LISTEN: twenty-nine
Short conversations
Corey Mesler
Copyright © 2011 by Corey Mesler
(KUBOA)/SmashWords Edition
www.kuboapress.wordpress.com
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[email protected] For my brother Mark, my wife, my kids, the First Friday Boys, the Burke’s crew past and present, and anyone else who would ever talk to me.
It's logical that everyone wants to be in love. Then, for a while, life isn't taken up with the tedium of thinking everything through, talking things through.
Ann Beattie
Nobody values another fellow's thoughts. He's apt to set great store by them. He ought, however, to acknowledge that really nobody wants to hear them. The oscillations of consciousness aren't thinking anyway, but mostly personal nervousness.
Saul Bellow
LISTEN
(Talk: A Slight Return)
(for Ashley)
‘Language is civilization itself. The Word, even the most contradictory word, binds us together. Wordlessness isolates.’
Thomas Mann
What are you doing here after all these years, after all the silence?
May I come in?
Jim. You’re what, slumming?
That’s unkind, Katya. May I come in?
Yes, yes, sure, come in.
Thank you. I like this new place.
How did you—
Mark.
Of course.
He said—
It’s ok.
Is it?
Yes. But, ok, quickly, why?
I was thinking about you. I dreamt about you.
Do you contact everyone you dream about?
Of course not. Why are you making this difficult?
Am I? I thought I was trying to clarify things. It’s been over three years. We had a—what did we have, Jim? A fling? We had a fling and then you opted out and then nada. Nothing for years. An email would have been nice. A note dropped through the letter slot. A Christmas card.
You don’t have a letter slot.
A metaphorical letter slot.
Yes.
And now, here you are. Like the ghost of fucking affairs past.
Katya.
Don’t. Don’t say my name.
Because—
Because you are not to say my name. Because you don’t love my name. Because it comes out of your mouth a dead syllable, a stillborn—
I get it.
Good.
This is bad. I’m sorry. This is bad. I shouldn’t—
No, you shouldn’t.
I have—we—that is, Dorothea is pregnant.
I know.
Oh, yes, Mark.
Right.
So, that’s good. That’s wonderful. And your novel.
Yes, the novel was published. It did ok.
Ok.
It, you know, did ok.
I read it.
Did you? I often wondered. Did you like it?
Lord, Jim, I’m in no position to—
You hated it. You read into it—
Stop. I didn’t hate it. It was beautifully written.
Thank you.
It was just a little too close—it was embarrassing, I guess.
Really? I’m sorry, Katya. I—
Forget it. Art transcends—
No, not life.
Doesn’t it?
No, life first then art.
I thought if, you know, the art was successful, it became conscienceless.
I don’t know.
You used life, right? You used real people.
You say that with bitterness.
I am bitter, Jim.
I heard you were—involved—with—
No, not anymore. Anyway, you don’t know that. Forget you know that.
Right.
Jim—
Katya, look, it’s just that with the novel and all—and I guess the pregnancy—I began feeling—I had these feelings—
You’re a dangerous man, Jim.
I’m not really. I’m not.
You think it’s all fodder. That’s it. You think it’s all ok, using people, using your whole life as some sort of fucking artistic testing ground.
That’s hurtful. You’re not that callous.
Fuck you.
Ok. Ok, Katya. I’m leaving. Bad idea—this was a bad idea. I’m sorry—
Jim. Look. Ok. Stop. Sit down. We can talk. It’s not so bad that we cannot talk.
Really?
Don’t say really like a school boy. Sit down.
Right.
You want anything? Coffee?
I’d love some coffee.
Black?
No, much cream, much sweetener.
Oh, right.
I love my Bosco.
Right.
You need any help?
Mn.
Shit.
What hap—
Nothing. Never mind. Instant ok?
Yes.
***
Ok, here. It’s not really that hot. And I didn’t have, you know, real cream.
That’s ok. Thanks.
So.
Are you going to sit way over there? Isn’t there a chair further away? Is it further or farther?
Don’t be breezy, Jim. I think I’m gonna get pissed if you are breezy.
Sorry.
Tell me what it’s like, publishing, having success in something that you work so hard at.
Well, success.
It was successful.
Well. Locally, here, yeah, it did ok.
And those blurbs.
Well.
So, you don’t want to talk about it. This I can’t believe.
No, I do.
I thought all artists liked—
I said I do.
Ok. Sorry.
It’s just, you know. I can’t to you—talk, I don’t know. It is fiction, right? I’m tired of talking about it as if it were about my life.
For all that, it is about your life.
In the sense that all art is, that is, about the artist.
In this case—
Look, ok, she’s sort of like you and it’s sort of about what happened between us. But, you know, as far as the public is concerned, if I can talk about a public, these moppets might as well be the rulers of Pellucidar, or Little Alex and his droogs. Invented. Fictional. Fake. Forged. Counterfeit.
And as far as Dorothea knows.
Right.
I wondered—
Well, of course she asked. I told her pretty much this. She believes it because she wants to believe it. She is—
I know, saintly.
No, she’s not. Really she’s not.
Better than saintly. Earthly saintly.
Ok.
So, these denizens of Pellucidar, who fuck regularly and wantonly, and exchange fluids as freely as epithets, and who happen to exist in a world much like your little bookstore world—very much like your own little bookstore world
Stop, Katya. Did the book upset you that much?
No. Yes.
Well, that’s clear anyway.
Of course it upset me some, Jim. And what upset me more is that I picture you putting the story out there and not giving a good damn whether it troubles me or your wife or your children’s teachers.
Actually, one of the teachers wrote a letter.
R
eally?
Yes, an excoriating letter.
Hmp.
It wasn’t really funny.
Sorry.
Well, in retrospect, yeah, it’s pretty funny.
Who was this letter to?
Me, cc’d to her principal.
Oh, God. Saying what?
Oh, you can guess. Anyone who has to use such language must be intellectually bankrupt. People should keep their private lives private, that kind of horseshit.
Sorry. Did you hear from the principal?
No, thank God. The whole thing came to nothing. Except still when I see this teacher—and Katey hasn’t been in her class for 2 years—she stares daggers at me. Ice in those eyes. She’d kill me if she could, I think. Without a second thought.
Still, the satisfaction of finishing the story—
As if any story ever ends.
Right.
I mean, I think these people are still talking, just not to me. Is that weird? Pretentious?
Maybe pretentious.
Thanks.
I’m kidding. They’re still talking, you just can’t hear them.
It’s like that. I mean, for a couple years I had their voices in my head—in the bath I’d have to jump out, half-dry and get a snippet of confab down.
Confab.
That’s another thing. Since the novel—well, and during its creation—I think I learned every word for talk, for conversation. They are all in my rattling head now. Too many synonyms.
And that’s a metaphor for something else.
Yes. It is. It is a metaphor.
Like so much in your life. Nothing is just life, nothing is just, what, a piece of meat, an insincere expression, a kiss. Nothing is simply what it is.
It’s not just my life, Sweet.
Don’t call me Sweet.
Ok.
You used to call me Sweet.
Did I?
Yes. Forget it.
Sorry. But, really, everything really does mean something else. Doesn’t it? Don’t you feel that?
Sure, in a sense.
But what?
Well, fuck, Jim. I mean, it’s not just there for the meaning. You know? It’s not just there for your fucking artistic purposes. The—Christ!—the synonym, the choices. I’m not saying this well. Me. Goddammit. I’m not just here for your novel—to be the goddamn antagonist
You weren’t the—
SHUT UP. DAMN YOU!
***
Just shut up. It doesn’t fucking matter whether I use the right word. Ok? It doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter that to you I’m a bushel of well-chosen words, a string of similes and synonyms.
Is that how you see me? Is that what you think?
***
Katya?
Yes.
Well. What can I say?
***
Jim. Just go. Why are you here?
I wanted to see you. Seemed simple initially. I wanted to see you.
Presumably this wasn’t the first time you wanted to see me since, well, then.
No, it isn’t, wasn’t.
What then? Why is now different? Because your novel is out. Because not many people read it outside of the circle of people to whom it’s gonna seem autobiographical? I mean, that must rankle. The fact that its only readers were the people who are going to recognize all your sources. It makes me laugh really. How you must long for someone to take you as fiction. Ha.
I am going.
***
Sorry. I had no idea you were this unfriendly toward me.
Shit.
***
Jim. Sit. I am mad. Maybe I didn’t know how much. I haven’t said any of this to anyone else you know? I think I’m boiling over.
I had no, you know, idea. I.
How could you not—really? Sit. How could you just put that out there and not? You think people don’t know too much about me now, about my personal life? And think of me as an adulterous little tramp?
No, it’s fiction. I made up so much of it—it just doesn’t seem—logical.
Let’s talk about something else. Ok. Anything else.
Books. You wanna talk about the bookstore—what we’re reading?
Close but, ok, yes, what are you reading?
I didn’t just bring it up so you would ask me—you go first. What are you reading?
Ha ha. Jim. You’re priceless. So passive fucking aggressive.
I hate that. I really do. I hate that you said that.
Ok, look, sorry. What—please—what are you reading?
David Markson’s Going Down.
Shit. You did just want me to ask, didn’t you?
No, no, why? Have you read it?
Of course I haven’t. It’s such a ready answer, isn’t it? DavidMarksonsGoingDown. It’s such a phrase. Plus, you just have to be reading the most obscure—most difficult—
It is difficult—but—rewarding. It’s quite beautiful really.
Ok.
Like Faulkner. You know, nobody thinks Sound and the Fury is a walk in the park. But, it’s so rich the knotty passages are—
You had this all prepared.
***
Jim.
Yes, in the sense that I have everything premeditated or deliberate. My head is full of conversations. Old, new, borrowed, blue. Dead conversations, conversations that should be dead. Talk about the weather, talk about the Grizzlies, talk about Art Kane’s jazz photograph. Talk about the Hobbit-man they dug up. Talk about goddamned Faulkner. Talk about Talk. Conversations between me and others, me and God, me and Leonard Cohen.
Ha. You talk to Leonard Cohen?
In my head, sure. Why not?
It’s so—ok—it’s so you. You really talk to God?
Again, why not?
Because he’s not there?
Whether he is or not I am up to talking to Him. That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s fiction—dream—spirituality. That’s why I wrote the effing book—it’s fiction that’s the final truth. The veracity we really live within.
Right, Jim. I had no idea you were spiritual.
We’re all spiritual, in the same sense we are all bipeds. There isn’t a fucking lot we can do about it.
Ok.
Forget it.
Why are you angry?
Am I? Sorry.
Aren’t—never—Jim. Look—
What are you reading?
Oh, um. I am reading Alice Hoffman’s new one. Can’t remember the ti—
The Probable Future.
Is that it? Is that the newest? Is that what I’m reading? It’s here somewhere.
Right. Katya. You break my heart.
Nope. Stop there. That’s enough. My heart—your heart—these are off topic—
Ok.
***
The kids. Tell me about the kids. Tell me about having another one on the way at this point in your life.
My surprise child.
Really? Unplanned?
Oh yeah. A diaphragm baby. Apparently not that rare.
I know, I guess. I have a friend who has a rubber baby. Ha! A rubber baby!
Ha. Yes, I’ve heard that—of that, too.
I know a woman—three children—and still in her thirties—so she goes to her gynecologist and says, tie em. I’ve had enough. Tie me off, Doc. So he does and she and the husband relax and sex becomes, well, sort of new again, like they are irresponsible teenagers—they can act out that scenario—you know, and they have spontaneous sex, which of course had been missing in action all these years. And they like do it in the car, in the driveway, and such. You know, really like newlyweds rediscovering the spark. Anyway, long story short she starts feeling bad, you know, down there, and goes back to her gynecologist and she’s thinking, oh Jeez cancer, this is my payback for fucking with Mother Nature, well, that’s it, the sex was good for a while. My short life is over. And the doctor examines her and leaves and she sits there stewing in her own juices, so to speak. And later, seems
like much later, he returns and he‘s got this sheepish look, and he says, Well, I guess this one’s college is on me.
Whoa. Really? She was pregnant?
Yeah, and, fuck she now has four kids and she’s like 36.
Unbelievable.
I know. Imagine.
Well, I can. Cuz I sure thought I was past all that. I mean, oh God, diapers again.
That’s bad?
It ain’t a picnic.
I thought, you like, I don’t know, learned to love your own child’s shit.
No. Maybe the first one. No, the shit is still shit. It still smells. Oh, God, that smell.
Ha. Back you go. Back and back.
Right.
I just was living in a fool’s paradise. You know, kids both fairly responsible and untroubling—and bang, I’ve got to do the whole baby in arms thing again. I don’t know. Dorothea is up for it.
Of course she is.
Don’t-
Sorry, it’s—
Let’s don’t. Let’s—talk about something else.
Ok. Connie. What’s Connie doing?
Well, he’s got a girlfriend. That’s a big deal.
Yes, it is. You like her?
She’s a peach. Shy though. Won’t come all the way into a room. Won’t talk much except to use her manners, which are pure Southern impeccable. Don’t really know much about her I guess.
Pretty?
Of course.
Is he still drawing?
Oh, yes. Quite beautiful stuff.
You have some, something you can show?
Well, no. It’s—it’s in his computer is the way I understand it. It’s—computer generated images—no, that’s not quite right. It’s—shit, I don’t know. It’s not on paper. It’s not like sketching, you know?
I guess. It’s—
Pixie art—no, not pixilated. Damn, what—
Pixels?
Yeah, that’s it. Pixel art.
I don’t understand.
Neither do I.
He’s your son.
Right, I’m a bad parent, an unobservant parent. I am clueless about my son’s most precious thing. Kill me now.
Now—
No, really. I know. I just don’t—
It’s not that important if—
It is. I think it is. I should know.
Ok. Well, at least, you, you know, care about it.
I care about not understanding. Yeah, that forgives it.
You’re so hard on yourself.
You’re so hard on me too.
Oh, right. Poor put-upon Jim. C’mon. Lighten up.
Yeah. You called me passive aggressive.
Ok, forget that. Do over. Sorry I said it. Backspace backspace backspace. Ok?
Ha—ok. What are you—I mean—what’s new with you?
My brand spanking shiny new relationship is already over.
I know. I’m sorry. What happened?