“You haven't gone to many open-mics, have you?”
“I have. That's why I have this fear.”
“Okay.”
“Look, it's not that I'm afraid of being a starving artist; it's just that I don't see how anyone can afford to be a starving artist in this city — unless they’re squatting up in the Bronx.” I pause. “Maybe it's the bourgeois mentality that I grew up with, but I don't see any glamour in poverty.”
“You're a quick one.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“As Gandhi said,”
In unison: “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
She smiles. “You know that one, too?”
“I never miss a Kingsley film, I guess.”
“Look, kiddo, I don't want to act like I'm an authority on poverty here, but I'll let you in on a little secret. While I haven't gone through the poverty of a kid on the streets of Calcutta, I have suffered a lot as a consequence of being poor. The only positive is that there is a sense of having no place to go besides up. So you are constantly optimistic. You can't afford not to be, even if you are constantly cut down. I don't want to bore you with my history, and I certainly don't want to put myself on the cross, but as a musician who has dedicated her life to an instrument, I can tell you that there were times when I had to choose between having gas for the month and having a meal for the night. That's luckily behind me. I may not make a lot of money, but I'm happy and secure enough to know that I'm not a paycheck away from being homeless.” She drags from her cigarette. “So here’s what I want to impart to you: The belief that there is any kind of beauty in suffering, in-itself, is bourgeois bullshit.”
“I always thought it to be Eastern.”
“You're misunderstanding me. What I mean to say is that the beauty of struggle and sacrifice relies on the reason why one struggles.” She takes another drag. “If one undergoes all of this simply to be authentic, then the art will not be authentic. If it is for justice or for integrity…well, that's a different story. To suffer for integrity — this is from where that sense of authenticity derives.”
“You sound like Mordecai's dad.”
“What?”
“No, it's not an insult. It's just…you sound different…different than how I remembered you.”
“But the point is valid, right?”
I nod. “I just don't think I could go through living in complete squalor for the sake of art.”
“Where do you live now?”
“Bushwick.”
She laughs. “You En Why You kids and your Bushwick. Which stop off the L are you?”
“I'm actually off the M train.” I name the stop.
Her brows go up. “So the bushy part of Bushwick.” She takes another drag. “I'm sorry for presuming…”
“It's okay. I mean, I would think the same thing if I were in your shoes.”
“It's not like it's a terrible spot. I used to live there a few years ago.”
“Yeah, it's okay. I don't know how long I plan on staying. The lease is up in September, and I don't think Jeff, my roommate, plans to renew. The good news, of course, is that the Coprolalia article will be published soon. Money shouldn't be a concern after that.” I laugh to myself. “I keep forgetting about that. I still feel like I'm about to be up shit's creek.”
“So you're going into journalism, I take it?”
“That seems to be the plan. I figure I should be able to freelance without too much of a problem. I don't mean to sound too conceited, but I have a feeling that this article's going to open up a lot of doors for me.”
She's quiet for a moment. She then smiles. “We should call you Wanderlust.”
“That's a fitting cognomen.”
“Again with your ten-dollar words,” she laughs.
Besides the references to Faye Dunaway, there is a certain energy that resides within her, the type of afflatus that I had imagined I would see surrounding Mordecai Adelstein, even in photographs. It is there, in her eyes, a silent 'yes' to some force that dwells within her.
“You're an eidolon,” I say to her.
“I am an acolyte, Wanderlust. That's the whole point.”
“What about the JOKE?”
“The JOKE is that we're still human.”
Yes, she speaks in riddles, contrivances perhaps.
“Crisis,” Patrick says with a fist on the table. This exterminates all other conversations. “Yes, I speak of crisis. I speak of yet another crisis, a great Gordian Knot that will prove to be a noose if it is not addressed soon. Now, I do not speak only of economic crisis; I speak, more importantly, of social crisis.”
“What? Are you a fucking LaRouche canvasser?”
“Tomas, that is another conversation for another evening.” The bottle in his hand becomes empty. “No, I speak of something far different. We exist in a state of vita minima, without direction, without knowledge of where we are going or where we've even been — what has been has become relativized, fabricated, fabulated, corrupted. We simply drift in a state of inertia. The absence of terra firma has become terra firma; the abolition of morality has become a morality; the generation who sought to destroy now seeks to uphold. Yes, I speak of crisis. Our generation has produced a liturgy of banalities, which has lead so many of us to the steps of the Cynosarges.
“But this is not my primary concern.”
There is a long pause.
“What is your…primary concern?”
“The reactionaries are winning, people. The Dark Ages are coming. As you fight the Sarmatians to increase your influence and your power, your very lifelines are decaying in front of your eyes. The wealthy are no longer building for the sake of themselves and the nation — they are pilfering the wealth of this country, indulging in the grossest of decadences. Whatever they cannot spend, they move to an offshore account, just like the Russian oligarchs of the nineties. If the American people continue on this route for much longer, they will find that they have surrendered all of their ideals for the sake of the rich, who have squandered the boon of empire in so hedonistic a manner that it would be appalling even to Theodora.”
“Who?”
“Theodora? The wife of Justinian? You have never heard of her?” Shrugs. “She is probably the most lascivious woman in history. She once said that she lamented the fact that she only had three orifices.”
“Wow.”
“It's right there in Procopius.”
“Who?”
“Really? You've never heard of Procopius?” with a deflated sigh. “What about Salvian?” Nothing. “See, Daphne, while you mock my admittedly over-zealous interest in history because you think it doesn't apply to very much in life, you fail to note that the most basic thing one gains from the study of history is the knowledge of what not to do. As Horace said,
…Insuevit pater optimus hoc me,
ut fugerem exemplis vitiorum quaeque notando.
Sic transit gloria mundi—via ignorance, my friends.”
“What the fuck does that all mean?”
“It means that Horace's father taught him how to live via the bad examples set by others.”
“I see.”
“Empires crumble under the weight of their own ignorance, their own arrogance, their own narcissism. Men suffer no different.” He looks to Daphne. “Women, too. We had the opportunity to become history's greatest generation — we, of course, meaning in the industrialized world, not just Americans. Our choice was very simple: continue with our lethargy, our sense that everything will work out because it has always worked out in the past, or realize that Postmodernism is the espousal of a world without proper legitimacy, and that, in the absence of legitimacy, most will consign themselves to the most traditional means of authority. They will latch onto jingoism, to patriarchy, to the most mystical forms of spiritualism. In the end, they will reject the material world; they will perceive world events as prophecy and miracle. This is how the Dark Ages began. Fuck the barbarians, inflation, taxation — the downfall of Rome was due to lethargy, Christian masochism, and the collapse of public institutions. My friends, we are approaching the event horizon here.