The washroom is cleaner than most I have seen. The walls are painted forest green and the tiled floor is coated in only trace amounts of urine. There are plenty of paper towels, but the soap dispenser is empty. There are three advertisement posters; two near the toilet and one directly above the urinal. All of them are for the same deodorant, which promises frequent and vigorous encounters with super models. (Are beautiful women the only ones responsive to the pheromones that the product attempts to recreate? Are the less aesthetically endowed for some reason incapable of discerning said pheromones?) Most of the writing on the wall is of generic stock: names of people for whom having been “here” represents some type of accomplishment, the W.A.S.T.E. symbol, and the requisite, “Here I sit broken hearted / tried to shit, but only farted.” There is also the unfortunate reversal of this: “Here I sit broken hearted / tried to fart, but I shat!” In modern slang, this messy misfire is known as a shard. The term can also be used as a verb: Billy was relieved to find an extra pair of boxers in his locker after he sharted in gym class.
Below the advertisement and above the urinal are two messages written in black ink: “God Hates Fags,” and, above that, “Shantih Shantih Shantih.” Both of the messages are written by the same hand, that much is clear. But what the hell does it mean? One is the mantra uttered by a contingency of spiritual derelicts; the other is the final line in T.S. Elliott's most famous poem.
It is clearly the Coprolalia to which Sean's list refers. He has called it Aptheos Ampersand Peritheos. I don't understand the title, probably because I am not familiar with two of the three words. I don't stay in the bathroom studying the piece for too long, as someone assaults the door with a series of importune knocks before I can even finish urinating. I open the door to see one of the marines. He gives a quaint salutation in the form of a head nod, but he does not smile or say anything as I step out. Before the door has fully closed, I hear the sound of whatever he had for dinner hitting the water.
2
“How do you know he exists?” I ask Sean over the phone. “I mean, does he ever give anything like an insignia?” I cannot help but smell my breath — a brassy pollution. It's eleven in the morning. I'm in my apartment. When I awoke, the only evidence of a cab ride could be found by the lack of money in my pocket. Then it started to come back to me. Slowly. The driver was of the talkative variety. He was South African. Black. Xhosa, I think. I faintly remembered the Williamsburg Bridge and a disjointed conversation about Antije Krog with a Clementi soundtrack. I could also remember that he thought Coetzee was overrated and that Mda — a mystery to me — was a genius. Then it all came back. Literature was the icebreaker. After that, there was no hesitance to disclose any detail of his life: that he made sixty-two thousand dollars a year, and that, once the lease, gas, taxes and miscellaneous fees were added into the equation, he walked away with something like eighteen grand, plus the three thousand bucks that came via his tax return. I didn't ask about tips. Regardless of his qualms, he was clearly happy to be away from the poverty and crime of “Jo'burg,” and appreciative of the relative comfort afforded by even the ghettos of this country. Still, he was sick of watching the immigrant's dream come too true from behind a thick sheet of Plexiglas, and didn't seem to think I would get offended when he told me that he didn't really care for white people, generally speaking of course.
I have already been to the nearby bodega to pick up a cup of coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese. I paid for the latter almost entirely with coins found in the couch — two dollars and a quarter that had two pennies attached to it by means of some mysterious adhesive. I applaud myself for the decision, even if I initially thought it somewhat pathetic to be spelunking for treasure lost on a lazy afternoon. I don't feel as terrible as I look, smell, and (probably) taste, though I must admit that coming back into my building is always somewhat depressing, especially when I've spent the previous night zealously punishing my liver. Perhaps it is because the building is depressing by its very nature. The stairs and walls are painted spleen gray; the hallways smell like cat dander, cumin, garlic, and something that is neither pleasant nor offensive (evasive of definition with the exception of a single word—viz. fried). The sound of someone traveling up the stairs echoes throughout the building. You can hear the process even in your most somnolent moments. You come to expect it, to feel it. (The front door inviting the cacophony of the street in, the bomb-shelter slam of the reinforced steel door, the arduous hike upon the decaying wood stairs — each footfall provoking a snap or a crack—, the aggravated respiration resonating throughout the building like a death-rattle with jingling key accompaniment, click, the turn, the opening door's manipulation of space and silence, the door's fall back into position one, peace, the deadbolt penetrating the door-frame like a rapist.) The tenants are reclusive, so the air lingers in the foyers, the hallways, the stairwell, and the small lobby that houses the mailboxes; it is something like a collective sigh from all of those caught in the doldrums of this existence — too poor to get away, too employed to be afforded a helping hand. I often feel that I am one of them, but this is a specious belief that they are quick to recognize and disdain.
These are visions from Bushwick. The neighborhood is not at the end of the line on any of the trains, but it is deep enough into Brooklyn to provoke a double take from longtime residents, who never can shake incredulous glares when I reaffirm cross-streets and subway stops without a sense of shit-impulse trepidation in my voice. Those from the nicer parts of the city consider Woodhull — the somewhat nearby hospital — to be nothing less than a mythical place, a legend lifted from one of the Inferno's later cantos. And yet I am beyond it, deeper. Those who grew up in the area and have since moved out seem convinced of nothing less than suicidal compulsion on my part, even if the word “gentrification” hides in the shadows of implication. Some seem more incensed about it, gentrification, than others. It's not that they are angry with me personally when it really comes down to it; they are angry at the wave, not the particulate. Those who hunt the dawn don't always make this distinction.
The apartment itself was renovated by a coat of paint and some new windows. The latter fail to keep out either the cold or the din from the streets; the former, on humid days, bleed a dirty-amber substance (proof, my roommate attests, of a chain-smoking former tenant). The roaches are certainly here, as are the mice. Only the latter make regular cameos while the lights are on, though they have been less of a problem since the coming of spring.
Our building is narrow, but the apartment is — for someone used to living in Manhattan — rather spacious. The living room is capacious enough to allow seven or eight comfortably; nine, ten, and beyond have to find a spot either on the floor or in one of the bedrooms (though it must be said that a friend of mine, Denise, did fall into the habit of spending the majority of her time in my tub whenever there were more people than a few people over, as she was not only an over-zealous acolyte of Marx and Bakunin and Lenin and Trotsky, but of Diogenes (the Cynic), too; she would sit there in silence as the rest of the party carried on without her until a visitor came to use the toilet, and she would say that the most earnest conversations take place when people are naked, and that, while she did desire earnest conversation more than just about anything, the bathroom was as close as she wanted to get without sending mixed signals, which is why the toilet became known as “The Hot Seat” whenever Denise was around, why it was dreaded by people who didn't know her or didn't know most of the petit comité in the other room or didn't really feel like talking about anything that required sincerity or extensive thought, which is something that Denise was quick to recognize; and when situations such as these arose she would just recount the most famous of the interactions between Diogenes and Alexander the Great, which occurred when the latter interrupted the former, who was quietly sunning himself, and said, “Ask of me any boon you like,” to which Diogenes replied, “Get out of my light”). The bathroom is small, not have-to-rest-your-legs-on-the-tub-to-shit small, but of a size that can dissuade the seriously claustrophobic from frivolous trips. The shower spits out six minutes of hot water on good days. The bedrooms are large, perhaps designed to accommodate two strangers.