For my brother’s November 28, in response to his portrait of Henry Miller for my August 7.
I looked into the blurry stretch of road outside my L’Hotel Virandicedenia and drew a four with three fingers and a thumb in the condensation of my floor-to-ceiling window. It seemed lazy and malnourished, the road did, and though it fairly crawled with activity the crisp inertia of vitality was missing; missing and presumably stolen, nothing more than a network of coiled copper-wiring torn from an untended basement, vigor sold for ten cents a foot. Rows of ellipses were united in a grid of dots under my itching fingers, a reflexive countermove of my wandering mind set in clinging breath, and I resolved to involve myself fully in this scattering of fingerprints, timing my minute dabs with the rhythmic grunting in the next room, tending artfully to my curiosity for all things syncopated.
Davereaux had come up empty in his search for cunt, had come here specifically to fuck my couch, and had, by the sound of it, just then come upon the plaid. For jilted, thoroughly incommunicative lovers, he and that couch share the dismal outlook of souls left searching, and he returns to it nightly, the way we would all of us to our mother’s womb had we the capability.
He entered my room sweating like an ice cube as I stared through the dot I left pressed in the fuzzy, trapezoidal coffin of my neglected four, admiring the diamond-sheen of the streetlights as his panting slowed.
'I don’t love the décor,' he said, seizing the doorframe and steadying his legs.
'You love the couch,' I said.
'The couch, yes, of course. The rest of it remains trash.'
'L’Hotel furniture is, by and large, what it is.'
'That’s trash, too. You’re as well aware as I am that the couch languishes where it sits, that its needs would be better met under the window, as far from your preposterous coffee-table as possible.'
This, alas, I did know, but couldn’t bring myself to properly feng shui the couch for fear that he would one night fuck it completely out the window. I gazed back outside and imagined my heavily-set friend thrusting the couch and he free of their eighth-floor gravity, crashing out into the cold night, Davereaux clawing amorously at the floating pillows, desperate to finish before the street below finished him.
'I haven’t the strength,' I said, smiling wanly. 'I have yet to eat.'
'You have yet to eat this week,' he said, growing impatient. 'What happened to the cunt who was spoiling you?'
'She died,' I replied, affecting as best I could the look of mourning.
'She died?'
'Inside,' I continued. 'In actuality, she fled back to Monte Negro, but she had died inside weeks earlier. She was a hollowed out crème-egg by the end, an empty pocketbook of despair writing cheques on the backs of her tears as she rode home on a monsoon of grief.'
Davereaux stared blankly at me, distractedly, his eyes flitting unconsciously between me and my seductive couch in the other room.
'I don’t know what it is you have against prostitutes,' I said, helping my fedora from the writing desk to my head. 'It’s not as though you lack the funds for a good night’s entertainment.'
'Those two-bit whores downstairs?' he spat, rising to my bait.
'I like that expression,' I continued playfully. 'It revives my fondness for Pink Ladies.'
'No,' he said, approaching me severely. 'Quarter-prostitutes, every damn one of them. Twenty-five cents for doorway cunts and another nickel if you want them clean.'
I slid on my overcoat with a smirk, catching my raw, slender knuckles on the various folds of the broken-down lining and struggling timidly with the pretense of verticality. Further rubbing Davereaux, as would he against my couch, was anathema to our camaraderie and in no fashion an elegant precursor to the luxurious send-off I had anticipated, leaving as I was for distant, perhaps ramshackle climes. The discomfiture of bidding adieu rotted in my belly as I loitered at the door.
'I am fully aware of your plans,' Davereaux said, unmoved. 'Where, pray, goes the couch?'
'The couch and I are parting ways,' I said, endeavouring to wink with uncooperative eyes, 'as are you and I, my friend.'
Yelling broke out in the street just then, two harsh men suitably loud, extraordinarily French, arguing rosé v. alfredo with increasing intensity, their voices colliding and vibrating up my floor-to-ceiling window as I stared reluctantly into my four, now just a cluster of awkward smudges on clear glass; Davereaux saw not in numbers and looked beyond.
'So,' he said into the silence with a sanguine glare. 'The couch is staying?'
I scratched the hieroglyphics for bon appétit into my cheek as a response, my erudite fingers succeeding where my ravenous mouth failed, and eased the door open. I was feeling prosaic, but a squall of warm hallway air pulled me from the room and I flitted to the stairs in a flurry of inspiration. I could still hear the scraping of couch-legs across the knotted wood floor as the brusque city met me smiling on the street, anxious to make my acquaintance.
A cab driver bludgeoned his horn and shrugged at me through his open window; I patted my pant-pockets and shrugged back. 'It makes no difference,' he said, beckoning me with a nod. 'I have to get out of this city.'
'As do I,' I said, climbing into the backseat. I wrote out directions in gestures, carving a map of penniless adventure in the disparate air between he and I, and as we pulled away from the curb I hastened to steal one last glance at my L’Hotel Virandicedenia. She stood tall and voluptuous, the L’Hotel did, her amber-lit windows running scattershot against her façade like nicotine-stained teeth in a beggar’s mouth, a sultry silhouette of decadence set into a staid sky of reluctance. I glimpsed at my veranda and envisioned spider-webs spiraling along its backbone glass, the telltale cracks of two-panes buttressed, of couches fucked against windows. As we sped away, I imagined: Perhaps I too would fuck plaid instead of cunts in a new locale; perhaps I too would find my appetite.
I looked into the blurry stretch of road outside my L’Hotel Virandicedenia and drew a four with three fingers and a thumb in the condensation of my floor-to-ceiling window. It seemed lazy and malnourished, the road did, and though it fairly crawled with activity the crisp inertia of vitality was missing; missing and presumably stolen, nothing more than a network of coiled copper-wiring torn from an untended basement, vigor sold for ten cents a foot. Rows of ellipses were united in a grid of dots under my itching fingers, a reflexive countermove of my wandering mind set in clinging breath, and I resolved to involve myself fully in this scattering of fingerprints, timing my minute dabs with the rhythmic grunting in the next room, tending artfully to my curiosity for all things syncopated.
Davereaux had come up empty in his search for cunt, had come here specifically to fuck my couch, and had, by the sound of it, just then come upon the plaid. For jilted, thoroughly incommunicative lovers, he and that couch share the dismal outlook of souls left searching, and he returns to it nightly, the way we would all of us to our mother’s womb had we the capability.
He entered my room sweating like an ice cube as I stared through the dot I left pressed in the fuzzy, trapezoidal coffin of my neglected four, admiring the diamond-sheen of the streetlights as his panting slowed.
'I don’t love the décor,' he said, seizing the doorframe and steadying his legs.
'You love the couch,' I said.
'The couch, yes, of course. The rest of it remains trash.'
'L’Hotel furniture is, by and large, what it is.'
'That’s trash, too. You’re as well aware as I am that the couch languishes where it sits, that its needs would be better met under the window, as far from your preposterous coffee-table as possible.'
This, alas, I did know, but couldn’t bring myself to properly feng shui the couch for fear that he would one night fuck it completely out the window. I gazed back outside and imagined my heavily-set friend thrusting the couch and he free of their eighth-floor gravity, crashing out into the cold night, Davereaux clawing amorously at the floating pillows, desperate to finish before the street below finished him.
'I haven’t the strength,' I said, smiling wanly. 'I have yet to eat.'
'You have yet to eat this week,' he said, growing impatient. 'What happened to the cunt who was spoiling you?'
'She died,' I replied, affecting as best I could the look of mourning.
'She died?'
'Inside,' I continued. 'In actuality, she fled back to Monte Negro, but she had died inside weeks earlier. She was a hollowed out crème-egg by the end, an empty pocketbook of despair writing cheques on the backs of her tears as she rode home on a monsoon of grief.'
Davereaux stared blankly at me, distractedly, his eyes flitting unconsciously between me and my seductive couch in the other room.
'I don’t know what it is you have against prostitutes,' I said, helping my fedora from the writing desk to my head. 'It’s not as though you lack the funds for a good night’s entertainment.'
'Those two-bit whores downstairs?' he spat, rising to my bait.
'I like that expression,' I continued playfully. 'It revives my fondness for Pink Ladies.'
'No,' he said, approaching me severely. 'Quarter-prostitutes, every damn one of them. Twenty-five cents for doorway cunts and another nickel if you want them clean.'
I slid on my overcoat with a smirk, catching my raw, slender knuckles on the various folds of the broken-down lining and struggling timidly with the pretense of verticality. Further rubbing Davereaux, as would he against my couch, was anathema to our camaraderie and in no fashion an elegant precursor to the luxurious send-off I had anticipated, leaving as I was for distant, perhaps ramshackle climes. The discomfiture of bidding adieu rotted in my belly as I loitered at the door.
'I am fully aware of your plans,' Davereaux said, unmoved. 'Where, pray, goes the couch?'
'The couch and I are parting ways,' I said, endeavouring to wink with uncooperative eyes, 'as are you and I, my friend.'
Yelling broke out in the street just then, two harsh men suitably loud, extraordinarily French, arguing rosé v. alfredo with increasing intensity, their voices colliding and vibrating up my floor-to-ceiling window as I stared reluctantly into my four, now just a cluster of awkward smudges on clear glass; Davereaux saw not in numbers and looked beyond.
'So,' he said into the silence with a sanguine glare. 'The couch is staying?'
I scratched the hieroglyphics for bon appétit into my cheek as a response, my erudite fingers succeeding where my ravenous mouth failed, and eased the door open. I was feeling prosaic, but a squall of warm hallway air pulled me from the room and I flitted to the stairs in a flurry of inspiration. I could still hear the scraping of couch-legs across the knotted wood floor as the brusque city met me smiling on the street, anxious to make my acquaintance.
A cab driver bludgeoned his horn and shrugged at me through his open window; I patted my pant-pockets and shrugged back. 'It makes no difference,' he said, beckoning me with a nod. 'I have to get out of this city.'
'As do I,' I said, climbing into the backseat. I wrote out directions in gestures, carving a map of penniless adventure in the disparate air between he and I, and as we pulled away from the curb I hastened to steal one last glance at my L’Hotel Virandicedenia. She stood tall and voluptuous, the L’Hotel did, her amber-lit windows running scattershot against her façade like nicotine-stained teeth in a beggar’s mouth, a sultry silhouette of decadence set into a staid sky of reluctance. I glimpsed at my veranda and envisioned spider-webs spiraling along its backbone glass, the telltale cracks of two-panes buttressed, of couches fucked against windows. As we sped away, I imagined: Perhaps I too would fuck plaid instead of cunts in a new locale; perhaps I too would find my appetite.
The image of the couch and its lover sailing out the window is wonderful. I miss France.
ReplyDeletegood stuff.
ReplyDelete@HIF: Merci.
ReplyDelete@Kono: You too.