Jay Fox - THE WALLS

I attempt to sip my coffee.

“Patience, young man. You lack patience.”

“Excuse me?”

“That coffee is far too hot. Place it on the table, allow it to cool; sip it when it can be enjoyed. Bah,” he exclaims, though not with enough force to require a mark. “The youth of today: so much energy, so little direction.” He pauses. “And yet such is the perennial folly of youth, I suppose.”

“There seems to be some consensus on the matter.”

He smiles. “Of course you fail to understand that my son said all that he needed to say. You go around collecting experiences as a young boy collects stones at the beach — or, if wandering Coney Island, syringes.” His guffaws are like cluster bombs. “But, joking aside, at the end of the day, nothing is cherished; nothing is enjoyed. You look, but you do not see; you listen, but you do not hear; you touch, but you do not feel.” I nod hesitantly. His posture eases. “This is not the first time someone has made a speech of this nature to you, is it?”

“No, sir. My father still treats me like I'm twelve.”

“Given the way you react to the death of a man whom you have never met, it is no wonder. While I understand that this is difficult, that death is an emotional tempest that one must learn to navigate, I simply don’t see the reason to dwell upon it, or, moreover, to solicit pity on account of my loss. I certainly shed many tears for my son, but it is nothing less than an act of self-destruction and vanity to turn away from the passing of time, of life, because of hardship.”

“It's not that. It's not that I'm…I don't know. I'm just in shock right now. You have to understand that. It's the shock.” He nods sympathetically. “And it's not that I'm…you know…overcome with grief. I'm just not a very talkative person.”

“The shock of one great moment leaves you filled with despair; all else evades your attention.” He smiles. The word mercurial pops into my head. “My, my, my — you are truly young. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

He grunts. “I guess this is my mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“You look a few years older. Perhaps because I associate you with my son. He was thirty-four — just thirty-four — when the accident happened.” He repositions himself on the sofa — stretches his legs, crosses left over right, kneecap to ankle. “Death terrifies the young; it ignites the old; it passes over the lost like the wind. The truly lost embrace it for fear of life.”

“It's not something I dwell on,” I respond.

“Spoken like a true child.” He notices a look. “I don't mean to be condescending when I say this. You speak of death as a true soldier, a hero, speaks of death. The Argonauts were children — so, too, were they heroes. And is it not the children of the world who are the heroes? Is it not the most hopelessly quixotic who arouse populations from their slumber? The heroes of the world are the ones with courage, the type of courage that only youth successfully can cultivate. But the term, hero, that has been corrupted, has it not? Corrupted, just as Wagner was corrupted, both in his soul and in his vision.” He takes a deep breath. “You must excuse the musings of an old man, especially one who has recently rediscovered the works of Nietzsche and, what seems almost a consequent of the great Pole, Wagner.

“I only wish to express my belief that there is great depth in every experience, that a man who has the capacity to savor each moment of life will never be tempted to capitulate to despair.” He shakes his head. “You have probably seen much of my son's catalog, but I doubt you can remember each piece with any sense of uniqueness. The young cannot see past the future — a paradox, no doubt, but one that you ought to take to heart.” I squint to him. “Patience, my boy,” he stresses with levity. “Patience.”

The subsequent silence is probably only awkward for me.

“What's that over there?”

“This is what I'm talking about. We have not even begun a conversation, and yet you are looking for new topics of discussion.” He squints as he looks over to the glass cabinet that implores attention. “They are coins. Yes, a Jewish numismatist — who has heard of such a thing!” Bombs away. “Oh, but it is a fantastic collection if I do say so myself.”

He walks over to the case. “Come here, come here,” with a wave of the hand. “I have spent the better part of my life collecting them. There is something very simple, very beautiful in coins. To minters, coins are considered to be of value when they lack uniqueness; to a numismatist, it is the other way around.” He turns to me. “A numismatist is really nothing more than a collector of rarities and errors.”

I approach the cabinet, look down, and finally see that my efforts have not been in vain. This is not a lost cause. The only problem is that it means Coprolalia is dead.

“You are a fan of Roman history, I take it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The coin with which you are so infatuated. It's authentic, too. I purchased it for an arm and a leg, but it is the crown jewel of my collection.”

“It's not that.” It's a coin with the same inscription on the wall in the Park Slope bar— Herculi Romano Augusto .

“What does it mean?”

“It's very simple,” he begins as he unlocks the case. “You have a standard portrait of the emperor Commodus.” He then reaches for a pair of tweezers at the far end of the cabinet. He grips the coin with them. “On top of having one of the most volatile tempers among people know for tempers, Romans, Commodus could be regarded as the most contemptible emperor of the second century.”

I nod.

“Anyway, this figure is Commodus. He is wearing the lion skin hat of Hercules in his portrait. On the reverse,” as he turns the coin to reveal the familiar text, “is Hercules’ famous club. The club divides the text, which, read left to right, is 'Herculi Romano Augusto'. This conveys Commodus' having the demeanors of both Augustus and Hercules. If one reads only the right side that has been separated by the club from top to bottom, however, one has 'culi ano usto', which means, essentially, 'To the…to the asshole burned up with the club'. The impression is that Commodus uses his club not to beat anyone, which he did fairly regularly, but as a…let's say a sexual toy. For himself.”

“And I thought Catullus was dirty.”

“You're familiar with Catallus?” in disbelief. “I was under the impression that such men had gone the way of phrenology and the scholastics.”

“I met a man who was in the midst of translating one of his poems.”

He says nothing. He simply nods in a fashion that could be described as captious or dismissive, perhaps even a conjunction of several other things that I can't translate all that well.

The coin is returned to its case. The case is locked. We return to our original positions. I pick up the coffee. I blow on it. I sip on it. I then return it to its saucer. The air conditioning hums a monotone tune in a time signature that may have once been utilized by Ornette Coleman. I can't think of anything to say, except, “So he really was Coprolalia.”

“You clearly had your doubts.”

“Of course. I've encountered no small number of people who claim—”

“The mental patient? Ah, yes; Mordecai always found that one amusing.” He smiles. “But these doubts? Am I to believe they no longer trouble you?”

“Not after seeing that coin.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“It was the inspiration behind a piece he created at a place on Fifth Avenue — right around the corner from that one house where the First Battle of Brooklyn was fought.”

“The Old Stone House. Also known as the Vechte-Cortelyou House.”