“Regardless,” Tomas counters with a particularly spastic motion of the hand, “This only proves my point. His newer pieces keep appearing in the parts of Queens and Brooklyn that you can easily get to from the L.I.E. or the B.Q.E. Dig it, man, he's totally coming in from Long Island.”
“Yes, but here's why you're wrong….”
This continues for the duration of Tomas' bloody mary and Aberdeen's gin and tonic. They demand that I finish what is left of my first cocktail, buy me another round (this time a pint of German beer with a name that I can't pronounce), and then come back in the mood to talk about something else. I feel slightly awkward after their arguments concerning Coprolalia have been exhausted. They seem to be immune to my presence.
I've never been to this particular bar. While it is not the first location in Greenpoint I have visited, it is my first time this far up Manhattan Avenue. I don't think it qualifies as a dive, but some people would disagree. It certainly has that distinctly north Brooklyn feel to it — spacious, dark, unassuming. There are several pieces of art on the wall, more than likely the work of a single artist. It's an odd style, though the medium — oil on canvas — is straightforward enough. The palette is warm, filled with browns and abundant diagonals. The work is too abstract to describe without turning the process into a psychology experiment. (There is one exception to this statement: what appears to be the silhouette of a woman (you can tell by the breasts, the half moons shawled by arms crossed via St. Andrew) turning away from an ajar door. There is perhaps a man there, either opening or closing it. If opening, perhaps she sits clothed at the table quietly becoming enraged by “the fact that revolutionary women are always villianized.” If closing, she has shawled herself in only a robe, a birthday present from better days. If closing, I have said my goodbye. If closing, you twist a more recent gift in your fingers as you glare to the window as if in mourning, my Gabrielle with a rose. And perhaps you watch as I trudge down the stairs and continue along the walkway that bisects the snow, which glimmers like nacre in the sodium streetlights above, your eyes both glassy and gelid enough to disguise the relief that you are feeling, even if that relief only compounds the guilt that will eventually lead you to the liquor store, and then, several hours later, to the telephone.)
Tomas and Aberdeen continue talking as I survey the surroundings. The people who occupy the seats at the bar are clearly regulars with the exception of a couple who each use the word “pretentious” to describe everything from television programs to drink prices at a club somewhere in or on Manhattan. The rest of the patrons attract less attention. A woman sits at the other end of the bar writing in fervent and infrequent bursts on a legal pad. She makes time to talk to the bartender with familiarity. She puts very little on the page as she writes, which suggests that she is a poet. She smiles with regularity, and laughs boisterously. The two young men next to her are discussing the Bush administration — its arrogance, its ignorance, its incompetence and belligerence. It's a laughing matter a lot of the time, not the type of laughter that makes you feel better, just the type that masks that feeling of impotent, of knowing there's nothing you can do but laugh while the Snopeses of the world keep on doing what Snopeses do. Two Polish men down the bar bark with raised voices and amiable tones, their faces dotted with broken capillaries and two-day's worth of stubble.
Though I struggle to find a seat in Tomas and Aberdeen's theater of dialog, it is quickly acknowledged that awkwardness swims poorly among the two. One drink turns to two, and two turns to three, and soon we're ordering shots even though the sun is still striving to escape from behind thick cloud cover. The Mets/Yankees game is on, but no seems too interested except for a woman who prides herself on being one of ten or eleven white people from within the actual city limits of Detroit. Her voice is of the type that invites eavesdropping: loud, hoarse, guttural — what you would attribute to one of those nineteenth century prostitutes whom you see in photographs from the old West (they are never called prostitutes, of course, but it is fairly obvious that any woman hanging around a nineteenth century saloon full of drunk, violent, horny, and unmarried men — in a town where the bank gets robbed once a week, even if no one puts money in it anymore (the clerk just hands over whatever is in his pocket, which is usually enough for a drink or two, and then goes to the saloon where the robber addresses him by first name and buys him a drink or two);—in a town that has one police station, and that one police station has one jail cell, even if the entire town is comprised entirely of criminals;—in a town in which people get shot for not minding their own business quietly enough — is very likely a prostitute). She entered just before the game, and has been less than clandestinely eying Tomas' hat ever since. It is only after the third inning that she inquires about the orange Old English “D” on his head.
“My mom grew up in Hamtramck,” he responds with a delinquent grin. “I was born in Phoenix.”
“What about you?” she asks either Aberdeen or me.
“I was born and raised in Baltimore,” I respond.
“San Francisco,” Aberdeen says.
“No offense, but you guys don't look like the types that normally hang out together. We got the mechanic,” to Tomas, “the professor,” to Aberdeen, “and the…well, I don't know what the hell you are. What are you, dude?”
“I'm a who.”
“And I'm Thing One!”
Caesura.
“We're looking for someone,” Tomas says. “We're, like, detectives, man.”
“Sure.” Caesura. “So who is it you three are looking for?”
“Coprolalia.”
“What kind of a fucking name is that?”
“It's a nom de plume.”
“It's a what? Is that some type of fruit they sell at the Garden?”
“It's a pseudonym.”
“Pseudonym, huh? Is he ducking you three or something? He owe you dudes money?”
“No, we just want to meet him.”
“What for?”
“What do you mean what for?”
“Well, you don't just go around looking for someone without a reason, now do you, Whoseville?”
“Whoseville?”
“We want an interview.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why do you want to meet this guy? You still haven't answered my question, dude.”
“Look, we want to meet this fucking guy because no one has ever been able to track him down, dig?”
“Is this dude trying to be Lenny fucking Bruce?”
“This is fucking ridiculous.”
“Calm down, Whoseville. I'm just having fun with you guys.”
“…”
“So who is this guy? If he's from Greenpoint, I'll know him. I know everyone up here.”
“You don't know us.”
“I know everybody who's a somebody.”
Tomas broods in silent indignation.
“Coprolalia’s definitely a somebody. Are you sure you don’t know him?” I ask.
“What's the name again?”
“Coprolalia,” in frustrated unison.
“You know what,” she begins as she scrutinizes the ceiling fan, “That name sounds familiar.” She pauses. I take in her image in for the first time. She looks to be Ashkenazi, as she shares all of the attributes that one associates with that group, even the more superficial features such as thick-framed glasses, leftist shirt, and olive leggings that are neither shorts nor pants. She's probably in her early forties, but I'm admittedly terrible at telling the ages of people, especially women.
“Do you know him?” I ask as she stands in silence.