Like so many other solitaries, I am waiting for someone. This person is Vinati. I am on a bench in front of Carlyle, one of the NYU dorms. I watch as the kaleidescope of characters march past, and I cannot help but think, Am I witnessing the nascent signs of renaissance, or has decadence merely assumed a new posture? She is running late, but I don't really care. I have nowhere to be. Scratch that. I am waiting to be with her.
She finally called after getting my number from Ilkay, who returned to the city just yesterday. “Some prick stole my purse from the restaurant,” she explained before the unfamiliar number identified itself. We quickly set a location, a date, a time, to meet.
This was yesterday, a day that should have been filled with celebration and jubilation. But I received a second call that day, one that was a little less pleasant. It was from the magazine. It did not last long.
After hanging up with the editor, I phoned the only person I considered worthy of a call.
“So it was rejected.”
“Oh. I am sorry to hear that.”
“I really wish I could have…I don't know…provided a kind of eulogy for your son. Perhaps something of an epilogue.”
“That would have been nice. On what grounds did they reject your manuscript, might I ask?”
“The editor simply refused to believe that he's dead. In a way, I'm the evidence against myself. I don't really feel like explaining.”
“This comes as a surprise to you?”
“What?”
“Rejection. You did not expect to find my son. Even once you knew he was the artist you were looking for, you did not want to believe it. My friend, even when you were here you did not want to believe that your manuscript would be published. Rejection, you feel, keeps you motivated; it justifies your continued efforts. Without it, you feel as though you would fall into complacency; and, even with your limited experience with the world, you are wise enough to know that complacency very rarely suffices for virtue. This is why you do not have a job right now, why you have refused to look for one. You look for perfection, and yet refuse to believe that it exists.”
“You sound like my roommate.”
“Is this a bad thing?”
“No. It's just that I've heard it a lot lately. I just don't want to lose the desire to…I don't know…I guess create.”
“I felt the same way when I was a young man. But it is juvenile to believe that creativity is stifled by imposed production. Production is a necessity; it is a fundamental trait of humanity. And while it is not necessarily creative in the artistic sense, it is not necessarily a source of fatigue — if you will — for your more creative side. You will learn to separate the two. All real artists and scholars eventually do.
“As I told you when you were here, your desire to maintain creative integrity keeps you in a state of becoming, an acolyte of Pindar, who so ingeniously implored his readers: 'Learn and become who you are.' You refuse to accept the present; you do not accept a specific future. Acceptance is a state of being, my boy, an acquiescence to a reality that is speciously set in stone. By denying this, you are free in the truest sense of the word.”
“And I wish to remain free.”
“You can. You see, man constructs his own prison so that he may dream of a life beyond it. Each bar is a fiction erected to rationalize his history and to anticipate a future that is contingent upon the suppression of infinity. It is neither pious nor judicious to allow oneself to remain tied to a determinate history, nor is it becoming to presume that the universe will simply conform to one's desires. Luck is not apposite to Justice, and, unfortunately, luck has far more of a hand in the creation of fortunes than either Justice or aptitude. Still, a man must act with real courage if he is to engage his fate.”
“How?”
“How?”
“How do I engage my fate?”
“A man who demands such wisdom will never be able to receive it, my friend. You will have to figure that out for yourself because the question you ask has no complete or absolute answer.” He began to chuckle to himself. “Isn't that the ultimate joke?”
The conversation ended shortly after this. So, too, does this replay into the past, for Vinati is now in front of me. She smiles, all immaculate teeth and haunting beauty. “So I guess I owe you something for kind of disappearing for like a week.”
“I hope it's not an apology.”
“An apology?” she laughs. “No, I was thinking of something a little more tangible.” She pauses. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“How's a fish to live without water?”
“You're such a fucking dork!” she roars. “I love it.”
I stand and approach her. We kiss for long enough to attract the attention of a nearby sax player, who prematurely ends his city serenade to say something perverted enough to make the two of us laugh. We stop kissing, but stare into one another's eyes for a few moments. His next song is dedicated to “The two lovebirds.” We don’t stay to listen, though we do tip him with a small degree of ceremony.
The streets are obscured by her words, my responses — infatuated palindromes. She eventually motions with a hand as we approach a higher-end place in the West Village, and it occurs to me that I have not even bothered to note where we are. In fact, I cannot even cognosize (to borrow from Tomas) the route we took.
“So you're done?” she asks. “You're just going to keep trying to get your article published.”
“More or less. I sent it out to, like, fifteen different magazines yesterday.”
“Any responses?” she asks as we take our seats at the bar.
“Just the automated responses, you know, ‘Thank you for submitting your work to us. We’ll respond if we’re interested.’ I’ll wait a few days before I follow up.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
I look to her. “I can think of a few things.”
She smiles. “Well…when I’m at work.”
“Maybe I’ll finally go to see Andy Bates.”
“The mental patient?”
“Yeah.”
“You two ready?” the bartender asks. Vinati has yet to pull off her sunglasses.
“I think I need a minute,” she responds.
“I know what I want.”
“Is it a butt-fucking cowboy?”
“A what?” The bartender smiles because he thinks he heard something really odd, and, oddly enough, this is exactly what he has heard.
“It's an inside joke.”
“Literally,” the bartender responds with a Jim Halpert grin.
He lingers around as Vinati silently studies the taps. His presence seems unnecessary, but I guess it makes sense. We're the only people seated at the bar.
“Yeah, but I'm still kind of curious about him.”
“Who?” as she continues to squint at the forest of taps.
“Andy Bates. I mean, there's so many people who still think he's the real deal.”
“Sorry to interrupt, dude,” the bartender begins, “but are you talking about Coprolalia?”
Vinati laughs. “It's all he ever talks about.”
“Yeah, I've kind of been consumed by him for the past month.”
“Oh, man, then I'm sure you've heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Dude,” the bartender begins gingerly, “That he's dead.”
Ω
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Fox was born in Birmingham, Michigan in 1983. He graduated from Birmingham Seaholm High School in 2001 and from NYU in 2005. He is a frequent columnist for staythirsty.com. THE WALLS is his debut novel.