Gilbert Sorrentino - Little Casino

Cypri munimenta sortita est.”

“Thou with dark eyelids.”

SHE IS ON HER KNEES, NEXT TO THE Christmas tree, her forearms on the edge of the worn couch. Her posture is reverential, even pious, although her skirt is up around her waist and her panties are down to the middle of her thighs, so that her buttocks are invitingly prominent between the torn white-lace trim of her slip and the dark tops of her stockings. He fucks her slowly and with fixed determination, by the living Christ he’ll prove to her that she loves him, no matter what she thinks she feels. He knows, though, that she doesn’t love him anymore, which is why he is fucking her so seriously. It would be nice if there were some goddamn heat in the dump of an apartment! He hates his stupid life, and hates hers even more. But he’ll show the bitch what a real fuck is. It is an intensely and violently erotic moment.

The couple so flagrantly and vulgarly spied upon for the voyeuristic pleasure of the reader (who is always in my thoughts) has been married for almost eleven years.

The magnificent “Blue Seven,” by Sonny Rollins, is playing on the phonograph during what I think should be called — and why not? — this “erotic moment.”

The Christmas tree! It could well have become, had this erotic moment been turned into a story, an image, crisp with irony, yet poignant with shared memory. Perhaps the reader once engaged in lovemaking under or next to a Christmas tree, and so can relate, and relate well, to the truth of the scene.

There are very few stories that we have not heard, popular opinion notwithstanding, very few indeed.

Writing, such as it is, that doesn’t quite become story, is often described, even condemned, as self-indulgent. And so it is. And no! The meaning of “such as it is” is not clear. It seems, somehow, crisp with irony.

The reader is always in my thoughts, as I think I’ve admitted.

THEY REMEMBERED, FOR YEARS, THE BAR becue they went to in East Orange, in somebody’s car. It was a lovely 4th of July, cool and sunny and dry, with a steady, fresh breeze off the Atlantic. In any event, that’s where death began or, perhaps, asserted itself. When questioned about it a few months later, everyone agreed, separately, that it began to become clear somewhere toward late afternoon, just before they got back in the car to return to the city. It wasn’t the day itself, certainly. The day was relaxed and cheerful, there were people everywhere, music and dancing, and no one got terribly drunk. A lot of people brought their children, as a matter of fact. It seemed to be the sort of 4th of July that is proffered as the American small-town norm, celebrant with bands and parades and picnics on the town mall or under the trees next to the Grange Hall. And yet there is no denying the fact that something happened, ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, kegs of beer, and the Stars and Stripes notwithstanding. Not even “The Washington Post March” could have overwhelmed it. There is a photograph to prove it.

Darkness and oblivion are often recognized by means of the small, tentative steps taken toward the “realm of silence,” and at the most unlikely times in the most unlikely places.

The driver of the car reportedly cried out, spitting out partly chewed kernels of sweet (butter-and-cream) corn, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” This should count as a rumor. Many years later, on his deathbed, he said, “Five minutes more?” as if his nurse could grant this request.

A regiment, its battalions under their snapping flags and guidons, wheeling, company by company, at the far end of a parade grounds so as to pass in review, often marches to John Philip Sousa, the “semper fidelis maniac,” as Edward Dorn calls him in one of the great poems of the century. Such a regiment on parade is something to see.

Incidentally, “Five minutes more?” is, essentially, what Dr. Faustus cried out when his time came.

John Philip Sousa knew all of Hamlet and Dr. Faustus by heart. Or so the driver of the car said.

HE MORE OR LESS INTENDED TO MAKE A fool of himself. That’s what he wanted to do, wanted to be, a fool. He got drunk in a rather casual way, not so as to be able to make a fool of himself, but so as to be able to deny to himself that he wanted to do this. A subtle drunk, oh yes, and a subtle fool. It might be useful to remember that the woman he called up was a woman he hadn’t seen in many years. He had, as the serviceable locution puts it, gotten over her almost immediately after she had broken off their relationship, or whatever she called it. Relationship sounds like her kind of word. He had, as a matter of fact, not even thought of her for eleven years, and here he was, in a saloon’s phone booth, calling her up. People are, for the most part, utterly absurd. This is proven over and over again.

After she realized who it was on the line, she expressed a kind of bored surprise, then an equally bored irritation, and then he confessed, lying wildly, in a kind of gallant improvisation, that he still loved her, he had always and always loved her, he was crazy abouther still, he thought of her constantly. He had, he said, built a sort of a shrine to her in his memory. That’s what he said. Oh, brother!

Her husband got on the line then and shouted at him and he surprised himself by suddenly sobbing. He hung up, got out of the booth, and sat at the bar. He’d be late for supper again, and when he got home his wife would be angry and silent and the food would be in the refrigerator already. Why go home? Maybe there was somebody else he could call. He used to know a lot of girls. How about Amelia, in the black dress, he knew her! And then there were all the other ones, the other girls he knew once.

The bartender dropped a coaster in front of him and he ordered a Fleischmann’s with beer back. The bartender paid no attention to the fact that he was still sniffling. I made some goddamn fool of myself, he said to the bartender, some goddamn fool! He banged his fist on the bar. The bartender poured a hooker of whiskey and drew a beer. You’re not gonna give me any grief, are you, champ? He shook his head. No grief, he said. He threw the whiskey down and took a sip of beer. Did you ever happen to know if a girl called Ruth ever used to come in here some time ago? he asked. Ruth? the bartender said. I don’t even know you, champ. Drink up and take a walk, ok? You’ve had plenty.

It may well be that this fool wanted to say to this woman — let’s call her Ruth, too—“Be careful! It’s my heart.”

Later that night, he thought that it would have been a good idea to remind Ruth’s loudmouth belligerent yahoo husband that love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement.

His wife wasn’t home. Good news at last! He took a Tudor beer out of the refrigerator and got the bottle of Paul Jones down from the cupboard. The prince of beers, he said. The king of whiskeys. The new taste of modern luxury, old fellow! Then he sat down in the living room and lighted a cigarette. The bird of time has but a little way to flutter, Ruth, he said.

He could call Amelia. She used to wear a pearl choker with her black dress.

It has not been explained how this drunken fool got Ruth’s number, since he did not know her married name. It has, however, been commented on by an astute copy editor that neither Ruth nor her loudmouth belligerent yahoo husband asked, “How did you get this number?”