Chapter 2

            The bar was called The Village Idiot, and it screamed like its maniac namesake from the corner of Sixth Street and First Avenue. Crane went in for a pint and a smoke, and a bit of drunken cheer. When he entered, the light behind his head made it seem as though he was glowing. On fire. About to explode. Some great god or some lighted fool crowned with a cheap halo coaxed from the bulb of a clip-on lamp. He quietly took his place at a stool, and sat there wearing a brown tweed coat, razor stubble, and a moustache from Guinness.

            The bar filled with beams made by the sun slicing up the smoke as it shone brightly through the window. It was as if El Sol was attempting to summon the ghost of a place from the past. A woman walked through the phantom structure towards the light, and sat down next to Crane. Without acknowledging him, she ordered a drink.

            “Vodka up, two olives.”

            Crane was aware of the obvious signs he showed of dissipation, and the possibility of his early incontinence, but this woman he could not, in good conscience, ignore. He did his best sober, and spoke up.

            “Ma’am,” he said, but he knew it came out as M&M, the candy, of which he’d none to offer.

            “Kimberly,” she corrected him.

            Who the fuck would name their kid Kindling? He asked her to spell it for him. She did. He was glad to know that she, too, was drunk.

            Later, when she was gone, he would think about when they first met. He would smile.

                                                            ***** 

            In his apartment, Crane touched a match to the gas burner. The dog heat barked life to the buttered pan. The beans he’d put on the stove began to boil and jump like their Mexican cousins. He dipped his finger in them and tasted their rich black juices. It was time to add the cheese. He grated it and let it melt and twist like lava. In homage to the jumping beans and hungry dogs of Mexico’s dirty streets, a fly circled his breakfast. A fat black fly, mean and determined. It was as though the Luftwaffe had invented the raisin, thought Crane.

            “Fly south for the winter, you little fucker,” Crane said, as he tried to kill it with a spoon. The fly left. Later that night, in an act of false worship, it would kill itself, exploding snap, crackle, pop, into the bad sun of a bug lamp.

            The recipe came from a book she had given him. Cooking for Friends. On the last page, she’d written:

            “If things ever change, just add a half a cup of glass — love K.”

            Crane reached into the fridge, and grabbed the egg carton. No, stop. He grabbed a bottle of red wine, a new Burgundy, and took a long pull. Red wine before noon. If religion ever made any sense to him, it was in this tiny act of cannibalism. Bacchus, Burgundy, Beaujolais, and the blood of Christ before mad dogs and Englishmen roamed the streets. He savored the liquor, and once again went for the eggs, reading the carton as he opened it.

            “We all have our ‘sell-by dates’,” he said to the goo, as he plopped it into the pan. The three eggs landed perfectly, yolks intact, and began to cook. Almost perfectly, on one yolk a piece of white eggshell floated, like the opaque member of a family made of a half cup of glass.

            Crane was starting to feel a little better, the hairs of mad and hungry dogs working their magic, house and kitchen smiling. Proud motherhood waking to the pitter splatter of drunken feet? Crane took a sip of wine, and a bite of the tortilla he’d been warming on the back burner. Not by bread alone, my friend, not by bread alone. He reached for more of his daily share. Oh Christ, I hate eating, showering, shaving, waking up, shitting, walking, going to the bank machine, brushing my teeth, paying bills, answering the phone, swearing, crying, other people crying, other people thinking about other people crying, holidays, weekends, weekdays, Wednesdays, pens and pencils. —

            The eggs were quite good.

            The post office, television, toenails, coupons, newspapers, cartoons, stand-up comedians. — He splashed a drop of Esperanza y Fuerte hot sauce on the runny yolk. — Noise, silence, laughter, buses, busboys and crack heads. Candles and bigamists. Commercials. Instant coffee. Having too much to drink, running out of alcohol, blackouts, aliens, Martians, martinis, sodomy, paper plates, paper airplanes, doves, pigeons, rats, cockroaches, and dinosaurs, plastic or otherwise.

            “Dammit.” He spilled a black bean on his clean white shirt. He would, whenever possible, put on a clean white shirt when he woke, a virgin marriage to a day that would most certainly fuck him and leave him bleeding. He was cleaning his plate, then his shirt, when he heard the rustling, scraping, noise behind him. Shit. A rat? The fly? The thing’s come back for revenge? He was happy when he turned and saw the dirty little cat standing behind him. He spoke:

            “Jump, you little bastard. I knew you’d return. We’re having Mexican today, and I’ve selected a fine red to go with it.” He took a piece of egg, wiped it off, and gave it to Jump, the cat, who sat looking forlornly at Crane.

            “I know,” he said. “I miss her too.”

            Crane and the cat looked over at the bed, crumpled sheets bunched like obscene human deaths hastily covered, cigarette ashes, shadows, pillows, and a bra. A bra? I may have been drunk last night, but as far as I know, I’m not a transvestite. An alien bra? He thought for a while. Yes. Yes. Now he remembered. The girl. I think I picked up some girl last night. Yes, that’s it. I know all the rules: don’t fuck with the undergrads; stick with the housewives, night students, the teachers and the divorced. Whoever she’d been, she wasn’t a novice, she too knew the rules of casual sex: find some drunkard, priapic, or foreigner, and run them ragged, leave them bleeding. Disappear before they wake, no note, no number, no memorable name.

            Crane glanced over at his dresser. His wallet was still there, and the few dollars he had were visible, so she hadn’t been a pro, merely an intern in their world. He noticed she’d stolen an apple from the bowl on the counter, and he stared at the place where it used to be.

            Oh, what did I say to convince her to come home with me? Was it brilliance? Or sadness? Or sympathy? Did we hatefuck? Crane hoped not, although his penis hurt. Now the day seemed emptier, more ruined. Crane spoke to the cat, “What was her name, little friend?”

            “Meow,” he offered in all his feline wisdom.

            “They all look alike to you, you little bigot.” He gave it more egg, forgetting to wipe off the hot sauce. “I very much doubt she was called Meow.” The cat nodded, then it meowed, then it barked. Salsa picante did not agree with it. “I’m sorry, little fascist, but in the real world, they call it tough love.” He stroked the thing’s head, and took another bite of his fiery breakfast

.

            I wonder which version of my life I told yesterday’s woman? Full of love? Never had it? Don’t care about it? He wished she’d left a name or a number, or any human device that proved she existed. He seemed to remember telling her that he was lousy in bed, but could cook a damn good breakfast, and it was true, but now it tasted bad, and there were stains drying on his sheets.

            “Fuck,” he screamed at Jump, and “Fuck,” he screamed at his waking, rotting, stinking building.

            Crane grabbed the wine and drank hard, slamming it back on the table, knocking his plate, sending it down, down to the floor. Beans, bread, salsa, egg, women, blackouts, and ruin, ruin, ruin. He drank with renewed thirst, and watched Jump approach the mess.

            It was all bullshit, he knew, tiny beans of hatred, like television and pencils, it was the little things that killed you. Eroding you away layer by layer, like a glass sculpture chipped, chipped, chipped, until one day long before it became beautiful, it exploded under the chisel. Shattered. Gone. Oh, it was not the disasters, not the angel of mercy or death, but the angel of indecision. Only the fortunate meet the linebackers, the tidal waves.

            Jump janitored the floor, pawing aside china, and eating what was left of the food. Crane took the wine and stumbled over to the end of his bed. He stared at the red liquid, and understood a drunken rule: the drunk will throw up square meals, smash cars and windows, he’ll cut his own wrists, insult pedestrians, and sleep on highways, but he will never harm his last bottle. Never.

            Crane took pliers from the nightstand, clicked on his television, took a sip, and waited. It glowed, growled, and popped alive. He began his conversation with America.

            “Good morning.”

            It was someone new, a tryout. Behind him were logos, a cartoon sun with a big grin, and sad grey rain clouds.

            “Good morning,” Crane returned the greeting. Housewives talked to plants, lunatics to themselves, and Crane to cats and televisions and to girls in bars. Parts of last night slowly began to surface, like air bubbles in maple syrup. He remembered he’d last gone to Sophie’s Bar on Fifth Street. At least he was almost positive that was the last place, and he seemed to remember the girl. She’d been quite pretty. He told her she was beautiful.

            “Your beauty, your beauty, I shall die of media sickness, after contracting image addiction scanning the world for your likeness.” All definite bullshit. “I have never believed in romantic love before, but…”

            “Really?” Half sarcastic, half playing the game.

            “…Well,” Crane knew if he had been spewing his usual nonsense, he would take a long pause there, “I once…” He would look away, as though searching for an escape, or a dark corner to hide in. “She killed herself.”

            “That’s awful. What a terrible story.”

            “It was a long time ago.” He would look away again. He’d planted the seeds for the sympathy fuck. All definite B.S. The sympathy fuck. Where did that rate? Somewhere near the cheesy bottom of the pile probably, nowhere near the love fuck, not within spitting distance of the grand wizard, the hate fuck. Kimberly and he had developed this scale years ago.

            The television spoke: little juan mendez is still trapped fourteen feet below ground in a drainage ditch near the central park aqueduct. as family and friends keep a round the clock vigil, local authorities in cooperation with state and federal emergency service agencies are preparing to implement an elaborate rescue attempt. any late-breaking developments will be reported throughout the day. The news went on and on with weather and sports and business and nutrition and cancer and smiles and tears and tons of human sadness. A child molester had struck again. The Riverside rapist had struck again. A nine-year-old attacked in the basement of the Henry Street Projects.

            “Suffer, suffer, the little children,” Crane spoke aloud. He thought of little Juan. “Stay down there, perhaps you’ll be befriended by a family of moles, and you’ll be safe.”

            “a recent rash of killing of homeless men has left police puzzled…” They made it seem as though it was a skin disease. “…boy girlboy, the celebrated sex change patient, who recently won a large civil settlement from the dover chemical corporation, after being the first man to contract breast cancer from implants, died early this morning at st. vincent’s hospital. a memorial service…”

            The poor kids and madmen, the bums, the outsiders, and the hobos, a cruel God was making the meek fight for the earth.

            Crane sipped the wine, and leaned back. How much, he asked himself, can we be asked to take? He was beginning to feel high from the wine. Sad and happy booze tears and the stupid grin of a dog. He clicked off the television, and jumped up, flailing around the room like a mad Hollywood pirate. “Oh God, the sea is so great, and my boat is so small.” He stalked the cat, “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” He drank the last of the wine, and sent the empty bottle sailing towards the garbage.

            Crane slowly, one step at a time, approached his desk. The desk had four things on it, an old Royal typewriter, a stack of papers, a Polaroid Land Camera, a pile of Polaroids. If I have no traditions, then at least I shall have habits, the last refuge of the culturally starved. He grabbed his camera, and held it out in front of him, lens to his face. Click, whiz, brrt, and out he comes, a little bit of his own soul stolen, and now placed carefully on top of the pile. The cat meowed behind him.

            “OK, et tu, cat.” He pointed the camera at the cat, and fired away. Click, buzz, and picture. He took the white-bordered image, and placed it on top of his. He spoke: “Don’t you realize, little cat, that this is my autobiography, my scrapbook, my flash cards of degeneracy for the future illiterate. Don’t worry little cat, it was only a flash, the end of the world will be far brighter.” The mangy thing was still blinking. “Don’t you realize the implications of what we’ve done? When archaeologists find this testament, they will realize the awful truth, if one drinks too much, one will turn into a cat with bright red eyes; they’ll probably use us as abstinence propaganda. Don’t you see the irony in that? No? Oh well.”

            The possibility of becoming a poster child at some point in the future cheered him up immensely. He grabbed his coat, opened his door, and descended his stairs to the world outside.

            The city was wide-awake by now. Somewhere a child waited for the bogeyman, somewhere a bum waited to die, somewhere skinheads filled beer bottles with piss and gasoline.

            He lit his first smoke of the day, and looked up at the cat, sitting on the windowsill. “Please don’t jump,” he said to the orphan who stared at him from the ledge. Pigeons cluster-bombed the sidewalk, looking for bread and infants, and housewives began to shop. Old ladies shuffled down the street with vague premonitions of deaths from broken hips, of lying on the sidewalk at the bottom of the world’s stairwell waiting to die.

            Crane sank into the city, and into the crowd, who clap and cheer and curse, and look right through one another. Here kid, have another beer; don’t just stand there, jackboot around, step aside, dance, run, hide. Join the parade. Get moving, get moving, the world can’t wait all day.

            Crane watched the madness called crowds, and wondered what some of these people were doing in his neighborhood. They were the landlords and the detectives, the owners and the crusaders. A woman walked by him, but pretended not to see him. He stared at her. Yes, he thought, she has definitely read New York on Two Thousand Dollars a Day, or perhaps taken the Berlitz course. Watch out, this sort of place only shows up on the local news. Your heels could be stuck in potholes, or worse yet, be stolen by junkies. Run, before the Anarchists execute you. The woman, who seemed to know Crane was thinking at her, stopped, menopaused, twisted her head, flicked her hair with her thin jeweled hand, and was gone. The crowds have no names or faces, but their gestures can take you away, the bob of a head, the angle of a neck, can all take one away.

            It wasn’t the matinee mongoose, in all her furry glory that caught Crane’s eye, but the shock of red, red hair that darted across the street, and into a cab. He followed the yellow Chevrolet as it pulled away. The bob of a head, a stranger’s familiar walk.

            Stop. Stop. Don’t jump.

            It had been so perfect, so beautiful, so unbelievable, Crane thought as he watched the cab disappear up Twelfth Street.