Isaac called me an “old soul” on several occasions once the scotch began to offer more than its emberous warmth. He also said that I reminded him of Mordecai in some ways, though these comparisons were never seriously expounded upon. I couldn't tell if he was flattering me or if he simply wanted to feel as though he was once again talking to his son. I guess this is one of those things that one can never really know.
Mordecai was a fixture at the library, something that was both sworn by Mr. Adelstein and confirmed by a number of the people in Brooklyn's main branch. After showing them his picture, virtually everyone laughed, and then proceeded to provide an anecdote or two about him. Jerome, one of the employees there, had even gone to his funeral. One of the other attendees had been one of the cashiers at his local bodega in Williamsburg.
With the exception of Wednesday's trip to the library and the other stops along Broadway, the four days I spent writing were without incident. I only left my room to go to the bathroom, to buy cigarettes (twice), and to eat whatever I could create with what little food was in the apartment (I finished the scrapple, ate a lot of butter and garlic linguine, and took down at least three cans of tuna without bread or mayo). On Friday night I found myself in a wife-beater, eating a dish comprised of canned corn, canned beans, and hot sauce. I smoked a cigarette by the kitchen window and drank a dram glass of cheap whiskey after the less than sumptuous meal. As I smoked, I reflected upon a woman I had met at a bar on the boarder of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge (out of the rolling ocean, the crowd). They filmed part of The Departed there, the bartender said; she even showed me a photograph of Scorsese with his headphones on. Her hair was the hue of red that one imagines on sports cars, seldom on a head. The tiles in the bathroom were carnation and black, the same colors of the bathroom in the house where I grew up. There were no deodorant advertisements there, just framed posters of Dublin facades that all looked pretty much the same. There was nothing in there by Coprolalia. The past receded as I finished the last of the cigarette and absently watched all of the sunset rhapsodies unfold on the streets.
Tomas was understanding about my withdraw from social life. Aberdeen didn't really notice; he was too busy attempting to navigate the niceties of the deal with the woman who turned out to have very specific parameters for the pieces that she planned to commission — he related their introduction to the first interaction between Monet and Alice Hoschedé. Vinati's phone continued to go to voice mail. I left a message with my number, attempted to look her up on all of the stalker websites (facebook, myspace, friendster, etc.) without success, but stopped short of trying to figure out whether I knew anyone who would both be in town and know her number. I had an article to write, after all.
It was difficult to whittle down all of the experiences of the previous weeks into something that could be read on one crosstown bus ride. I guess it's true that when a man sits down to write a history he knows no more than his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way. Entire portions of the city simply went dark, fell from the scope of this one determined narrator, who I didn't even believe myself to really be. There was no room for narrative minutia, let alone aberrations form the impetus of discovery: Patrick's monologues were harlequined with redactions; the A-R-E was simply called “the group”; the location of the party that Tomas and I attended was not provided; the citrus artillery never fired a shot; Mongo (or the Onion Man — an epithet that Patrick never bothered to explain), Moxy, Früvous, and Boots were relegated to a further reading list; Vinati was not pertinent to the essay; Connie faded into a miasma of rancor that existed between the lines; Daphne was just a link to Willis Faxo, who, in turn, was just another link in the chain that ultimately ended at the grave of Mordecai Adelstein, which I did visit the same day I went to the library (though it was without incident because it’s a grave, and graves, like the dead they represent, don’t entertain guests). Figures like Tommy and Midas dissolved into generalizations, lines in a bibliography. I finished it while listening to “Missed the Boat.”
The article ended up being six pages long. It was initially nine. As I have said, or perhaps implied, I kept it as impersonal as I could, but certain incidents were detailed somewhat extensively in the first draft. For one, I spent a good deal of time recounting my interactions with Mr. Adelstein and Willis Faxo.
The first draft was well-received by Jeff, who ended up being the only proof reader. After going over it together on Saturday night, the two of us had a few beers and talked about all of the revisions that he recommended (among them, that I edit some of the passages that made Tomas look like an alcoholic and Aberdeen a pompous ass, abridge the conversation with Willis Faxo, and reduce the amount of time dedicated to my talk with Daphne to three sentences), women, and our youth.
I met up with Tomas and Aberdeen on Sunday night. I covered our meal at Wo Hop, that little basement place with its pictures of celebrities that no one remembers anymore all covered in more recent signatures and graffiti. We then went out to one of Tomas' favorite bars, a small, clandestine place on Canal Street. Nikki happened to be there with her new boyfriend, Doug. Tomas described him as a “fucking twat.” The three of us were initially pleasant, however, even if the guy was, indeed, a “fucking twat.” After asking my name with a flamboyant affectation, he inquired into what I did.
“Dig it, man; this guy does the fucking impossible, that's what he does.” Doug was intrigued. “He fucking found Coprolalia, man.”
“You found Coprolalia?”
“I did.”
“So who is he?”
“Mordecai Adelstein.”
“Mordecai whom?”
Whom? “Mordecai Adelstein. He grew up in Midwood, worked at a deli in Park Slope, and died a few months ago in a car accident.”
Doug shook his head. “I believe you're mistaken.”
Silence overtook our trio. Nikki sipped her cocktail through a red stirrer and possibly considered using a stronger moisturizer on her elbow.
“What makes you say that?”
“Professor Winchester just wrote about a new Coprolalia exhibit on his blog. You do know of him, right? Sean Winchester?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, what the fuck did Sean say?”
“There's a new exhibit. Professor Winchester is, like, really excited about it, too. It's a Latin adage.”
The fucking twat turned to Nikki. “What did it say again?”
“Like, death is everywhere, right?”
He sipped from his glass of wine and nodded thoughtfully. “That was it.” He then looked me in the eye. “I hope you haven’t put too much work into this little manhunt. As you can see, you’re quite mistaken — Coprolalia is alive and well. Perhaps you should consult an authority on the subject before you claim to have (sigh, roll of the eyes) accomplished the impossible.”