Jay Fox - THE WALLS

I thought I was satisfied with Connie. I did. Even during the Animosity, I took the incessant fighting to be normal. To a certain degree, I still do. All relationships have their troubles, their fights. It would be incredibly juvenile to assume that monogamy can exist without jealousy, without some amount of frustration, without some display of frailty on the part of both parties. And it's the last part that both creates the problems and allows everything to work. It's what allows the relationship to flourish as opposed to remaining just an insouciant association between two subjects. You make yourself vulnerable. That's why everything becomes so polarized — the highs and the lows. Especially the lows. They know you too well — because you haven't lived without them for so long that losing them can occasionally appear refreshing, but still, even in the bitterest turmoil, impossible. It seems that this type of love can only exist when one abandons all pretenses and all boundaries.

If Patrick is Coprolalia, then I can't believe anything that he told me. It would mean that the A-R-E doesn't exist, that all of those people there that night were participating in a prank. But that would require too much time, too much energy. It would have to involve hundreds of people, months of planning. If it were so, the A-R-E would have to be nothing more than a joke. The JOKE.

This is why people cannot love the world.

It's all on me, isn't it? It's not that intricate of a plot. Someone owns a loft, they throw a party, and they just need to not let on when they talk with me. Patrick, Daphne and Willis were the only ones who really said anything about Coprolalia. And they just led me to one another — Patrick to Daphne, Daphne to Willis. No. There's no way they would simply decide to do something so elaborate just because they noticed a post on Craigslist. Which was Tomas' idea. Could he be involved in it, too? Yes, he could. That random woman from the bar down the block just happened to be there a second time, and we ended up there because of Tomas. She was there because Tomas told her to be there. She even went out of her way to mention Mordecai's derision of an article on Coprolalia. And I was to assume that it had been written by Sean. She knew that would happen. It was meant to appear coincidental. From Tomas to Patrick, from Patrick to Daphne, from Daphne to Willis. Esther was there only to corroborate. They were all there to corroborate, all of the people claiming to be members of the A-R-E. And why were they all involved? Because they are all Coprolalia. That's why no one can verify what he looks like. He is really They . It's one big prank that's been set up to…what would the reason be?

This is why people cannot love their fate.

Sean has to be the mastermind. Think about it. He's the leading expert. He's made a name for himself by writing all of that bullshit on Coprolalia. He's tenured at a top university. He's about to publish the definitive volume on Coprolalia. It will end up in hundreds of thousands of homes. It will make him a fucking millionaire. Every asshole hipster will have to have one. Anyone overcome by nostalgia for the former grittiness of the city will have to have one. All Sean had to do was hire out a few artists, remain patient, and create a buzz. He probably commissioned all of those pieces. That's how he knows about them. This has all been one scheme almost fifteen years in the making. Even worse, I have no real part in it. This is not a plot that required some naïve fool in order to set it into motion. There was no step blessed by Até, no one tragic blunder in which confidence betrays judgment. No, I am an accident — I was never considered. I am nothing. And no one will believe what I have to say because all of my evidence relies on the testimonies of those who have colluded with Sean.

Tomas stirs. His head turns as though he is addressing me, but I cannot tell if his eyes are open, as the washcloth still covers roughly half of his face. “You don't want the eggplant, do you?”

Vulnerability.

“Wake up, Tomas.”

“I've got, like, two eggplants. And this one isn't good. You know, it's…it's bad.” He scratches his head. “I mean, it's not bad…like bad . It's going to go bad. Like, soon.”

“Wake the fuck up.”

The washcloth is removed from his face with a painful and torpid motion. His eyes begin blinking rapidly. I'd forgotten that he does that . He's looking around, trying to place himself. He clearly cannot understand why he is where he is, nor can he entirely remember why he's in the condition in which he finds himself. He's like a newborn still unaccustomed to the world to willingly admit light into his eyes.

“Where am I?” His lips are coated with a thin, white residue reminiscent of Spackle dust.

“You're in your bathroom.”

He licks his incisors and rubs the back of his head. His teeth are probably wearing sweaters. His tongue probably feels swollen. He winces after applying pressure to his occipital bone. I guess that's my fault; I let go too soon while Aberdeen and I were transferring him into the tub — or I dropped him, which I guess would be the more accurate depiction of that event.

“And why the fuck are you here?”

“Because I have nothing better to do.”

“Why am I na—” he looks down, feels his boxer shorts. “Why am I almost naked?”

“Because you puked all over yourself.”

“Did I do anything stupid?”

“You puked all over yourself.”

“Did I do anything worse than that?”

“Not tonight.”

“Good.”

Caesura .

“Wait…what?”

“Why haven't you told me the truth about Coprolalia?”

His eyes are red, exhausted symbols of pain. “What? About that night out with Jane?”

“Who the fuck is Jane?”

“Jane — that chick from the other night. We wanted you to talk with her about the poem, the…” he snaps his fingers at roughly 135 bpm.

“The haiku?”

“Yeah,” drowsily. “The haiku in the bar.”

“No. This is bigger, Tomas.”

“Not bigger than my dick.” He chortles slightly as he turns away.

“Are you fucking twelve? Look at me, you fucking asshole. Look at me, and tell me that you didn't fucking have a hand in all of this shit.”

He has the harrowing, sour grimace of a cancer patient, though it's not because of my words. He's about to vomit again. I almost feel guilty for berating him like this. “What the fuck has gotten into you, man?” meekly.

“I've realized that you're full of shit.”

“Yeah…well…art is all pretension these days.” He spits. “The more pretentious, the better.”

“No. You haven't been honest with me. You haven't told me the truth.”

“Look Mulder, I don—”

“How much did Sean pay you?” Sean has connections. Connections in the art world. The more pretentious the better. Tomas has sold me out in order to get good reviews. Reviews published by Sean's friends. They're all involved. Everyone. The whole university; the university beyond the university. The art world is nothing but fucking nepotism and everyone knows it. Faxo was right. Yeah, he knew. It was his tacit admission of guilt. He felt guilty about the bullshit that he was feeding me. He still has a conscience. That's what makes what he did even more despicable. “Coprolalia doesn't exist.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, man? Will you chill the fuck out.” A classic tmesis, one he uses frequently. Wouldn't his speech patterns be different under duress? Why is he so calm? He's just in pain. If he were feeling better, he'd be acting more defensively. “Will you at least tell me why your fucking panties are all in a bundle?”