So that was the ambition side of it: the desire to refuse to relinquish what, to her, was the only thing that no adult should ever surrender — integrity. One could even say that this ambition was there to help her avoid the greed that is so often identified as ambition.
I understood it — the ambition she held: a vague quixotry that for so many performs its swan song in concert with “Pomp and Circumstance.” Yet at the same time I understood why she was plagued by consternation. Like me, she knew what the world would eventually demand of her: that demand that has served as the most potent catalyst for the crisis of identity to which every sophist armed with a suspect Ph.D. or a pulpit has produced a specious solution; and she knew that she could do nothing but stare with grim recognition to the hand from which she would eventually eat, the same hand that she now realizes long ago subsumed the hand from which she had been taking by birthright, that same hand whose handiwork was inalienable from all but the last enclaves of humanity trapped (or cushioned, depending whom you ask) by the intractable face of pure wilderness, those inhabitants living at the horizon of oblivion.
So it wasn't really ambition at all, at least not the ambition that is often venerated by the Babbitts of the world — those rapacious fools whose greed is stifled by nothing less than their own stupidity. Instead, she venerated the ideals to which she had ascribed and those to which still did ascribe to some degree; but she knew that they were beginning to falter, to stumble. Soon they would be gone. So this was her elegy (perhaps a bit of a premature one) for her integrity (but only in the acrostic sense — for she never did say what it was she wanted to say, and maybe that's why I'm filling in the gaps for her). Because I understood it, and I knew that she understood it; and that's why it was never said. Maybe that was why we exchanged numbers after the beer, both because she hoped that her eventual capitulation would not be out of the ordinary and as though to say —If you can find a way to escape it, please send for me. Because there was a shared despondency there, a shared discernment of how things would progress if either one of us made that first bow, that first sacrifice. One sacrifice would beget two, and two would beget three, and so on and so forth. Money would become more important, and its importance would swell not because of cupidity (because true cupidity only exists in the hearts of one-dimensional antagonists found in jejune fictions and the schemes of the They so often featured in the nightmares (and daymares) of the schizophrenic), but rather out of specious necessity. And it would eventually become apparent that the problem wasn't the lack of anything; instead, it was the profusion of luxury, vacuous luxury, luxury without purpose or even as a way of being ignorant, comfortably — just luxury for luxury's sake, which is perhaps its purest form. And then we would long for the past, the past not as it had been exactly, but in the way we imagined it had been (joyous and resplendent, without the quagmire of depression and self-doubt that characterizes virtually all of the “best years” of our lives); and yet it would be too late by that point. We would be left with what we didn't want even though we were not only used to it by then; no, it would be fare worse: we would be unable to live without it. And the young, the cool, the hip, would be able to tell. We would try to come back to them, no less tainted and eschewed — maybe even feared — than escaped lepers running amok through the streets of Midtown (and the middle of Midtown, too). We would be the old people, the people so often mocked for thinking they can somehow transcend generations. And so, defeated, we would have to return to our suburban colony to live vicariously through what we read in magazines and what we saw on television, disappointed but at the same time respectful — although seething with jealously — of the institutions guarded by Janus or St. Peter or Uriel. So maybe it is best never to abandon the ascetic life — ascetic not in the sense of willed poverty or the abnegation of the material world, but ascetic in relation to what that first sacrifice promises — ascetic in the sense that sometimes it is better not to have.
We left without speaking these words to one another, of course. She went around the corner and upstairs to her sister's apartment; I hopped on an Astoria-bound train. There, in Astoria, I came upon one of my favorite pieces by Coprolalia, which, unfortunately, no member of the staff could date with any certainty. Sean had labeled it Cōlin Jenkins. I have no idea why. It featured a very dejected Colin Powell holding his severed left ear in a mason jar. There must be some reference there, but I'm at a loss to explain what it is. Regardless, it was certainly better than one of the pieces close by Shea Stadium, which featured a quotation of Derrida's twelfth aphorism. The same quote appeared in a place on Smith Street, though, as Sean pointed out, the two were not written by the same hand.
The repetition is not what surprises me; rather, it's the difference between the two areas. In the bar near Shea (or Ashe, depending on your preference), I was the only person who spoke English as a first language. A captious woman at the bar translated my questions for the bartender (the typical questions that I ask whenever I actually find something done by Coprolalia: Do you know who did it? Can you describe the man you think may have done it? Can you provide an accurate date upon which the piece appeared? etc.). She then translated the bartender's responses back to me. This made her something of a gerund. Neither of the women was familiar with Coprolalia, and both expressed a silent disdain as I explained myself.
The bartender eventually cut me off.
The pseudo-gerund then spoke: “She wants to know your job.” She was a plump nubile, perhaps even underage, with thick glasses, intelligent eyes, and a lofty voice. Her face was very sharp, sculpted even, though to imply that her features were the result of anything plastic would be to ignore the relative innocence in her smile. She was guarded, but not cynical; incredulous, but not maliciously so. She just seemed to express a mild reluctance to either affirm or doubt another's honesty — a common feature in individuals still green enough to believe that happy endings are remote only in their relation to the present, not their potential.
“My what?”
“What is your work?” she reiterated. The pseudo-gerund did not capture the harshness or peremptory tone of the bartender, who stood with her hands upon her hips. She was no taller than a cello. Still, there was fierceness in her face that cautioned the use of excessive charm or flirtation. “Your job. What is your job?”
“I don't have one,” I said gingerly.
“She wants to know why.”
“I just graduated.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don't know.”
“You need a job.”
“I know.”