Jay Fox - THE WALLS

Tomas is a ruddy-faced eccentric with a narrow nose and crooked teeth. His eyes are of Eastern European stock, though his ancestry is predominately English. Some would think him cynical. I would be no exception to this. It is not a necessarily acerbic orientation, just a state of perpetual disappointment — the primary antecedent, in Seneca’s mind, to anger. He is a stout man, comprised of neither excessive muscle nor fat, but simply brawn. He wears a plain white T-shirt and jeans, gator-skin beetle-boots (zippers on the side, aerodynamic in shape), and a Detroit Tigers hat that hasn't seen a wash cycle in what appears to be a decade.

Tomas sounds like he's in a constant state of agitation, complete with erratic hand gestures that are often accompanied by sound effects and a barrage of profanity. He goes through long periods of time in which he doesn't blink. When he does blink, it is usually followed by several more. Blinks. It's as though he is trying to keep his average blinks-per-minute close to the mean of the general population. When you notice this idiosyncrasy, you can't help but store it in memory for later discussion with someone else. It doesn't seem to have a catalyst, either. This element of caprice just makes it that much more noticeable.

James is taller and more reserved. He is pensive and cautious, but eager to exhibit his insight. In Medieval times he would have been called melancholic. He wears a tweed blazer, nods along as others speak, and rolls his own cigarettes — a habit (or vice, depending whom you ask) in which he takes a modest deal of pride. Tomas says that he drinks nearly a gallon of coffee a day; without it, the tempo of his speech would probably degenerate into a soporific largo. When talking, he refuses eye contact; when listening, he focuses his attention on the mouth of the speaker.

There is a curiosity in his eyes that is salient, somewhat intimidating. At a glance, you would assume him to be a graduate student from Dartmouth or Brown — not a perpetual student like those whom you meet in the coffeehouses of the West Village, but a professional student, a cloistered brain busy mulling over a thesis paper that revolves around the significance of some random artifact in a work of fiction from the nineteenth century (like Natalia's kerchief, which appears towards the end of the sixth chapter of Gogol's Taras Bulba ) — not only because of the tweed and the ponderous disposition he exhibits, but also as a consequence of his neat beard. My father always said that beards are for mystics and the vain.

Tomas says that Aberdeen (and he calls him that, too) takes himself too seriously. Aberdeen says that Tomas lives in a state of childish rebellion, which is certainly true to a degree. Neither have what most would consider a real occupation, as they have managed to become successful enough to escape what Aberdeen calls “the tedium of the post-industrial day-job,” and what Tomas refers to as “The degradation of the Dionysian spirit by the anti-social elements of capitalist society.” Even though Aberdeen is less self-righteous than Tomas, his laconic phrases complement the ravings of his friend with a counterbalance of intellectual buzzwords and rehearsed incredulity.

I met Tomas and Aberdeen around two in the afternoon under a corner scaffold in northern Greenpoint, an area supposedly rife with the work of Coprolalia. There was a mist oscillating in severity as we exchanged pleasantries and spoke about the neighborhood, which I had never really visited during the daytime. Even though it had become something of a nexus for those fleeing the rent increases in Williamsburg, who were flocking to Williamsburg to escape the rent increases in the Village, it had retained a lot of its former character. Most of the shop windows have signs in Polish, English, and Spanish (in that order, too), though there are establishments that exclusively cater to the neighborhood's newer, more domestic immigrants. There's a high-end produce market, a minimalist Thai restaurant, and a video store that specializes in quality films that you can never find at your local Blockbuster because the VHS copy has been stolen and the studio hasn't bothered to mass-produce a DVD edition yet. Starbucks has converted the old movie theater into…well…a Starbucks. The marquee implores pedestrians to stop in for a dessert beverage that costs only five bucks. The justification for the price probably comes from the Italian neologism that's been slapped onto the substance, which, for all intents and purposes, is nothing more than hypercaffeinated Nesquik. McDonald's has set up shop nearby, too. The windows reveal a sterile environment that is oddly reminiscent of a poorly constructed diorama or a scene from the bottom of an aquarium. The majority of the inhabitants are Dominican or elderly (in some cases both).

But these newer places do not overwhelm those that have been in the area for what seems like generations. A few storefronts north of the McDonald’s there is a Polish meat market that sells organs and glands that most Americans forget how to spell by the time they get home to plug such items into a search engine. Between the two is an old bar illuminated only by the sun as seen though tinted glass and one of those neon beer advertisements that one typically sees after pulling off the highway deep in Bush country. On the other side of the street is a butcher, as well as pharmacy named after Poland's most famous composer. The G train below all of this smells like asparagus-tinged piss, garlic, offal and some type of peppery spice that may or may not be smoked paprika.

The sidewalks are cleaner than most one comes across in Brooklyn, though the people inhabiting them are typical to the borough. You have the short bulbous brown women in spaghetti-strapped tops; they push strollers down the street while gangs of toddlers hang upon them like ornaments on a Christmas Tree — perhaps there is a certain nimbus surrounding these women, too, a kind of sanctuary of patience beclouding what to all of us sans enfants seems a vision of hell. There's also the requisite Chinese woman marching down the street under a massive bag of cans and bottles. They jingle like loose change in the pocket of a giant. Bearded white men in their early- to mid-twenties discuss a myriad of subjects in aggravated tones while their limp fingers draw out the perimeters of ellipses. Cherubic Polish women stroll though the slight mist; they are being courted by thick men with deltoids like mountain ranges and facial topographies no less marred than the South Dakota Badlands.

The mist begins to pick up a bit as we continue making small talk. Tomas proposes an indoor venue after a gust of wind sends an empty soda can rolling down a street that appears to be filled with nothing but low-density industrial buildings and dumpsters. The idea is met with no resistance, and soon we begin in the direction of wherever he has in mind. The two describe the neighborhood in esoteric fashion as we walk: where the best bar is (where we are going), where the best Cuban sandwich is (Franklin and Huron), where the best coffee is (Franklin and Huron), where to score just about any drug under the sun with the exception of psilocybin, opium, and those goofy pharmaceuticals that smarter dealers know to eschew (wouldn't you like to know). Aberdeen tells me that Magic Johnson owns the property around the corner. Tomas complains that the nearby pizza place, “which fucking sucks anyway,” charges twenty dollars for a large Hawaiian even though the same pie with ham and pineapple runs just sixteen. “Fucking bullshit, man,” he adds with an amount of venom that isn't really warranted. “Praeludium” (BWV 1007) can be heard coming from a window above us. It is being played by a cellist with an erratic right hand.

“ Introibo ad altare Dei ,” Tomas proclaims as he opens the door for Aberdeen and me.