Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Let me let you guys in on a little trade secret, Charlie says. This is my area of expertise, dig? You know what’s even better than subliminal projections for selling stuff? Super -liminal projections, man! Just put it out there! You guys talk about people like they’re sheep, like they can’t think for themselves, like if they weren’t all such saps they’d be right here at the oceanfront with us, painting pictures, writing poems, sleeping on the sand, living off horsemeat from the pet shop. Truth is, they love to be fooled. They want to be told what to do, what to want, what to like. They love their illusions. Just like us, right? But we think our illusions are better . If you guys want to change the world, start paying attention to your Starch Ratings. Just like we used to say around the office: you can’t sell a man who isn’t listening!

A tide of grumbles wells up around Charlie; he’s smirking, pleased with himself. That’s a bunch of cynical crap, man, Milton says quietly.

C’mon, Charlie says. Just ’cause I don’t buy my own BS, that makes me a cynic? I’d love to be wrong about this, believe me. Am I wrong, Alex? What’s it that your left-wing deviationist friends say? Give people the choice between love and a garbage disposal, most of them choose the garbage disposal. Right?

Alex half-turns from Tony with a wan patronizing smile. I think you’ve made your point, Charlie, he says.

I’m not trying to make a point , Charlie says. Shrillness creeps into his voice, and he lifts his hands to his face: a little like Jack Benny, a little like a mortified child. His hands are trembling. I just want to know what I should do , he says. What I should write . I want to be honest, I want to renounce Moloch and all his works, I want to not make the world any worse. How do I go about that, Alex?

Alex leans against the wall, his arms crossed, his head cocked. Everybody looks at him except Claudio, who looks at Stanley. The people here all treat Alex like he’s famous or something, Stanley realizes. Maybe he is.

When Alex speaks, it’s less to Charlie than to the rest of the room. The writer’s task, he says, is to make a record of his times. To stand apart, and to bear witness.

Oh! Charlie says, snapping his fingers, then slapping his knees, rising to his feet. Well, that sure clears it up! Boy, do I feel like a dunce! All this time, I’ve been trying to create something. I guess I ought to take up painting if I want to do that. Huh, Stuart? Or maybe just go back to the ad firm. I could be very creative there. Hey, Alex, can I borrow my old john back for a minute? I need to take a crap.

I trust you remember where it is, Alex says. And how it works.

Charlie moves through the room, tiptoeing between orange-crates and the mugs of wine. I sure wish you’d caught that Coastlines thing, Charlie, Stuart says as he passes. That cat Ginsberg, he used to write ads too, y’know.

Ginsberg still writes ads, Charlie snaps. You guys are always talking down Larry Lipton for selling the Beat Generation like soap, but your real gripe is that he’s not cool enough about it. The poet always stands naked before the world! Great. Hey, Alex, I just took some Polaroids of my crotch. You think Evergreen Review ’ll publish ’em?

Charlie steps through the bathroom door, shuts it, curses, opens it again to find the matchbox and the candle. I don’t know what the hell you want, Charlie, Bruce shouts.

I want a fucking drink, Charlie mumbles, and closes the door again.

Everybody stares into space, avoids eye contact. The room is starting to smell bad, like too many bodies and too few baths. It’s quiet except for the sound of Charlie pissing, and then it’s just quiet. Two hands reach for the wine-jug at once; both withdraw awkwardly. Somebody — Maurice? Bob? — moves toward the old Zenith, but Milton intercepts him with an upraised palm. Listen, he says. I think the rain stopped.

In a rush the men are on their feet, slipping into their jackets, passing the buckets around. Stanley and Claudio stick close together, drift with the pack back onto the street. A sticky mist still billows, everywhere at once. The dense fast-moving clouds are lichen-green with moonlight, but Stanley can’t make out any moon.

Charlie catches up, still buttoning his pants, as Alex is closing the door. You didn’t erase the mirror! he says, clapping a hand on Alex’s shoulder. Then he runs ahead, his voice breaking with sounds like joy. Stuart! he shouts. He didn’t erase it! The thing that you wrote for me is still on the mirror!

They move to the boardwalk in a ragged column, two and three abreast, buckets swinging jauntily. Streetlamps and patches of sky flash around their feet from deep puddles in the potholed pavement. Stanley can see small bonfires on the beach, shadows passing between them.

He and Claudio walk in silence, bringing up the rear. Claudio has no clue what they’re doing. It’s not that he didn’t understand what Stanley told him; the kid follows well enough. He’s just dead set on being behind Stanley no matter what, never mind what the reasons are. Stanley should be grateful for that, he figures, but instead it annoys him a little.

So the pad was that of Alex, Claudio says after a while, but was once the pad of Charlie? Is that right?

Beats the hell outta me, kid.

They trudge along for a few more paces. The head of the line has reached the boardwalk, is crossing onto the sand.

Claudio tries again. Charlie was unhappy, he says. Do you know why?

He’s afraid he’s a joke and a phony, I guess.

But why is he afraid of that?

I dunno. Maybe ’cause he is one. Look, why don’t you run ahead and ask him?

He does not want to hurt the world, Claudio says. But how can a poem hurt the world? How can it do anything? I do not understand this.

The column loses shape when it hits the dark beach, jumbling like a dropped rope. People walk by: a woman and two younger guys, all three nude, on their way to the water. Nobody looks at them twice. In the ring of light cast by the farthest bonfire, a bare-chested man in sunglasses plays a pair of high-pitched Cuban drums, not very well. The drums look and sound like toys. A rhythm rises against the crash of waves, then gutters, then starts up again.

Milton checks his watch. High tide in ten minutes, he says.

These knuckleheads better put out their lights, Stuart says, or else they’re gonna spook all the fish.

A motorcycle sputters along the Speedway, turning toward the traffic circle. From somewhere near the oilfield comes a series of loud pops that could be backfires, could be pistolshots.

Ten minutes, then? Alex says, digging through the pockets of his denim overalls. Anyone fancy a round of pinball before the arcades close?

Stanley grins; he feels like his mind’s been read. Lead the way, pal, he says. That’s my meat and potatoes.

They step onto the wooden planks again. Claudio and Charlie and one of the others — Jimmy? Saul? — break off to follow. Stuart calls to them as they go. We’re headed south , he says, where it’s darker! Alex lifts a hand in vague acknowledgment, doesn’t turn around. Charlie has vanished before they’ve crossed the boardwalk: off to find a bottle, Stanley figures.

The penny-arcade is an old Bridgo parlor, small and seedy and full of machines that look like they fell off a truck. The sign hung on the colonnade was new maybe ten years ago, which puts it ahead of the sign on the boarded-up building next door, which was new in maybe 1930. The interior is about a quarter whitewashed, like somebody stopped in mid-brushstroke partway along the left-hand wall when they ran out of paint and money, or maybe just realized that nobody cared. A shrill wash of noise spills from the windows and bounces off the bricks: bells and thumps, mechanical whistles, sickly celesta melodies.