Jay Fox - THE WALLS

Aberdeen rolls his eyes. “Sean thinks the piece in here is a fake, but we're not so skeptical,” he states. We walk to the back, past the few patrons and bartender, and stop at the threshold of one of the unisex bathrooms. The ski-ball machine to our right begs for quarters with dancing red lights. The nearby jukebox is a gray mass of technology. “It's obviously a Coprolalia,” Aberdeen continues as the bathroom door is pushed open. He reveals the four small, block letters that comprise the piece, as the others in the bar look to us with curiosity. I don't think either Tomas or Aberdeen notice the attention we draw to ourselves as we stand looking just above the paper towel dispenser from the small ante-lavatory — a space that moonlights as a cigarette lounge, something that evident from the faint redolence of smoke and the flattened filters of white and cedar-speckled gamboge that litter the floor. A rather large pillar obstructs the vantage from behind the bar. This explains why the location serves the secondary purpose it does.

The bathroom is anything but prosaic. More than a few eccentric articles implore attention: an ancient scale, an advertisement for the same deodorant from last night, a table full of free magazines that cater to alternative demographics. “Its simplicity speaks volumes,” Aberdeen says as he walks into the lavatory. “To find truth in brevity like that. It's so perfect.” He pauses to take it in. “FUCK.” He turns to us. “That's all he needed.

“It's reminiscent of a work by Friedman,” he concludes.

“I think it's more like one of Joyce's epileptics,” Tomas counters (apparently because he's on something of a Joyce binge). Aberdeen scowls with a tinge of arrogance before turning back around to examine the four letters with greater scrutiny.

I suggest a Salinger reference, but the two quickly dismiss this for reasons that are neither clear nor debatable. To be honest, I didn't believe my conjecture, either. It's not because I believe either one of them are correct; it's because I am not convinced that we are gazing upon a Coprolalia. It's not ironically juvenile; it's unadulteratedly juvenile. Furthermore, it is not on Sean's list. And while this is not something I feel the need to bring up, it is something that I take note of.

We walk back into the main chamber, the argument now transcending the initial topic. None of the tables is occupied, not even the pool table. A young couple plays darts. They talk about Ilsa Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, though they refer to the latter celebrity as either Bogey or The Humpster. Blondie sings of rapture at a volume that discourages all but the most vigilant of eavesdroppers.

“I think I'm just going to get a soda,” I say as the three of us wait to be served.

“What? You fucking sick or something? Tomas asks.

“No,” I begin, “I'm just hungover.”

The bartender approaches. “Three bloody maries,” Tomas announces. He turns to me. “I'm buying,” he adds before launching into a tirade about the hair of the dog and dialectics of self-realization, which arouses a crooked brow out of me and a derisive shake of the head from Aberdeen. “This, alcohol, is a form of fucking catharsis, man; it's the only means we can abolish the super-ego, the self-for-others, and all of the other shackles that bourgeois society has imposed upon us. Dig it! It eradicates the…the…” as he turns to Aberdeen. “What's that fucking Hegelian word that I'm thinking of? Shitsklit ?”

“ Sittlichkeit ?”

“Yeah; that shit. Fuck it! We need not be prisoners of society's puritanical morality, a morality that is as fucking antiquated as it is profane.” As the bartender looks for the celery stalks with which to garnish our drinks, Tomas begins to speak about his fight against the post-9/11 ethos of fear and repression, at one point referring to himself as “A Luddite engaged in a war against the mechanisms of Conservative nihilism,” perhaps to convey a love for words that sound more important than they actually are.

“So how do you guys know Sean?” I ask once we take our seats at a horizontal Gallega arcade game. Tomas has calmed himself by this point. “You were students of his?”

Tomas nods. “We graduated, what, five years ago.” Aberdeen nods. “Since then, we've been trying to make art our career, dig. It's only been the past year or so that we've been able to quit our day-jobs.”

“And you live around here, right?”

“Yes,” Aberdeen responds. “We live in a loft on Green Street. It's right around the corner.”

The question and answer session continues for a while. I discover that the two have been roommates since their third year in college. They have lived in the loft for the past four years. “Been there since we got priced out of the Village. We lived on Avenue fucking C, man, and we still couldn't afford it. Even with both of us working our bullshit day jobs, the place was just too fucking expensive.” The new space is relatively cheap, they tell me; it is also large enough to allow three other roommates.

Over the course of the years these spaces have been occupied by seven different people, two they consider worthy of being mentioned by their birth names. The three currently occupying the space — besides Tomas and Aberdeen, of course — are Barazov (which is not the man's surname), Lindsay, and Itchycoo (yet another cognomen). Barazov is a self-described anarchist with a trust fund that allows him a life of perpetual turpitude. His real name is Spencer Fitzgerald Bloodsworth. Tomas thinks he's a third or a fourth — as in Spencer Fitzgerald Bloodsworth III (or IV). “Real fucking blue blood, dig. He's the type who's got ancestors who came over on the Mayflower or some shit. Type of family with a manor or an estate instead of a house,” he adds. Lindsay is a receptionist in Midtown, who, as suggested from her lack of a mordant handle, is “a nice girl.” They don't seem to care for her boyfriend, Clyde. It's fairly obvious that the enmity Aberdeen feels for him derives from his attraction to the girl; Tomas, on the other hand, thinks little of Clyde because he's a mean drunk. Itchycoo is a hippie currently on vacation. He works two jobs nine months out of the year so he can spend the summer months touring with the Disco Biscuits and other bands that Tomas and Aberdeen don't know by name. They are dismissive of his taste in music, as well as his general orientation to the world, but at least Tomas acknowledges him as well intentioned.

Aberdeen scowls. “He's a slob. And a hick, too; he's from Georgia.”

“Good musician, though,” Tomas chimes in sympathetically. “You know, I don't dig all the music he's into, but you have to possess some degree of talent to play it.” Before I ask, he responds: “Guitarist. He also owns one of those mini guitars, too,” as he races up an imaginary fretboard with his right hand. “You know, the one with the eight strings. What's it called again?”

“Mandolin,” Aberdeen and I respond in unison.

Tomas continues: “He's not that good at it, but you can barely hear it if he closes his door. As I was saying, he's certainly polite so long as he doesn't drink the shit they sell down the street.”

“Whiskey?”

“No, the liquor store down the block sells this one hundred and sixty proof vodka. The owner won't allow anyone besides the Polska to buy it, but Itchycoo has a lot of experience with moonshine. Was it his father?” as he looks to Tomas.

“Grandfather.”

“Yes, his grandfather evidently ran a still. As you can probably guess, he's not from Atlanta — he's from the North Country.”

“But he's not trailer-trash or anything like that,” Tomas interjects. “He's got an okay head on his shoulders.”

“I guess. The music he listens to, though — that's what really irks me. Endless noodling,” with cumbersome grimace. “He has hundreds of these Phish shows on his computer, and he constantly listens to them. What is his favorite song again?”