Adam Thirlwell - Lurid & Cute

where greatness may be possible

That paraphernalia, of course, being how it might be possible to be with Romy after all. Not, of course, that it really was so possible. The impossibility of the situation, however, was what made it all so thrilling. Temptations floated everywhere in the luminous air, and so if I made myself laughable to Romy, I also liked to play the sexual buffoon. Our illicit and obscene communications increased. I would send her small photos, endowed with little captions: Think about my tongue, in your legs, your thighs . And sometimes teasingly she would reply, like: Why do we now always talk about sex? And I was expert at convincing her that this was not only about sex. This talking about sex, I said, was really talking about something else inside out. Perhaps you’re right, she said. I only need to hear your voice, I said. Sometimes not even your voice, she said. Just to know you feel that about me, and I’m gone. These moments of small triumph for me made me very happy. Once, I wrote to Romy that I was definitely getting fat, to which she replied: Darling, imagining you fat just makes me feel even more tenderly towards you. That tenderness made me joyful. I felt totally the masculine, in a manner of which I was sure my father would have been proud. Of course, I also had my doubts. Was this right? I sometimes wondered. Could it be that happiness was possible? Because to mishear and come up on stage to accept the jackpot prize when you are not the one who has been chosen, that’s surely a fate worse than death, or nearly? And what of the other cases? What of the person who might well have been chosen, and might well consent to such a fate, but is so busy with problems at home, so many problems of unemployment and multiple love affairs and skin complaints, that he does not have the time to devote himself to his appointed and necessary task? Is he still chosen, or not chosen? I did not want to be the one who missed my opportunity for greatness. In this suspended state I think it’s therefore obvious that questions of before and after would perplex me — as if just maybe the chocolate egg of the world had broken and all its liquor was oozing out, like those stories where the future is folded in among the past, all heavily and thickly. By which specifically I mean that in this rainforest season I began to wonder much more than I ever had about my horoscope. In some milk bar, hiding from the rains, eating assorted blueberry galettes, I picked up an old Chinese newspaper that came free in the local kiosks. And on one particular day it said: Something extraordinary will begin this month in your love life. A major change will occur, but it will be a good one. I checked the date. The date was still good. But still, at this time, I doubted it. New fluorescent birds were screaming in the park. Things felt heavy and mysterious, as if portents could be everywhere occurring. Late one night I was walking down the street and suddenly saw Jordan, whom I had not seen for at least fifteen years. Jordan, I said. Jordan. She looked at me.

— Why, it’s you, she said.

And we smiled at each other. I didn’t know what else to say. I had never thought I would ever see her again, not ever.

— Hey you, I said.

We paused but also we did not pause. Very gently we continued to walk away from each other in opposite directions, and I could not really understand if she had really been there or not — because maybe, I was wondering, what I saw was not a real sight, and in some way she had at that moment died, in some other city, on the other side of the hemisphere. Perhaps she had. I never tried to discover, or knew how I would if I wanted. So yes, it’s true that trouble was the general atmosphere, as if the general web of mana were just breathing in and out a little more deeply than usual, but still I really was not prepared to believe that my horoscope was right, and that there would be some new crisis in my amours. I thought that Fate had surely done enough already.

but only if he can talk privately with Romy

My one intent was to find myself alone with Romy and say what I urgently needed to say. I didn’t care about the general fiesta background. That we should be here among a community of various immigrants, lolling on plastic chairs, while behind us was projected a film of another party simultaneously occurring in some favela town across the unfinished ocean, it perhaps did seem like some irony or dandyism, but at this point I was not analysing things with such elan. Chorizo imported from across the seas was being grilled and it made the air heavy and red. In a fluoro skater’s vest a girl was grinding against her chubby amorato. And I suppose I also had to admit that if the people here were trying to combine what might be called work and what might be called a party, then they were in their way no different from what I was trying to achieve in my own miniature circle. Me too I was trying to make my life a work of art. For while naturally much good comes of parties, they allow the socially awkward — the kind who cannot meet your eye when they address you, who prefer to talk from behind the shield of a cupped and nervous hand — to blossom and feel more at ease, for me I would say they formed a kind of trial or even inquisition. Because the helium balloon that was this feeling I had for Romy was now desperate for release. It was very important that she should understand how much it was possible for me to feel, that she did not think that I was without feelings or without passion. It’s important I think to tell people everything you can. Not that this was easy because at this particular party Candy and I and Hiro had arrived in let’s say a flustered state — with Hiro in one of his wigs and not everyone smiling — and that isn’t ideal, for the party atmosphere. Candy herself had changed her hair as well, like shaved the sides so that the oversweep was an imposing mane. I’m not saying it was so feminine but I thought it did look sharp. And we were all the more flustered when we discovered that what we had assumed would be a simple drinks party, the sort of party you just enter for two minutes and then leave, was in fact this demonstration and happening, with political discussion and installations — not because we disapproved of such demonstrations but simply because it’s difficult, when your social expectations are confused: a little like turning a page and discovering that in fact the last paragraph you just read was also the end of the book, or like when you see a child walk past then notice she has breasts and is a dwarf instead. It’s no problem, obviously, but it just requires a miniature replay and readjustment. Whereas there was no time for such a readjustment because already Romy was there in front of us.

— Hey, she said.

— Hey, I said.

This was how we talked. And it was how therefore we continued to talk for we had no alternative, there is never an alternative to the prevailing tone, and I resolved not to be upset but it was difficult, especially because Romy could see that I was sad and dismayed and angry or all at once, and then she asked me, with Candy beside me, what was so wrong. And I was mad at her because if you arrive very clearly in a state of some conflict, and also if very obviously you have this ferocious need to talk very privately with another person, and they see that you are in a state of conflict, which is not a state you would have liked to display, then the polite thing is just to ignore that you have seen what you have seen, whereas she was instead asking me what was wrong, with Candy next to me, and I disliked this not only because it made me feel uncomfortable but also because the fact that she felt she could ask such a question so casually and even blithely surely seemed to prove that for her there was now no conflict, that she was simply with Epstein and so the false position between us all was totally resolved. And therefore or nevertheless, at the same time I was also thinking that now it was all the more urgent to work out how to find myself alone with Romy. Very much I regretted that I had officially given up smoking, for smoking is one of the great ways of delivering yourself alone with other people, and most of life I think is trying to construct private conversations with other people. But that option was no longer possible, and in fact it seemed no conversation would be possible at all — so bleakly did Epstein stand there with his beautiful poise, or lead her away into a group around a beat-up stereo, playing ancient Communist canciones. I walked away, therefore, leaving Candy with Hiro to chat about their usual topics — tap dance, for instance — with the rough idea of finding a bathroom but really because I was very sad. I was overwhelmed.