comes forward, a small man, chubby, late thirties, wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black pants, black watch cap. Says, “Thank you very much it’s great to be here.” Says, “I’ve got books and tapes for sale after the show.”
Begins performing. Screams the word “vomit.” Shouts, “Libyan Students From Hell.” Shouts, “Love is like two maggots colliding at the bottom of a dirty pail.”
Jay whispers, “Excuse me,” and departs for the back of the cafe.
Attila grabs his mandolin, sings a song called “GRRRR.” Sings, “I’m a Rapping Mole from a Leaky Hole.” Sings, “Every time I eat vegetables it makes me think of you.”
The audience giggles, claps. A man with a grey beard yells, “Awright!”
Jay returns with coffee for himself and two chocolate chip cookies, also for himself.
Attila gets serious, wipes his brow, says he’s got something heavy to read, says he wrote it last week and hopes he can get through it, a poem about a young mother dying from cancer. He gets through it, voice trembling.
Beside me Jay is crying silently—wet cheeks, quivering jaw.
Attila picks up his mandolin again, asks, “Do you want to hear more?” Someone yells, “Go for it!!” And Attila reads: “Here’s to you the septic few, here’s to ’84 and ’5 when all our dreams took another dive … ”
It goes on for fifteen minutes.
When he’s done he delivers his pitch, shows us where his books are stacked on a table by the wall, thirty copies of a single title and tapes by the same name. Tells us he’s one of the few poets he knows making a living off his work. Says he’s been all over—Australia, the States, Germany—and he’s been doing this for fifteen years. Says he’s a dedicated man.
He’s selling books by the fist load; there’s a line-up at the book table. He’s charging twenty dollars for a sixty-two-page book that has a clearly marked price of five pounds on the cover. “One at a time,” he’s telling the crowd. “Easy does it.”
A woman in a wheelchair who’s been parked behind me leans forward and taps me on the shoulder. “You know,” she says proudly, “I’m also a writer … I wonder if you’d move these chairs out of the way so I can get to the book table.” She’s anxious Attila will sell all his books before she gets there. “Save one for me!” she shouts above the din.
I personally wheel her to the table. “Excuse me, please, make way…”
When I return to my table, Jay has gone.
I pack up to leave the café. By now Attila has sold all his books and tapes and is arguing with the emcee. Saying, “Can you give me another two hundred for the reading? Saying, “I know we agreed on the price, but go ask your Arts Council, okay?”
Dancing through the doorway by myself.
THE WHITE SATIRE
THE BRIDE’S DRESS WAS BEAUTIFUL. It was made of white satire and flowed about her in an elegant trample.
The wedding ceremony took place on a revolving stair and was conducted by the lead guitarist of a local rock group. Afterwards, the groom bowed and the bride did a ballerina curtsy. The audience was huge and everyone applauded. But the groom had had enough by then and became slack and cold. Now the bride saw him as a thin and sour manager. The man in her mind had fled!
A dear friend stepped in and became the stand-in groom. Together they greeted the guests. There was no harm in this. Everyone thought the stand-in was the groom.
As for the real groom, he was never seen again.
“What lucre!” cried the bride.
Now she gives talks on wedding preparations to dazed young wits. They all want a white satire like hers.
“White satires are essentially harmless and delightful,” the bride tells them. “Setting is important, of course, but anything loose will do—a hallucination, the great outrageous. A reluctant groom is useful for the photographs but if one isn’t available, a stand-in will do. After that … pfft! And make sure the minister is novel.”
The young wits are taking notes. “Reluctant groom,” they write. “Novel!” “Hallucination!” “Outrageous!“ “Delight!”
IN THIS INSTANCE
AN ELEPHANT AS LARGE AS A MOUNTAIN is tethered to the centre of the world, a desert where white horses lie dead on their backs, their legs pointing stiffly upwards. The elephant moves slowly; he is the engine that turns the world.
Always in this world there are people laughing together, oblivious of the elephant’s patient work. In this instance it is two women, arm in arm, wearing cotton summer dresses and carrying parasols, speaking excitedly while they traverse the desert.
“But surely,” one says, “there must be one true reality!”
“Yes,” replies her friend. “Some place not decorated by vision but simply there, like an enormous blank canvas.”
“But then we’d paint upon that canvas and a vision would be created.”
“Or we’d speak of it and confine it with our words.”
“It’s a problem, certainly,” says the first woman. “But what I wouldn’t give for one good truth, one large understanding that I could hold onto!”
“How about this?” the second woman offers. And she closes her eyes, reciting, as if from memory. “An elephant turns the world. White horses die. We walk around them.”
And then skip together across sand and stone.
DOWN THE ROAD TO ETERNITY
IT’S OFFICIAL. I’ve seriously decided to freeze my brain.
I couldn’t wait to tell Mother. I was so excited I raced over to the Cormac McCarthy Retirement Commune, the place she co-founded for elderly freaks. She was in her room, beading another necklace. Cannabis smoke hung in the air like an incredibly hip deodorizer.
Once again I marveled at how good Mother looked: tall and slim and tanned like an aged version of The Girl From Impanema. She was barefoot in her purple tie-dyed caftan; feathers and beads were twined through her long grey hair.
“Freezing brains!” I could hardly contain my glee. “It’s the latest hope. Technology will make us eternal.”
“Why go on suffering forever?” Mother asked, bored. “I thought the whole point was to end the cycle of birth and rebirth.”
“That’s your point, not mine,” I said.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Again,” she said, “What’s the big
