Excerpt from Apology 8/9/94
8/9/94
Thursday night finds me drinking with Ornelia and her Indian roommate Mina. We are on the patio of Cafe 210 sharing a Carafe of red wine. An unanticipated rainstorm erupts and we move under the awning to avoid the downpour. I sit beside Mina, a small woman with beautiful sharp features who seems to have an impenetrable wall around her insides. As the wine disappears and the night goes on we are joined by Walter, a dubious suitor of Ornelia's who is accompanied by his girlfriend.
In my mind something about the atmosphere seems off kilter. Walter's girlfriend is shooting loathsome darts from her dark eyes. First at Ornelia, then Mina, then glaring at me as if a question mark is sitting atop her crown. Walter chatters to the wind, his attention obviously agitated by Ornelia's presence. Mina and I have gotten into an animated discussion on the trials of being a first generation Indian woman.
In the midst of the conversation I catch a glimpse of Ornelia. She sits quietly as if taken by a deep sadness. In that moment I feel like I can see through her. Simultaneously she appears like a lonely child, a tearful red-faced clown, and a worn old woman grasping at the beauty and gayety of youth.
But these are merely fleeting thoughts and the discussion on India continues. Walter has lapsed into a private conversation with his girlfriend. Again I notice Ornelia, only now her countenance is that of the cruel bitch.
Throughout the evening she has been making a gesture of keeping the smoke from her Marlboro cigarettes from wafting into the breathing space of the non-smoking Mina. Now, with a cool, empty expression on her face she blows a long, slow cloud directly into Mina's profile.
My thoughts disturb me. I can't decide whether I'm suffering from overactive imaginings, or I am in heightened perception discerning the ulterior motives of all present.
The next hour finds us at Zinos. Again there is a roaring crowd. Ornelia has become rambunctious. Her vocabulary has taken a vulgar tone. She, Mina, and I are crammed onto a small bench. Ornelia and I share a glass of wine as she speaks in disconnected spurts.
"There he is again", she points to a large, longhaired man who she shared a mostly sexual relationship with. "He always sees us together. I'm sure his filthy little mind thinks I'm gonna be fucking you tonight. Good! Let him. He lost his chance.
Mina is whispering to me hints of a lost love who broke her heart. I tell her she is intelligent and beautiful and could get lots of guys. To my surprise, and perhaps for the first time since I have met her, Minas shield seems to come down. She looks happy and grateful for the compliment. Her face seems to beam with happiness.
The alcohol is kicking in now and I try to conceal the stagger in my step as I head towards the mens room. Everything appears increasingly cock-eyed. Mina is craving pancakes-immediately! - so we move on to a nearby diner.
Walter had long ago departed. On the way to the diner we find he has dumped his girlfriend in order to accompany us on our way. Once in the diner Walter has ceased to exist. His words fill the air as he desperately interjects himself into the conversation, but I do not hear him.
Ornelia appears to me like a rampage of shattered crystal. I can't quite comprehend what anyone speaks about. The reticent Mina is giving me the thumbs up over the pancakes and there is an argument about the water smelling like worms and Clorox. The fey waiter is giving speeches. Ornelia is debating breaking her eight months of celibacy for the ex-beau at Zinos, Walter is mocking the women, and Mina can't remember the name of the Hindu god with the long angry tongue that haunted her childhood home.
It is a simple carefree evening out with friends. Why then does it seem filled with double meanings, sordid empathy, and misplaced desperation? This happy moment seems undercut with sadness and longing. I lay down to sleep feeling as if taken by madness. I see too much. And what I perceive behind the eyes and actions of my friends breaks my heart and makes socializing almost unbearable a
posted by Caeser Pink @ 12:23 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I love the art of people watching. I could change the names here and describe countless scenes I’ve seen and gone through. What’s funny is that once you discover what is going on, nothing seems to be as much fun as it was in the past. I think the real problem is that when you think too much you seem to see behind all the cloaks of civility and the masks of decorum. Suddenly you realize that nobody really cares about you deeply, everything is always about a feature or something one is interested in.
In the past I was deeply tortured during moments like this. I felt like running away and screaming, the only thing I wanted to do was to go home and sink my head in my pillow, go back to my loneliness and to myself. For me there was no point in conversing with people who couldn’t care less for what was happening or how I was feeling. I could go on forever about how sad and depressed I was and the next day my friend wouldn’t call me to check on me. But I was sure that all the while I was talking to her the only thing crossing her mind was that she liked me for six years and couldn’t get me out of her head. The point is, I knew she liked me, I had known that for a long time but she didn’t know about it. I never really gave her any hopes, after all my thing is men, but even so, while I was there, she was mesmerized, when I was gone, I was invisible.
What’s the point in all that? Lately it’s better for me to stay home, write, sing and read. I befriend dead authors and people who cannot contact me unless they talk to me from outer space. There is always the feeling that there is someone out there that will understand, there is the certainty that I’m Anaïs and sooner or later I will find Henry and give him everything I have. I guess what I want to say is that sometimes – and I don’t know if with you the same thing happens – the only thing I would like to hear is the truth. The truth even if it would break my bones. Even if it would throw me in the precipice.
I could understand and I understand whims. I am shallow and I am vain. What I don't understand is double talk. Is there any real people in this world?
And then there is this, a homemade translation of a poem that fits the text (I think..):
Poem in a straight line
I've never met someone who had been thrashed
All my acquaintances have been champions in everything.
And I, repeatedly gullible, repeatedly a swine, repeatedly vile,
Unforgivably dirty.
I, that so many times haven't had the patience to take a shower,
I, that so many times have been ridiculous, absurd,
That have stumbled publicly on the doormats of etiquette,
That have been grotesque, greedy, submissive and arrogant,
That suffered humiliations and was silent,
And when I wasn't silent I was even more ridiculous;
I, that have been comical to the hotel maids,
I, that have felt the winking of the taxi drivers,
I, that have been through financial embarrassment, borrowing and never
paying back,
I, that when the time for the blow to strike me came, kept crouched
To the outside of the possibility of the blow;
I, that have suffered the angst of the small, ridiculous things,
I verify that I don't have any pair for all this in the world.
All the people that I know and that speak to me
Have never committed a ridiculous action, have never been humiliated,
Have never been anything other than princes -- all of them, princes --
in life...
What I wouldn't give to hear from someone the human voice
That would confess not a sin, but an infamous action;
Which would tell me, not about violence, but about cowardice!
No, everybody is the ideal, if I hear them and they tell me.
Who, in this vast world, is to confess me that he was once vile?
Oh princes, oh my brothers,
Aye, I'm sick of demigods!
Where are there real people in the world?
Hence I'm the only one that is vile and erroneous in this land?
Women may never have loved them,
They may have been betrayed -- but ridiculous, never!
And I, that have been ridiculous without being betrayed,
How can I talk to my superiors without hesitating?
I, that have been vile, literally vile,
Vile in the greedy and infamous sense of vileness.
~~ Alberto Caeiro
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