“And Mordecai moved out to Greenpoint, right?”
“Yeah, moved into this Polish dowager's house. Weird lady.”
“How long was he there?”
“I'm not really sure. I'm sure he's moved now, but I couldn't tell you where to. As I've said, I could never get in touch with him — he's never owned a phone.” He shrugs. “Yeah, but that's like him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He's a private guy,” he chuckles. “You should know that much by now.”
“I can understand being private, but he doesn't seem to have any connections to anyone. You're the first person I've met who knows him personally. Or knew, rather.”
“I didn't even know him all that well. He never talked about his art until I caught him in the act one night. I just happened to walk in on him when we were out at the bar. I think we were at the Paulmil Café—perhaps the seediest place in all of Manhattan. Come to think of it, we had just talked with Joe, and were trying to decide whether it was best to stay or to go.” He shakes his head. “But that's beside the point. When I came back to the table after I was finished taking a piss, I told him that I thought his drawing was really clever. It had something to do with the bad press the Clintons were receiving on account of Whitewater, but I don't really remember the specifics of the piece.”
“So this was, what, ninety-six.”
“Try ninety-four, man.”
“So you lived together then — obviously.”
“Yeah, he moved in on the first day of…let me think…March. Yeah, because winter was ending, and I finished out the semester in the new place. So I lived with him for the March and the April of ninety-four.” He laughs. “It seems as though the interview has officially begun, huh?”
I laugh, too. Daphne and Sean had made him out to be some kind of misanthropic intellectual, but, in reality, he doesn't strike me as any different than most of the people I've met in the past weeks. True, his accent is not as thick as most of the other New Yorkers I've come across. Also, he's one of the few black people that I have met as I've scoured the dives of the city.
It seems as though black people don't go to the bar to fraternize as often as white people do — unless, of course, they are out with their white friends. I have seen a lot of black people at places that like to call themselves lounges. The disparities between a lounge and a bar are few, but, from what I can gather, the main distinctions are the price of the drinks, the comfort of the furniture, and the age and volume of the music.
“So what else would you like to know?” he asks.
“Anything you can tell me, really. Do you know if there's a way to find his parent's house? Do they still live in the same place?”
“As far as I know.”
“And you say that they lived on Avenue M?”
“I'm not sure. Mordy always said he lived off the Avenue M stop on the Q. He could have lived on any street around there. If you haven't noticed by now, Brooklyn people, especially those who have spent their whole lives here, have a fucked up conception of walking distance.” I furrow my brow. “Well, they tend to think that everything is a lot closer than it actually is — especially when it comes to trains. I dated this one girl who always said that she lived 'right by the train'. Turns out she lived nine blocks away from it. I measured it out — it was just under a fucking mile,” he exclaims. “A fucking mile,” he adds to Scooter, who gives back an expression of a deer caught not only in the headlights of a semi, but its grill.
“Fucking stoner,” with facetious contempt.
“What about the last time you saw him? Did he mention anything that…I guess I could use to find him?”
“Let's see…I saw him in February. Like I've said, I have no way of getting into contact with him or anything — we just randomly ran into each other at some bar just south of Columbia. I don't remember the name. He wouldn't shut up about this lawsuit against his dad's store. Apparently, it was a slip and fall accident. The plaintiff and her husband were demanding something absurd — like three million dollars or some shit.” I nod. “Anyway, he was there with his cousin.”
“What's his cousin's name.”
“I was kind of drunk at the time,” he shrugs with a grin. “I think she was working on a Ph.D.,” he begins. “No!” he jumps. “She was in med-school. She was specializing in neurology.”
“Do you know if she has the same last name as him?”
“I really have no idea. She had a really Jewish first name. Yeah, and the two of them were debating whether or not he should attend an I.S.M.—”
“What's the I.S.M.?”
“The International Solidarity Movement. It's a pro-Palestinian organization.”
“Okay.”
“Well, yeah, that was kind of the joke. Mordecai didn't really want to go; he's not particularly supportive of Israel's expansionist policies, but he didn't think he'd be welcome on account of his being Jewish and all. She said half of the people there were going to be Jewish. She was a bit more militant in her views, too, accusing the Israeli government of everything short of Holocaust. She was especially pissed because some guy was trying to get an injunction to keep the P.M.I. from holding their conference at Columbia.”
“On what grounds?”
“Typical right-wing shit. Supporting the oppressed is supporting terrorism. Same type of language the Apartheid government used whenever they spoke of the A.N.C.”
“I see.”
“I don't know what happened with the injunction. I'm guessing the judge threw it out.”
“Did Mordecai end up going to the event?”
“I have no idea.”
“He spends a pretty good amount of time up around there, you know.”
“That's not all that surprising. He was close with that cousin of his.”
“He recently did a piece that Sean has entitled Glass Onion.”
“Sean?”
“Winchester.”
A roll of the eyes.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“So he was close with her, then?”
“Maybe.” He laughs, this time with what almost seems like hostility. “Look, I know you want someone who can lead you to Mordy, but, really, I barely know the guy. I've never met any of his friends. For all I know he doesn't have any. I've only met his cousin, his uncle, and his father. His uncle and his dad helped moved him in and out of the apartment, and his dad came by another time to take us out for dinner.” He gives a bit of a wince. “Really, I wish I could help you out a bit more.”
“Anything you could tell me about him. I mean, did he, did he ever admit to being Coprolalia?”
“Yes and no. I did hear him refer to himself by that name a few years before that idiot professor started using it to describe every piece of latrine art he thought witty enough to be evaluated or criticized.” He shakes his head. “But what is art? Oscar Wilde aphorisms aside, art does have a purpose; it just isn't a purpose like food or shelter or water or even sex. If it were useless, it would not be ubiquitous. Yet art is found in every culture. Even troglodytes took time off from fucking and killing to paint on the wall, know what I mean?”
“Troglodytes!” Scooter yelps. “That song is the shit.”
“Every society has it, but, apparently, no one needs it. It seems as though the majority of art in our society, however, is created solely to bewilder or shock people. High art, I mean. It's either provocative for the sake of being provocative, or it needs to be dissected and interpreted because it lacks that…what's the word I'm looking for…that visceral…ness. Is that a word? Visceralness?”
“For right now, sure.”
“What I'm saying is that it is either the most base form of visceral provocation — like shit on a pedestal — or it's produced with extreme pretense.” The song Troglodytes comes on. I feel as though I am once again worshiping Risus. “Not to say that I want to revert back to the bathos of Romanticism. And, look, it's not I hate everything being produced right now, either. I couldn't begin to give a list of all the great people out there who continue to astound me with their abilities and their insights. But, for the most part, I see way too much esoteric shit.