The Fuck Up (12 page)

“Right, and I envision that we can help each other.”

“You’re jesting.” He quickly understood the direction in which I was heading.

“I’ve been writing poetry all my life and, other than in school, I’ve never been published. All I’m asking is that you look at a poem of mine. If you don’t like it, nothing lost. But if you do like it, you gain a poet and a theater.”

“Why in God’s name do you think that I can get you published?”

“Everyone knows that you are to the
Harrington
what Delmore Schwartz was to the
Partisan Review,
what Mencken was to
American Mercury
and what Perkins was to Harper & Row.”

“Perkins was with Scribner, and that wasn’t a magazine.”

“I thought Bartelby was with Scribner’s.”

“Oh, God!” He sighed and rose to go.

“Look! All we’re talking about is a couple of well-crafted lines, one stanza that describes the mechanism of the East Village.”

“The mechanism of the East Village?” He smiled. “What’s your poem about, a car?”

“Call it what you will.”

“Is this machine rhymed or free verse?”

“I rhyme, but…”

“Narrative, confessional, free association…?”

“Essentially narrative.”

“Where is this sacred poem?” he asked. Apparently I had passed the multiple-choice part of the quiz.

“I’ll have it for you in a week.”

“A week! Tomorrow is our final editorial conference. Then we go to print. Next week is my first vacation in two years.” He rose again and said, “That ends that.”

“Wait a second.” I stood up. “I can have it for you before the film ends.”

“All right, fine,” he replied, prepared to go.

“Then you’ll do it?”

“I’ll consider it if you get the poem here before the film ends, but I’ll tell you right now, don’t expect much.” He opened the door to leave.

“One last thing,” I requested before he departed. “Miguel’s a bit of a barbarian. In order to get you your price I would like you to tell him that you’re paying the whole two hundred. I’ll cover the deficit.”

“You mean
if
I accept your poem,” he added. Then we shook hands, and he went back into the auditorium.

I swiftly went through the office collecting necessities to write poetry with, a beer from the fridge, a clock, two sharpened pencils, paper. Calling the projectionist, I asked her how long the film would last.

“Another reel, about twenty minutes,” she replied, curiously free of any antagonism.

I snuck into the bathroom stall, and for the benefit of any curious eyes that might check the exposed underpart of the partition, I dropped my pants around my knees and sat.

I hadn’t written a poem in years, and was not sure of why I was doing this. Occasionally opportunity was prompting enough. I thought hard about nonsense and started scribbling. First, I started just jotting out recollections of New York, but then I dashed down little slogans and aphorisms that I had heard over the past few months, then I rhymed them into a quick poem, while offering my own criticism in alternating verse:

But then I remembered that I specifically said it would be an East Village poem, so I started thinking about each street, from First to Fourteenth. I drew up a small map and noted every established hangout and local institution; the poem had to be short, cute, and simple. I sensed that this was all the silver-spooned editor could digest.

There were no revelations in that refuge for defecators and lovers. Sitting
upon that unwashable and ancient toilet, I toiled, tinkered, and versified. When seated in that position too long, something is bound to fall out and soon the bowels moved; a cheap little stanza complete with all the squalid neighborhood emblems. For no clear reason, I entitled it “Cowboy Streets, Indian Avenues”:

It was forced and trashy and I hoped that one day I would be a writer talented enough to repudiate it. Outside the stall, I could hear someone pacing, and then more feet. The film must have ended. After quickly writing a final draft, I flushed the toilet for effect and abdicated the chair.

Entering the theater in the middle of deafening applause and brightening lights, I saw no sign of Owensfield. But then I heard a bunch of giggly punk boys and girls and spotted the patron in their midst. Silently I watched them giggle and react to his every movement. Wealth, like fame, provided incredible leverage to one’s character; an adequate mind seemed brilliant if it belonged to a star. Not-repulsive looks made a blue blood stunningly handsome; mild sensitivity catapulted one into heights of sexiness; basic decency made them rivals of Mister Christ. Owensfield and his lucky entourage were about to skip out the fire exit when I intercepted him.

“Here.” I shoved the poem in his face. With nothing more than a rise of his eyebrows, his group was signaled to linger outside. As he mumbled the
poem aloud, Miguel appeared from the other side of the theater and started approaching.

“Well,” he uttered as he crinkled the page into his pocket, “to buy this much space as an advertisement would cost you about a hundred and fifty dollars and frankly we’ve published a lot worse.”

“Is that an acceptance?”

“No, it’s a deal.”

“What’s a deal?” Miguel entered in the middle of the conversation.

“Your friend drives a hard bargain.” Owensfield seemed to yield. “He got what he was after.”

“Wow!” Miguel marvelled as he looked at me.

“I’ve got people waiting,” the well-to-doer replied. “We’ll discuss all the bindings later.
Au revoir.”
And he was gone.

“How the Tao did you do that?”

“I knew what appealed to him. It turned out I had read his latest piece, a study on Bobby Musil. We talked about that awhile, until the next thing I know we’re both reliving Hapsburg, Vienna, Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, and Saint Stephen’s. My God, first we were in tears and then in stitches.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kindred spirits!” I exclaimed. “Elective affinities. For the moment we were the same person. Hell, when I finally popped the request it was like I was asking myself for something.”

“And you’re telling me he just gave in.”

“It was more like I gave it to me.”

“Amazing. And I always thought the richer they were the poorer they were. I was ready to take his offer.” Miguel looked perplexed. Only the speech pattern and mannerisms remained of the Miguel who was once the sincere earth child. The money and the vulgarity had made its breach;
Miguel knew he couldn’t walk nude along the streets or hand out dandelions, and he knew that rhetoric was just rhetoric, but in his heart of hearts I think he really wanted to believe that the right words could precipitate the correct actions. He nodded, still perplexed, and went into his office.

People poured into the street, coagulated into lumps, which broke away and dissipated. I waited outside for Miguel to lock up. When he was finally done, a bunch of people had collected, waiting for him, or waiting for the few people who were waiting for him. I was about to bid him goodnight, when he asked me if I was hungry.

“Yeah, but I’m broke.”

“I’ll advance you,” Miguel offered. “You made us a tidy bundle tonight.”

So a group of us walked over to Second Avenue and south toward the Kiev where the cuisine was a mix of Eastern European and American greasy spoon, prepared by Indian short-order cooks. The waitress pulled together a bunch of small tables and after we took our seats, she quickly took our orders. I got a mixed pierogis with sour cream and a side of fries. Fragmented conversations started. I ate and listened to one group in front of me yapping about the film. When one guy called it “a low budget
2001,”
I turned to my left and started eavesdropping on snatches of conversation in that direction, “Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X’s mentor, was the one who had him assassinated…and when Mayor Laguardia died they found that all he had was eight thousand dollars in war bonds…I’ve heard that both Roddy MacDowell and Uncle Miltie have the largest penises in Hollywood…” Although the details were interesting, they were difficult to follow.

One guy that Miguel had casually introduced to me earlier that evening, an older, responsibly dressed fellow named Marty, was whispering excitedly to Miguel at my right. Keeping my eyes fixed on the bore who was talking about the film, I leaned into Marty’s direction and listened:

“Well, he’s only in the damned place like once every two months or so. Particularly now, since he’s working in Paris.”

“Do you think burglars were watching the place?”

“I’m sure of it. Anyway, it was all insured but now the premium is going through the roof.”

“Well, I only wish I needed a place.” Carefully I propped my right elbow up on the table so that my hand was against my right ear limiting the peripheral noise.

“It is too bad,” Marty replied, “because you’re just the right type. I only wish I was gay.”

“Now what’s this compulsion he has with gays? Is he?”

“No, it’s just the opposite—he’s an insecure heterosexual. Also I think he thinks they’re clean or something.”

“Well, I’m a pig myself.” Miguel giggled. “What kind of rent is he charging?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s not a money question.”

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Nada,” Miguel replied tiredly. “What’s new with you?”

“Nothing, I’ve been spending all my free time apartment hunting, and it’s really frustrating.”

“Rents are ridiculous.” Miguel replied.

“It’s not that. Frankly I think that they’ve been deliberately restricting me because I’m gay.”

Miguel glanced over to Marty.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Marty asked casually before taking a sip of his fruit compote.

“Oh, I’m not very selective. Heck, I don’t even mind room-mating with someone so long as they’re clean.”

“It sounds preordained, Marty,” Miguel said outright.

“Preordained?”

“I think I might be able to help you,” Marty started.

“How?” I asked wide-eyed.

Marty told me in slow detail about a famous film director who was in his prime during the sixties but since then, due to a series of profitless films and subsequently a broken marriage, had been convalescing. Yet during the last five years or so, while hunting down backers, he had been slowly producing his last film, a real swan song.

“What’s his name?” I asked. He didn’t want to tell me just yet: this only whetted my appetite all the more.

“Orson Welles?” I asked, knowing that at the time Welles was desperately trying to make a swan song film and had trouble getting backing.

“No,” Marty replied, only adding that the filmmaker had no immediate plans to live steadily in New York. The great director had lived his life in several countries and probably spent more time in lofty transit than anywhere else, keeping an operation center/bachelor pad in almost every glamorous world capital. In New York, for instance, he had purchased a spacious SoHo loft when lofts were still just warehouse space flooding the market. He stocked his large space with many valuables, captured after long and great safaris in endless auctions, galleries, boutiques, and curio shops.

“Is it Zeferelli?” I asked, knowing that he had a fear of wide open spaces.

“No,” Marty replied, rambling on about how over the years the great director had fallen from lofty metaphysicist to staunch empiricist. Marty explained how other renegade materialists had appropriated his goods. In other words, he had been burglarized three times this year alone.

“Huston?” I asked.

“No.”

“Kubrick?”

“No.”

“Capra?”

“Capra? No!” Suddenly I felt Miguel nudging me under the table. My catlike curiosity was getting the better of me. I apologized and listened.

“He wants a house sitter. That’s all you’ll need to know now.”

“What sort of rent range does he have in mind?”

“He’ll probably only be asking for a nominal rent to see that you’re responsible. But the catch is that occasionally he does come to the city, and during those few times he’ll probably want the place to himself.”

“You mean that he might just pop in at any moment and bang, I’ll have to split?”

“Unfortunately.”

“No matter what hour of the night?”

“It’s not like that. He’s extremely formal. If he comes to the city once a month, I’d be amazed. And actually I guarantee that he’ll notify you well in advance.”

“Sounds good.”

“Good, but he’ll have to meet you first. Understand that nothing will be in writing; all arrangements will be verbal.”

“Which means I’ll be unprotected. He’ll be able to chuck me out any time.”

“Unfortunately yes, but Sergei is a decent guy.” Eisenstein had died in the forties. What other great directors were named Sergei?

“Keep in mind,” Marty continued, “that in essence you’re getting something for nothing.”

“What country is Sergei from?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Listen,” Marty continued. “This might sound a bit strange, but if you really want this place, a word of advice is look now.”

“Now?”

“He’s very taken by those who are very gay and very fashionable, very ‘now.’”

“You do look more ‘then.’ For a posh loft,” Miguel stated, “looking ‘now’ is a pretty small trade.”

“All right,” I replied, without the slightest notion of how I was supposed to transform into this ideal image. But if there was indeed an apartment in the balance I’d certainly try to tip the scale to my favor somehow. I agreed to find the proper attire, and then trying to contain the excitement amidst all the noise and cigarette smoke, I pardoned myself for a brief suck of air.