Beautiful Losers Read online

  – You’re insane. I’ve told my secrets to an insane person.

  – There we were, locked in the Telephone Dance. Edith’s ears began to wrap around my fingers, at least so it seemed. She was very highly developed, perhaps the most highly developed woman I ever knew. Her ears folded around my throbbing fingers –

  – I don’t want the details! I see the two of you a lot clearer than you could ever describe. That’s a picture I’ll never be able to get out of my mind.

  – Jealousy is the education you have chosen.

  – Fuck you. What did you hear?

  – Hear is not the right word. I became a telephone. Edith was the electrical conversation that went through me.

  – Well, what was it, what was it?

  – Machinery.

  – Machinery?

  – Ordinary eternal machinery.

  – And?

  – Ordinary eternal machinery.

  – Is that all you’re going to say?

  – Ordinary eternal machinery like the grinding of the stars.

  – That’s better.

  – That was a distortion of the truth, which, I see, suits you very well. I distorted the truth to make it easy for you. The truth is: ordinary eternal machinery.

  – Was it nice?

  – It was the most beautiful thing I have ever felt.

  – Did she like it?

  – No.

  – Really?

  – Yes, she liked it. How anxious you are to be deceived!

  – F., I could kill you for what you’ve done. Courts would forgive me.

  – You’ve done enough killing for one night.

  – Get off our bed! Our bed! This was our bed!

  I don’t want to think too much about what F. said. Why must I? Who was he after all but a madman who lost control of his bowels, a fucker of one’s wife, a collector of soap, a politician? Ordinary eternal machinery. Do I have to understand that? This morning is another morning, flowers have opened up again, men turn on their sides to see whom they have married, everything is ready to begin anew. Why must I be lashed to the past by the words of a dead man? Why must I reproduce these conversations so painstakingly, letting not one lost comma alter the beat of our voices? I want to talk to men in taverns and buses and remember nothing. And you, Catherine Tekakwitha, burning in your stall of time, does it please you that I strip myself so cruelly? I fear you smell of the Plague. The long house where you crouch day after day smells of the Plague. Why is my research so hard? Why can’t I memorize baseball statistics like the Prime Minister? Why do baseball statistics smell like the Plague? What has happened to the morning? My desk smells! 1660 smells! The Indians are dying! The trails smell! They are pouring roads over the trails, it doesn’t help. Save the Indians! Serve them the hearts of Jesuits! I caught the Plague in my butterfly net. I merely wanted to fuck a saint, as F. advised. I don’t know why it seemed like such a good idea. I barely understand it but it seemed like the only thing left to me. Here I am courting with research, the only juggling I can do, waiting for the statues to move – and what happens? I’ve poisoned the air, I’ve lost my erection. Is it because I’ve stumbled on the truth about Canada? I don’t want to stumble on the truth about Canada. Have the Jews paid for the destruction of Jericho? Will the French learn how to hunt? Are wigwam souvenirs enough? City Fathers, kill me, for I have talked too much about the Plague. I thought the Indians died of bullet wounds and broken treaties. More roads! The forest stinks! Catherine Tekakwitha, is there something sinister in your escape from the Plague? Do I have to love a mutant? Look at me, Catherine Tekakwitha, a man with a stack of contagious papers, limp in the groin. Look at you, Catherine Tekakwitha, your face half eaten, unable to go outside in the sun because of the damage to your eyes. Shouldn’t I be chasing someone earlier than you? Discipline, as F. said. This must not be easy. And if I knew where my research led, where would the danger be? I confess that I don’t know the point of anything. Take one step to the side and it’s all absurd. What is this fucking of a dead saint? It’s impossible. We all know that. I’ll publish a paper on Catherine Tekakwitha, that’s all. I’ll get married again. The National Museum needs me. I’ve been through a lot, I’ll make a marvelous lecturer. I’ll pass off F.’s sayings as my own, become a wit, a mystic wit. He owes me that much. I’ll give away his soap collection to female students, a bar at a time, lemon cunts, pine cunts, I’ll be a master of mixed juices. I’ll run for Parliament, just like F. I’ll get the Eskimo accent. I’ll have the wives of other men. Edith! Her lovely body comes stalking back, the balanced walk, the selfish eyes (or are they?). Oh, she does not stink of the Plague. Please don’t make me think about your parts. Her belly button was a tiny swirl, almost hidden. If all the breeze it took to ruffle a tea rose suddenly became flesh, it would be like her belly button. On different occasions she covered it with oil, semen, thirty-five dollars’ worth of perfume, a burr, rice, urine, the parings of a man’s fingernails, another man’s tears, spit, a thimbleful of rain water. I’ve got to recall the occasions.

  OIL: Countless times. She kept a bottle of olive oil beside the bed. I always thought flies would come.

  SEMEN: F.’s too? I couldn’t bear that. She made me deposit it there myself. She wanted to see me masturbate for the last time. How could I tell her that it was the most intense climax of my life?

  RICE: Raw rice. She kept one grain in there for a week, claiming that she could cook it.

  URINE: Don’t be ashamed, she said.

  FINGERNAILS: She said that Orthodox Jews buried their fingernail parings. I’m uneasy as I remember this. It’s just the kind of observation that F. would make. Did she get the idea from him?

  MAN’S TEARS: A curious incident. We were sunbathing on the beach at Old Orchard, Maine. A complete stranger in a blue bathing suit threw himself on her stomach, weeping. I grabbed his hair to pull him away. She struck my hand sharply. I looked around; nobody had noticed so I felt a little better about it. I timed the man: he cried for five minutes. There were thousands stretched on the beach. Why did he have to pick us? I smiled stupidly at people passing, as if this loony were my bereaved brother-in-law. Nobody seemed to notice. He had on one of those cheap wool bathing suits that do nothing for the balls. He cried quietly, Edith’s right hand on the nape of his neck. This isn’t happening, I tried to think, Edith’s not a sandy whore. Abruptly and clumsily, he rose on one knee, stood up, ran away. Edith looked after him for a while, then turned to comfort me. He was an A———, she whispered. Impossible! I shouted furiously. I’ve documented every living A———! You’re lying, Edith! You loved him slobbering on your navel. Admit it! Perhaps you’re right, she said, perhaps he wasn’t an A———. That was a chance I couldn’t take. I spent the rest of the day patroling miles of beach, but he’d gone somewhere with his snotty nose.

  SPIT: I don’t know why. In fact, I can’t remember when exactly. Have I imagined this one?

  RAIN WATER: She got the idea it was raining at two in the morning. We couldn’t tell because of the window situation. I took a thimble and went upstairs. She appreciated the favor.

  There is no doubt that she believed her belly button to be a sensory organ, better than that, a purse which guaranteed possession in her personal voodoo system. Many times she held me hard and soft against her there, telling stories through the night. Why was I never quite comfortable? Why did I listen to the fan and the elevator?

  13

  Days without work. Why did that list depress me? I should never have made the list. I’ve done something bad to your belly, Edith. I tried to use it. I tried to use your belly against the Plague. I tried to be a man in a padded locker room telling a beautiful smutty story to eternity. I tried to be an emcee in tuxedo arousing a lodge of honeymooners, my bed full of golf widows. I forgot that I was desperate. I forgot that I began this research in desperation. My briefcase fooled me. My tidy notes led me astray. I thought I was doing a job. The old books on Catherine Tekakwitha by P. Cholenec,
the manuscripts of M. Remy, Miracles faits en sa paroisse par l’intercession de la B. Cath. Tekakwith, 1696, from the archives of Collège Sainte-Marie – the evidence tricked me into mastery. I started making plans like a graduating class. I forgot who I was. I forgot that I never learned to play the harmonica. I forgot that I gave up the guitar because F chord made my fingers bleed. I forgot about the socks I’ve stiffened with semen. I tried to sail past the Plague in a gondola, young tenor about to be discovered by talent-scout tourist. I forgot about jars Edith handed me that I couldn’t open. I forgot the way Edith died, the way F. died, wiping his ass with a curtain. I forgot that I only have one more chance. I thought Edith would rest in a catalogue. I thought I was a citizen, private, user of public facilities. I forgot about constipation! Constipation didn’t let me forget. Constipation ever since I compiled the list. Five days ruined in their first half-hours. Why me? – the great complaint of the constipated. Why doesn’t the world work for me? The lonely sitting man in the porcelain machine. What did I do wrong yesterday? What unassailable bank in my psyche needs shit? How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me? The hater of history crouched over the immaculate bowl. How can I prove the body is on my side? Is my stomach an enemy? The chronic loser at morning roulette plans his suicide: a leap into the St. Lawrence weighted with a sealed bowel. What good are movies? I am too heavy for music. I am invisible if I leave no daily evidence. Old food is poison, and the sacks leak. Unlock me! Exhausted Houdini! Lost ordinary magic! The squatting man bargains with God, submitting list after list of New Year’s Resolutions. I will eat only lettuce. Give me diarrhea if I’ve got to have something. Let me help the flowers and dung beetles. Let me into the world club. I am not enjoying sunsets, then for whom do they burn? I’ll miss my train. My portion of the world’s work will not be done, I warn you. If sphincter must be coin let it be Chinese coin. Why me? I’ll use science against you. I’ll drop in pills like depth charges. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t make it tighter. Nothing helps, is that what you want me to learn? The straining man perched on a circle prepares to abandon all systems. Take hope, take cathedrals, take the radio, take my research. These are hard to give up, but a load of shit is harder still. Yes, yes, I abandon even the system of renunciation. In the tiled dawn courtroom a folded man tries a thousand oaths. Let me testify! Let me prove Order! Let me cast a shadow! Please make me empty, if I’m empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I’m not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness. I don’t want to be a star, merely dying. Please let me be hungry, then I am not the dead center, then I can single out the trees in their particular lives, then I can be curious about the names of rivers, the altitude of mountains, the different spellings of Tekakwitha, Tegahouita, Tegahkouita, Tehgakwita, Tekakouita, oh, I want to be fascinated by phenomena! I don’t want to live inside! Renew my life. How can I exist as the vessel of yesterday’s slaughter? Is the meat punishing me? Are there wild herds who think poorly of me? Murder in the kitchen! Dachau farmyards! We are grooming beings to eat! Does God love the world? What a monstrous system of nourishment! All of us animal tribes at eternal war! What have we won? Humans, the dietary Nazis! Death at the center of nourishment! Who will apologize to the cows? It’s not our fault, we didn’t think this whole thing up. These kidneys are kidneys. This is not chicken, this is a chicken. Think of the death camps in the basement of a hotel. Blood on the pillows! Matter impaled on toothbrushes! All animals eating, not for pleasure, not for gold, not for power, but merely to be. For whose eternal Pleasure? Tomorrow I begin my fast. I resign. But I can’t resign with a full stomach. And does fasting please or offend Thee? You might construe it as pride or cowardice. I have memorized my bathroom forever. Edith kept it very clean, but I have been less fastidious. Is it fair to ask the intended to scrub the electric chair? I’m using old newspapers, I’ll buy rolls when I deserve them. I’ve promised the toilet much attention if it will be good to me, I’ll unblock it. But why should I humiliate myself now? You don’t polish windows in a car wreck. When my body starts, the old routines will start, I promise. Help! Give me a hint. For five days, except for that first half-hour of failure, I cannot enter the bathroom. My teeth and hair are dirty. I can’t begin to shave, to mock myself with a little deposit of hair. I would stink at an autopsy. Nobody wants to eat me, I’m sure. What’s it like outside? Is there an outside? I am the sealed, dead, impervious museum of my appetite. This is the brutal solitude of constipation, this is the way the world is lost. One is ready to stake everything on a river, a nude bath before Catherine Tekakwitha, and no promises.

  14

  Into the world of names with us. F. said: Of all the laws which bind us to the past, the names of things are the most severe. If what I sit in is my grandfather’s chair, and what I look out of is my grandfather’s window – then I’m deep in his world. F. said: Names preserve the dignity of Appearance. F. said: Science begins in coarse naming, a willingness to disregard the particular shape and destiny of each red life, and call them all Rose. To a more brutal, more active eye, all flowers look alike, like Negroes and Chinamen. F. never shut up. His voice has got into my ear like a trapped fly, incessantly buzzing. His style is colonizing me. His will provides me with his room downtown, the factory he bought, his treehouse, his soap collection, his papers. And I don’t like the discharge from my pecker. Too much, F.! I’ve got to hold on to myself. Next thing you know my ears will be transparent. F., why do I suddenly miss you so intensely? There are certain restaurants I can never go to again. But do I have to be your monument? Were we friends, after all? I remember the day you finally bought the factory, eight hundred thousand dollars, and I walked with you on those uneven wood floors, floors which as a boy you had swept so often. I believe you were actually weeping. It was the middle of the night and half the lights were gone. We walked between the rows of sewing machines, cutting tables, defunct steam pressers. There is nothing more quiet than a still factory. Every now and then we kicked a tangle of wire hangers, or brushed a rack where they hung, thick as vines, and a curious tinkling resounded, like a hundred bored men playing in their pockets, a curiously violent sound, as if the men were waiting among the grotesque shadows cast by the abandoned machines, men waiting for salaries, goons for the word to smash F.’s shut-down. I was vaguely frightened. Factories, like parks, are public places, and it was an offense to the democratic mind to see F. so deeply moved by his ownership. F. picked up an old heavy steam iron which was connected to a metal frame above by a thick spring. He swung it away from the table, dropped it, laughed while it bounced up and down like a dangerous yo-yo, shadows striping the dirty walls like a wild chalk eraser on a blackboard. Suddenly F. threw a switch, the lights flickered, and the central power belt which drove the sewing machines began to roll. F. began to orate. He loved to talk against mechanical noise.

  – Larry! he cried, moving down the empty benches. Larry! Ben! Dave! I know you can hear me! Ben! I haven’t forgotten your hunched back! Sol! I’ve done what I promised! Little Margerie! You can eat your tattered slippers now! Jews, Jews, Jews! Thanks!

  – F., this is disgusting.

  – Every generation must thank its Jews, F. said, leaping away from me. And its Indians. The Indians must be thanked for building our bridges and skyscrapers. The world is made of races, you better learn that, my friend. People are different! Roses are different from each other! Larry! It’s me, F., boy goy, whose blond hair you ofttimes ruffled. I’ve done what I promised you in the dark stock room so many afternoons ago. It’s mine! It’s ours! I’m dancing on the scraps! I’ve turned it into a playground! I’m here with a friend!

  When he had calmed down F. took my hand and led me to the stock room. Great empty spools and cardboard cylinders threw their precise shadows in the half light, temple columns. The respectable animal smell of wool still clung to the air. I sensed a layer of oil forming on my nose. Back on the factory
floor the power belt still turned and a few spikeless machines pumped. F. and I stood very close.

  – So you think I am disgusting, F. said.

  – I would never believe you capable of such cheap sentimentality. Talking to little Jewish ghosts!

  – I was playing as once I promised I would.

  – You were slobbering.

  – Isn’t this a beautiful place? Isn’t it peaceful? We’re standing in the future. Soon rich men will build places like this on their estates and visit them by moonlight. History has shown us how men love to muse and loaf and make love in places formerly the scene of much violent activity.

  – What are you going to do with it?

  – Come in, now and then. Sweep a little. Screw on the shiny tables. Play with the machines.

  – You could have been a millionaire. The financial page talked about the brilliance of your manipulations. I must confess that this coup of yours lends a lot of weight to all the shit you’ve been spouting over the years.

  – Vanity! cried F. I had to see if I could pull it off. I had to see if there was any comfort in it. In spite of what I knew! Larry didn’t expect it of me, it wasn’t binding. My boyhood promise was an alibi! Please don’t let this evening influence anything I’ve said to you.

  – Don’t cry, F.

  – Forgive me. I wanted to taste revenge. I wanted to be an American. I wanted to tie my life up with a visit. That isn’t what Larry meant.