“There has to be a fucking mistake, man. This guy met Coprolalia's father, dig? He’s been to the motherfucker’s grave. He's been all over the city looking at this shit. He's spent fucking three weeks doing it. He's not fucking around, man; he knows what he's fucking talking about.”
“Yes, Doug, our friend here has good reason to believe that Coprolalia is dead.”
“Well, I guess three weeks is like way more time than Professor Winchester has dedicated to researching Coprolalia. How long is that again…a decade?”
“Look, Sean was only interested in the pieces; he didn't care about the bigger picture. I know him; I've been in contact with him for the past month. He didn't care about finding Mordecai or even understanding that Mordecai's real goal had more to do with context.”
“Sure. Well, before you begin to tell me about this real goal, why don't you start by telling me how a dead man writes something on the wall?”
“Is that a fucking riddle?”
“Shut up, Tomas.”
“So how did he do it? If he's dead, how did he do it? This is a mystery movie with Lindsay Lohan written all over it,” with a sly look to Nikki. She smiled without teeth and nodded along with a track off the most recent Wilco album. The bartender and a young couple at the end of the bar were convinced that the album was an instant classic.
“That's simple. I did it.”
“What?”
“You did it? I highly doubt that. Do you even know wh—”
“Et In Arcadia Ego. And, yes, I know where it appeared. I also know exactly what it means. I know why I wrote it, too, but I really don't see why I should have to explain it to anyone, especially you.”
“Pardon me,” Doug responded. “I didn't mean to offend you.”
“Nikki, your new boyfriend's a fucking twat.”
“Excuse me?” with shoulders perked.
Tomas knocked his shoulder into the sinewy barrier as he walked past, turned, and then said, “Don't act like didn't hear me. Go back to your fucking thesis, you goddamn cake-eater.” Before Doug could respond, Tomas added, “And don't try to play the part of the tough guy, you fucking candy ass; it doesn't fit you.”
The three of us went into the backyard. The fucking twat and Nikki did not follow.
So it was just the three of us again: Tomas with the hangover of success, Aberdeen intoxicated by it, and I awaiting its effects. The moments staggered on into the future — quick and clumsy — as we laughed and took down copious amounts of beer for the sake of having nothing better to do. Apartment lights came on, went off; sirens whined calamity and faded into the distance; lovers quarreled or cuddled while watching small televisions with uneven rabbit ears and grainy pictures, had sex or didn't, felt guilty for not being completely certain whether or not they were happy or felt total elation, rapture ecstatic and jubilant (escaping anchors and holds), because they had faith not only in love, but in the person there with them, too; pigeons dawdled from place to place; keys unlocked deadbolts, but did not open doors; silent peaceful lonely apartments became occupied or vacant; luxury condos echoed with the sounds of solitary footsteps, bathroom-going footsteps that were soft like misting rain on well-groomed grass or patient fingers on ivory keys. The past was receding from the present, and its indelible mark would remain like the rock-face behind a waterfall. We would always be subject to it — required not to live in that realm, as so many would like to do, but to accept it as a construct of necessities and antecedents and bastards of chance that were once just potentialities. And as we sat there, the three of us among the great rondure, reclined in uncomfortable chairs and safely harbored among vacant seats and the amorphous background of City and sky (an expanse that is a necessary lie, a composite of various pasts that come to form one heaven for us), it dawned on me not only that I was complacent, but that I felt this way without guilt. I could not remember the last time this happened. I could not remember a time without that profound sense of obligation that had birthed not only this project, but so many others — so many that had been entertained without an earnest desire for fruition, not because I wanted to fail, but because I felt I needed something by which I could define myself. Perhaps all young adults identify themselves by what they do as opposed to who they are.
Sometime around twelve, Patrick called me. I had not spoken to him since the first night I met him, and I was rather amazed when he showed up a few minutes later with Poot Moint in tow. Daphne appeared first, almost gingerly, with a bottle of wine in her hand. She was wearing an ensemble that would have been fitting on Annie Hall. Aberdeen quietly noted that she did indeed look like a young Faye Dunaway.
“I'd rather see a good band comprised of men before I go see a group of guys and one chick who can barely play her instrument. It's patronizing,” she says to Patrick, who appeared with a bottle of wine in his hand. He was dressed in an expertly tailored suit with a very thin tie, the type of fashion that brought to mind a late-sixties spy film.
“Such a practice became common in the nineties.”
“And the nineties produced the most bastardized version of feminism — just think of…(roll of the eyes)…girl power.”
“Interesting choice of wording, Ms. Karev. 'Bastardized'?”
“Well, Mr. Shaheen, it was Adam who gave names to everything, wasn't it? Doesn't that make the very language we use patriarchal? And, before you butt in, isn't language the chisel that shapes thought?”
“And yet your argument entails a knowable meta-language.”
“You know I'm right.”
“You know you just hate my conclusion, but can't find fault with the premises.”
The remaining members of the band, all dressed in red, corduroy three-pieces, then appeared. They, too, had bottles in their hands. With the exception of the drummer, who had a kazoo in his mouth, the band sang an a cappella rendition of Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.
The bartender approached soon after: “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Plenty,” Patrick responded with an exaggerated smile (actually, on anyone else it would have been exaggerated; on him it was standard). She did not have a retort readily available. “We had a slight moment of jubilation, my dear; I promise it won't soon happen again.”
“It better not.”
“It won't.”
Caesura.
“Look, I don't want to be a bitch about all of this,” which was debatable, “But you have to keep it down.”
“My dear, you will not hear a peep out of us.”
“Okay, fine. If you guys aren't too loud, I'll keep the back open until one. That gives you a little more than half an hour.”
“Marvelous. You are as considerate as you are beautiful, a modern day Barnabas.” He paused. “And it is now his day, too,” as he looked to his watch. “We shall crown you Miss Barnabas.”
“Why?”
“Because of her good nature. She is no Sapphira. We all know what happened to her.” Silence. “She was smote for not relinquishing all of her property to the community. Come now,” with a bombastic flailing of the arm, “We all know that the early Christians were communists; it's right there in the New Testament, as well as in Josephus — who said the Jews were 'Communists to perfection', though I will quickly note that his assessment applies to the majority of Gnostics, the early Christians, and the Jews. Not to go too far off topic, but will someone please tell me how the right justifies—”
“Just keep it down, okay.”
“Indeed, Miss Barnabas. We will—”
“Patrick,” Daphne sighed. “Shut the fuck up.” She looked to the bartender. “You won't receive any complaints. I'll keep all of them on a short leash.” She looks to me. “Especially that one.”