover that the two have been roommates since their third year in college. They have lived in the loft for the past four years. “Been there since we got priced out of the Village. We lived on Avenue fucking C, man, and we still couldn't afford it. Even with both of us working our bullshit day jobs, the place was just too fucking expensive.” The new space is relatively cheap, they tell me; it is also large enough to allow three other roommates.
Over the course of the years these spaces have been occupied by seven different people, two they consider worthy of being mentioned by their birth names. The three currently occupying the space — besides Tomas and Aberdeen, of course — are Barazov (which is not the man's surname), Lindsay, and Itchycoo (yet another cognomen). Barazov is a self-described anarchist with a trust fund that allows him a life of perpetual turpitude. His real name is Spencer Fitzgerald Bloodsworth. Tomas thinks he's a third or a fourth — as in Spencer Fitzgerald Bloodsworth III (or IV). “Real fucking blue blood, dig. He's the type who's got ancestors who came over on the Mayflower or some shit. Type of family with a manor or an estate instead of a house,” he adds. Lindsay is a receptionist in Midtown, who, as suggested from her lack of a mordant handle, is “a nice girl.” They don't seem to care for her boyfriend, Clyde. It's fairly obvious that the enmity Aberdeen feels for him derives from his attraction to the girl; Tomas, on the other hand, thinks little of Clyde because he's a mean drunk. Itchycoo is a hippie currently on vacation. He works two jobs nine months out of the year so he can spend the summer months touring with the Disco Biscuits and other bands that Tomas and Aberdeen don't know by name. They are dismissive of his taste in music, as well as his general orientation to the world, but at least Tomas acknowledges him as well intentioned.