“Far be it for me to advise you not to follow a dead end.” Sean seems to be circumnavigating around the word temerity.
“Well, these people I met last night seem to be fairly convinced that he's really Coprolalia.”
“Of course they are convinced of it. It makes them feel special. People love bragging about who they know; it makes them feel as though they're part of the scene,” he derides.
“Can I start you off with something to drink,” the waitress, who materializes behind me, asks. “We have a bloody mary special — buy one, get one free.”
“Coffee will be fine,” I respond. “I think my liver needs a rest.”
“You only live once,” she curtsies. Whatever gem lay in her nose winks in the sun.
“I guess one drink couldn't hurt,” I say as I look over to Sean.
“Coffee's fine,” he says with severity.
Her eyes widen and her posture straightens. “Okay,” she says with a protracted 'o'. This implies a variety of unflattering thoughts.
She walks back into the building. Its bricks have been painted over in a faded beige — that hue that recollects a child's drawing of Caribbean sands — that is chipped in several places, thereby revealing calico layers from the past. The sound of a Mingus tune can be heard as the door opens. Nothing is said at the table for a long while. Sean drinks his coffee and smokes his cigarette in torpid pantomime. My shadow grows.
“Here you are sweetie,” the waitress says as she hands my coffee, which is in a bowl the diameter of a softball. “If you need anything else, my name is Zoe,” she adds with as much passion as she can summon.
“So why are you so skeptical about Mordecai and the A-R-E?” I ask as I reach for the milk.
“Because I've met them before — not Mordecai, but the others. They all hang around with this one band — Poot Moint.”
“Yeah, they were playing last night. I had a long conversation with Daphne, the pianist.”
“Oh (caesura) her.” The utterance of “Tenochtitlán” would have probably produced a similar expression on the face of Cortés.
“You know her?”
“Ancient history.”
“Did you ever meet Willis Faxo?”
“No, but I've definitely heard the name. The artist who's too good for the art world. Pretentious ass, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean? I thought he made furniture.”
“Yes, he does. It's a whole bunch of Marxist hoopla, really,” he says. I feel as though we both acknowledge that his word choice is something of an anomaly. “He refuses to produce any artwork that the working class won't understand. This, of course, is incredibly patronizing to the working class, but it is also a barb aimed at men of culture. To paraphrase what he said: the discourse of the art world has become a form of autoeroticism for those with too much time and hair on their hands.
“He's critical of nearly everyone: artists, poets, writers, feminists…anyone who does not think the abolition of the class system is paramount to justice. Feminists really hate him. He's called the majority of them, and I quote, 'The most self-absorbed and elitist members of the leisure-class'.”
“That explains what Daphne said of him,” I respond as I sip my coffee. “Can I bum one of those?”
“I didn't realize you smoke.”
“I don't normally, but I could use one right now.” He slides the pack and a lighter across the table. “From where are you quoting this Faxo guy?” The cigarette coughs out a plume of opaque smoke that's almost mauve in the sunlight. “Did he write a book or something?”
“No, some art magazine interviewed him a few years back. It was when he decided to quit the scene. He was quite a celebrity back then.” He drags from his cigarette for a long while. “I think it was back in ninety-eight or ninety-nine. Regardless, it's an amusing read,” he continues; “It's along the lines of Castro's speech to the UN in sixty or sixty-one.”
I concentrate on the white strands of milk, which swirl like wisps of smoke, before they are consumed by the fallow tone the coffee has taken on. I am absently stirring it. “So where does this leave me?” The question sounds more forlorn than it should be. Sean's gaze is sympathetic. “You're basically telling me that nothing I've done over the past two plus weeks has any merit. I mean, it's hard to even find a bar that has preserved one of his pieces, let alone someone who has the, the — apparently the audacity to claim that they know him.” My hands fall to the table. “I mean, what's the point in asking around if everyone is full of shit? Fuck, Sean, I have been on the move since the last time I saw you. I'd be happy if Tomas and Aberdeen were actually helping, but Tomas — who keeps abandoning me, mind you, because the fucking guy gets laid like every night—”
“Don't be jealous,” he scolds. “Some women are just really attracted to artistic types.”
“I know that Sean,” as calm as the eye of the hurricane. “I know. It's just that I'm beginning to feel like nobody takes me seriously.”
“You're young. People think your interest in high culture is ephemeral, that you'll join the workforce and become a yuppie just like so many others with liberal arts degrees,” which provokes a glacial stare from the woman at the next table. “It's a cynical approach to life, I guess, but it's certainly accurate in most cases.”
I nod. “Well, where do I go from here? If Mordecai isn't Coprolalia, and the members of the A-R-E are bullshit artists, what other leads do I have?”
“Oh yeah, that's what I wanted to mention,” he gasps in a minor Eureka! moment. My eyes narrow. “Well, the A-R-E — as you were told — stands for what seems to be a cult that both worships and strives to promote laughter.” I nod. “There is another belief that there are ulterior motives behind their activities. Some people believe them to be a…well…cult.”
“A cult?”
“Okay, for instance I've heard that the point is to encourage people to embrace their real selves, their…well, I forget the exact words that they use. Anyway, the laughter, they believe, is the first step towards coming to term with the real self…the eidolon — that's it! There's some sophomoric reason for this.”
“Okay.”
“Supposedly, the founder, Dick Keens, spent his years searching for some great truth, a penultimate step that could result in pure enlightenment. He called this The Joke — capitalized 'T' and 'J'.” I squint. “Neo-Platonism,” he responds. “And a lot of drugs.”
“I see,” with an uneasy nod.
“Now, I've certainly heard about the laughter aspect, as I've already said, but I have also heard that the acronym has another meaning.” His tenor cannot be described as facetious or malign; a conjunction of the two, however, would not be unfitting, though they would appear very clumsy together if one were to turn one of the words into a noun as so: facetious malignancy/malign facetiousness.
“They go by a name besides the Acolytes of Risus, the Enlightener?”
“Yes,” he nods with a tenuous grin. “Some believe it actually stands for Astrally-Resurrected Entity — or the plural of that: Astrally-Resurrected Entities.” I look to him with lemons. “The term Astral-Projection essentially means the ability to consciously travel without the use of a body; Astral-Resurrection relates to the ability to bring the dead back to life without the need of a corpse.” Before I can respond, he laughs: “Russian ex-pats and a lot of drugs. To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised you got in. They're typically very exclusive. I guess there's one thing I can't doubt, and that's your tenacity.”