The bartender disappears. “Come here, you. Come on,” Patrick begins. His arms are spread out wide; his head nods enthusiastically. “Get up, man!” I rise. He then wraps his arms around my ribcage and lifts me off the ground.
“Who are you?” Aberdeen asks.
“I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”
“Patrick Shaheen?”
“I've been known to go by that name, too.”
The members of the band, with the exception of the drummer, all vaguely remember Tomas and me. Aaron, the man once the robot, shakes a finger at me to express recognition. “You. I remember you. You were at the party, you know, with the uh…the uh…” he snaps his fingers, “…the guys launching the oranges and the melons, and then Mongo with the big sword—”
“Katana.”
“—The katana, which ended up somehow in the toilet. You were talking with the French guy.”
The others nod and smile. Before they sit, however, they state their names and instruments to Aberdeen.
“Andreas Vanderhurst: Drums, percussion, jug, kazoo, vocals.”
“Lucas Filoramo: Bass, trumpet, baritone, tuba, sousaphone, kazoo, vocals.”
“Aaron Hirschfeld (a/k/a The Domesticon): Clarinet, oboe, saxophone, organ, violin, cello, kazoo, vocals.”
“Sam Washington: Guitar, mandolin, banjo, uke, harmonica, kazoo, vocals.”
“Daphne Karev: Piano, organ, vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, accordion, melodica, kazoo, vocals.”
“Patrick Shaheen: Thinker, nonconformist, ethicist, socialist, epic rhapsodist, philologist, sophist, idle theologian, soothsayer, poet.”
“Don't forget bullshitter,” Daphne laughs.
“That's the most important one, too! The fecundity of bullshit is nothing short of amazing, my friends.”
The small enclave is constructed entirely out of cinder-blocks — with the exception of a wood fence that parallels the back entrance to the bar — and dimly lit by small lights and candles and a Nite Brite that has been converted into a Virgin icon. Though I have never been to Paris, this “garden,” and perhaps the bar in its entirety, reminds me of the city (or maybe a Parisian-style café in Mexicali; or perhaps a Mexican-style café in Paris). It's narrow, filled with mesh iron tables and mesh iron chairs. The tables have been configured into an ellipse around which the nonet sits. We have in our possession eleven open bottles of wine and not a single glass (save for the three pint glasses Tomas, Aberdeen, and I had been drinking out of).
“So is this what a night off looks like?” Daphne asks. She lights a cigarette. “Sure as hell beats the graveyard shifts you've been working.”
“It's more of a celebration.”
“What?” She hands me a bottle of wine. I don't examine the label; I simply drink.
“I found Coprolalia.”
“So how does it feel?”
“It's kind of weird. I have to admit that I didn't think I was going to do it.”
“Was Willis helpful?”
“Yes and no. I really enjoyed meeting him, though.”
“He's coming tonight. That tenth seat should be reserved for him.”
“Really? What about Scooter? Is he still in town?”
She exhausts. “I totally forgot about him.” She examines the extraneous furniture. “He's got a seat if he shows.”
“So are the two of you on better terms now?”
“Now?”
“You referred to him as a misogynistic prick the last time I saw you.”
“That doesn't sound like me.”
“He's not a misogynist?”
“No, he's not a prick — at least I wouldn't call him a prick because I don't use the word 'prick' very often, and on the rare occasion that I do refer to someone as a prick I sincerely mean it. In fact, in the past five years I probably haven't used the word 'prick' more than I have just now.”
“Glad that's straightened out.”
“Well, the truth is that he and I weren't on any terms. We just kind of drifted apart. I have a very active lifestyle; he has a very sedentary one.”
The two of us continue to converse in symmetry: question, response, question, response, question, response, etc. Our interaction lacks the almost coquettish tone it had taken on when we last saw one another in Keens' study, with its redolence of old books and the memorabilia from decades now buried in dust, lived in black and white, encrusted with nostalgia and less innocent fabrication. We are now outdoors, the fresh air not fresh, but neither humid nor stagnant. It is cool, perhaps a bit milder than one would expect in the beginnings of mid-June. It's curious that you never feel as though you are outside in New York unless it is winter or the peak of summer. At this point, the night sky is a canopy of muddled purples and occasionally nacreous clouds; the moon is nowhere to be seen; the Evening Star has returned to the horizon. It is not a claustrophobic feeling. You just notice the absence of the heavens when you are here.
“A month ago I was celebrating. You know, I had just graduated. I was at some bar in Williamsburg — The Levee, if you know it,” nod, “planning to discover Coprolalia, worried that I never would, that I'd just end up with some dead-end job until giving up on the working world. I'd apply to grad schools and probably leave the city because of some opportunity. But, even then, even after the additional school, that doesn't guarantee anything. I'd still have to get a job — that, or else I could stay in academia. But, I don't know, it seems like I don't really want anything, but, at the same time, I know I can just kind of fit in anywhere, that I'm not necessary to any exact location. I know this sounds kind of juvenile, but ever since I've graduated I really feel that I can identify with the protagonist in the The Stranger or even Nausea. What's his name?”
“Mersault.”
“I know that. What's the protagonist's name in Nausea?”
“Antoine,” Patrick responds. He then turns back to Andreas. “As I was saying, it's like something out of Salvian…”
“Yeah, so I feel like them. And, again, I know it's kind of juvenile. I mean, everyone relates to Mersault when they read The Stranger in high school. But suddenly it's all become relevant again. I feel like I'm just going through the motions until I realize I'm going through the motions. And, I mean, I always understood the whole Kierkegaard thing, where you go through the motions and laugh at their idiocy because you're beyond them. I always got that. There was never a time in the past five years when I didn't feel that way. But I now feel this burden. It's like I want to return, but at the same time I want something new. It's like I'm both exile and explorer.” I take a sip from the bottle of wine. “I don't know if that makes any sense to you. Maybe I'm just rambling.”
“You're rambling,” she laughs. “I get what you mean, though. You don't know your context — in the world or in relation to either your past or your future. The past is always going to be defined by the present, as opposed to what it really was. The future is…not based, but…”
“Contingent?”
“…Contingent!” with an emphatic finger in my direction. “It is contingent on a present you know you don't understand. The wine-dark sea,” she says absently.
“The what?”
“The present: The wine-dark sea.”
We are both quiet for a while. She lights another cigarette.
“Didn't you say you were a bass player?”
“Yeah, but I don't think you can make a living playing old jazz standards anymore.” Caesura. “There are exceptions, of course. But actually making it as a musician — I mean, that's just so rare. I don't want to be that guy at fifty who still wants to show you his demo.”