I sat at a table in the second floor balcony overlooking the bar. I had my laptop open before me. Not so much because I had something to write, but because I had decided that being a writer was a very attractive thing. I was certain that if I sat in a public enough place looking very writer-like, the perfect woman would stumble across me and, she being somewhat naive, be intrigued by me. This would be as it should since I had gone to no little trouble to affect the proper image. I had even grown a goatee to create that initial, bohemian aura.
The first week of planning, I had walked around the house with a pipe in my mouth, but I do not have a pipe-smoking mouth. It did not come off well. I tried to dress younger than I am and to find subtle ways to hide my very bald head, but I came to believe that age is important to the credibility of the writer. My head was proudly uncovered. Gold, round-rimmed glasses were the final affectation. They added that slightly egghead, too-cool-to-care-about-appearance look that one must work very hard to achieve.
The bar was chosen not for the women that frequented it, but because it best fit the image I was trying to create. And it had Guinness on tap. I am not sure how well Guinness fit into the image of the bohemian writer, but it really didn't matter. Some things are too important to sell out.
It was here in the bar that I first saw her. She had thick, brown hair wound in loose curls that fell just short of her shoulders. Looking back, it is perhaps here that I should question my taste (and not hers, as you might suspect). The curls were like those that adorned the head of Shirley Temple. And her face was full with pouting lips. Her eyes were a deep brown, warm and secure. She wore a white flannel button-down shirt with the collar falling down her back. Even that innocent flesh sent chills through me. She wore a tight, black skirt that came to her ankles. Her body was exquisite, though I dare not say it filled me with a consuming passion.
I had drunk through the afternoon shift and, though I had not written a word, I felt that I looked as if I would at any moment. She came just as I drained the last of my glass and waited silently for my gaze. And, when I offered, she returned it with such intensity that I thought I might drown.
"My name is Anna," she said, "and I will be taking over your bill. Your server is off now."
I stared blankly, thinking that I should say something clever. No things clever came to mind and, therefore, none to mouth.
"What is your last name?" I asked from nowhere.
"Why do you ask?"
"I am a writer you see", I said, looking helplessly at the keyboard in front of me. She eyed me as if she had slept with a hundred men who had pulled this very same scam, but decided to learn her lesson today. I tried to cringe, only to discover that the syrupy thickness of the beer had invaded my neural pathways. I could almost see the impulse to cower trudging through the gumminess of my mind, becoming lost in a trek down my spinal column and then moving like an army of snails through my extremities. Had I spoken the command to myself I think that I would have had more success.
"Sometimes names are the inspiration for masterwork," I offered. She eyed me with suspicion.
"Would you like another Guinness?" she asked.
"Oh yes!" I said, feeling as if that would offer safety.
"Livia," she said and turned and walked away. I cringed.
As I sat there wanting to make myself the center of her attention and to erase my ever having spoken to her both at the same time, I realized that I had something to write. My tongue might not be so quick...especially when thick with drink, but my brain was not addled. Sometimes I could actually be clever. I would write her letters. Letters to Anna. I rolled her name around in my head. Anna Livia. It flowed so easily, winding its way through my head to my heart. Would no one rise to stop the invasion?
She appeared, in the mist of my daydream, and set my stout before me. I said nothing, but stared drunkenly until it sunk in that her face was not altogether kind.
"Thank you," I mumbled and cast my eyes down as if I were in the midst of my work. I knew that I should not drink another beer, but how could I not? Delicious, dark and into my mouth as if the two things were made to be together.
It was not until the next morning that the first letter came. And it came early. Eve hardly stirred as I leaned over the edge of the bed and heaved (drily), trying to expel the poisons. I had hoped to sleep through this experience, but the words, the idea would not let me sleep. It was a war. An invasion. She had invaded me and, though I had no wish to expel her, the only peace for me was to subdue her.
I dragged myself to my study, waste basket in hand. If I didn't write it, the words might escape. Might vanish into nothing. The computer came to life with a buzz of whirring disks that seemed to mimic my stomach. My head. Through the half-fog, I wrote:
Anna,
I am writing this to formally declare war on you. Not on your physical self per se, but I leave my armies to lay siege upon your affections. This act of passionate aggression does not come without provocation, for truly I have been invaded by the forces of your wit and overwhelming beauty. Within this fortress of flesh and bone, there is no peace. My own country has turned on me in your favor. Ghost armies are constructed to wage war in my sleep and, for an instant, I believe they are flesh. To be sure, your method of wage is more clever than my own for you need not even fight; but a look or a word from you and my cities rise against me. Your name is called in rhythm to the sustenance delivered through my body and, though that beat is strong, it is hunger that comes from my feeding.
It is not my intention to conduct a brutal war and I will burn no cities in my wake. Any fire I set is not for the art of destruction, but creation; and though these flames may be all the more powerful, their gifts are equally so. I cannot, in my heart, take the field against an unwilling opponent, so I offer you this promise. A word from you and I will lay my arms at your feet. Not another hand will be raised if you only ask that it be so. However, your silence will be taken as tacit consent and there will be no peace until all resistance is pacified. Be warned, my methods are not so much less clever than your own even burdened as they are by consciousness. It may be that you think your walls are secure a moment before they collapse before you.
In Honor and respect,
I had no name to sign. I couldn't sign my own, because she worked in my favorite bar. If things went south, I didn't want to lose my Guinness at The Straw Road. I considered Commandante Marcos, after my favorite rebel, but I felt that I needed something of my own roots as well. I finally settled on Commandante Eamon, paying homage to the Irish De Valera. I became the hybrid-patriot, fighting for my country.
I puzzled, for a time, over the method of delivery. It was not so easy as it might seem. If I delivered it myself then my anonymity would be victim and facelessness is the rebel's best friend. Even if I were to lay the letter on the bar without a word, I might be seen.
It was a match box from The Straw Road that finally got me to think. It was as simple as mailing it to Anna, care of The Straw Road. The post office box was already there, the result of frequent address changes and not of some imagined scheme. I set the letter to printing and went back to bed, trash can in hand.
I awoke several hours later with not so much of the misery that accompanied my first waking. I was pleased with myself. For the letter. I had a burning desire to share it with someone so that they could assure me of how clever I was. A desire I would very soon regret.
Eve, having not drunk a river the night before, awoke before me. I found her on the couch, watching television, with the letter in her hand. I wanted to ask what she thought. Did she think it would work? Would she be intrigued by such a letter? Indeed, she was that. I didn't ask any of the questions I wanted to ask, because they were all of the sort that could cause a serious housing crisis.
"What are you watching?" I asked, passing into the kitchen.
"Silence of the Lambs," she said.
"That movie scares me," I shivered.
"It's art."
"Art has always scared me," I admitted. I heard the rustle of the letter in her hand and I stiffened.
"Nice letter," she said cagily. Yes!!!
"Do you really think so?" I beamed in spite of myself.
"I do. It must be quite a special person who inspires a letter like this." Piss. This was not where I wanted to go with the conversation.
"Person?" I questioned, as if the notion were new to me. The pain of my earlier waking came creeping back into the pit of my stomach. Why did I leave the letter? I knew that one. Because I was about to yak my socks.
"Yes, this, uh, Anna, must be a very special person."
I laughed a teetering laugh that might have bordered on hysteria. "Oh, you mean that person. Yes, she is very special." I am far too good at that game for my own good. I take it for granted and that is never healthy.
"I would hope, since you are writing her letters while you are living in my house," she said, turning sharply. Did I mention a housing crisis? I smiled my most disarming smile. I read once, in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, about monks on some planet or other who had learned to smile in a way so friendly that it could actually be used to lure, trap and kill small animals. Eve was not so small.
"Anna," I said softly, "is a character in the story that I have been trying to write." The tension eased out of her face, but I should have seen the suspicion left in her eyes. I didn't even look. As I said, too good for my own good. And not good enough. I should have known that Eve would be the key.
I held on to the letter for a few more days, thinking that the conversation might not be over, but when it failed to resurface, I mailed the letter without incident. From the moment the letter left my hand and fell into the mail box, my mind was alive with creativity. It was amazing. Exciting. Like holding a lottery ticket and not checking to see if the numbers won or lost, but allowing the possibilities to remain alive.
I lost my nerve for writing at The Straw Road for the week. I felt like it must be obvious who wrote the letter, though I know now it was not. I was not ready to face her, but the curiosity was eating away at me. Had she gotten the letter at all? What if she liked it? What if she were really impressed? At week's end I called my friend, the Great O'Neill, to meet for a Guinness.
I knew that it was a mistake. O'Neill, in a bar, was a danger to himself and others...most especially if that other happened to be me. I used to joke that his mother would not recognize me without O'Neill unconscious in my arms. We had been friends for an eternity (how old does that make his mother?) and, since high school, this was the scene at the end of nearly all of our nights out. Fortunately, we were older now and the one ordeal I could avoid was his mother at the end of the night. As to the rest of the evening, one could never be certain what event would become the focal point, but one could be certain that it would involve regret.
When I arrived, O'Neill was already seated at the bar. I made to join him and found him halfway through a beer, contemplating a shot of Absolut.
"You're late," he said. I looked at my watch.
"I'm early. It's only five till eight."
He eyed me with suspicion and threw back the shot. It was a bad sign. When O'Neill did shots he hated to do them alone. I would refuse to join him, of course, and then join him in spite of myself. I wanted to talk to him, but I knew that the Absolut would hang between us for the balance of the evening and talking would be pointless.
"Let's get a table, " I said and moved back to the entrance to negotiate with the hostess. O'Neill tossed a few bucks on the bar, grabbed his beer, and followed me. We managed to get a booth in the front, but O'Neill took the north side looking out to the entrance. The best position, to be sure.
"We have to get you caught up," O'Neill said with an evil grin taking over his face. "Where's our waitress?"
"We don't have a waitress yet and we don't need to get me caught up. I am not doing shots with you." He laughed and took a drink of beer.
"I'm gonna find our waitress," he said and waded off into the bar.
I was fucked and I knew I was fucked. I don't know why I ever bothered to feign resistance, because I knew full-well that I would be crocked by the end of the night, no matter what protests I made now. These days, I guess, it was ritual as much as anything.
I stared into the crowd, telling myself that I was looking for O'Neill, but really hoping to catch sight of Anna. I scanned with vague focus until a pair of eyes caught mine and demanded my attention. The blur became an image and my stomach dropped. Angelo Von Plunderung. He gave me a smile that was more suggestive of bared teeth and held up his beer. I nodded greeting, feeling all over ill.
"To you," he mouthed and took a drink, turning back to the bar. I stared at the table, not wanting to risk his eyes again.
We had been boyhood friends, Von Plunderung and I. We stayed pretty close all they way up to college, really, but then things got a little weird. He went east, spending some time studying in Germany and Italy and got caught up in the whole Western Reductionist mode of thinking. I went west to the edge of the world and tripped holistically Eastern.
Not so odd on the surface. College is about finding yourself--your passion--whatever that might be; but it got to Angelo on some deeper level. He could not satisfy himself with our difference, becoming haughty and seemingly obsessed with converting me to his way of thinking. We hardly spoke these days.
O'Neill returned, smiling and folding his wallet. An odd thing about O'Neill, he always bought drinks. Even when he couldn't make his rent. I was never sure if it was an act of sadism or comraderie on his part, but it seemed to give him pleasure. From my perspective it was pure sadism. I regretted the following morning already.
"I am not doing shots," I protested, and then followed meekly with, "And what am I not drinking, anyway?"
"Turgesius and Absolut," he stated
"Turgesius?" I'd never heard of it.
"Yeah, its..." he lifted the bottle and studied it. "Norwegian beer."
"Norwegian? They're damaged, you know?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Not right in the head," I said. "Too many water-logged soccer balls. Brain damaged."
"All the best beer makers are." He said it with such conviction that I almost believed him.
"Crazy?" I puzzled.
"Look at the Irish." There was a point if ever I saw one. Great beer makers, the Irish, but a wee bit daft to be sure. No arguing that.
And then she was there. As if she had always been and we had just taken notice. She smiled at O'Neill as she delivered the drinks.
"Looks like you two are taking things easy tonight," she teased.
"Just getting started," declared O'Neill. She smiled and drifted back into the crowd. I watched quietly, my tongue bound by sobriety. An interesting dilemma. I could not speak when sober and badly when drunk. I felt conspicuous. As if everyone was reading my face and laughing.
"How did you know?" I asked O'Neill.
He laughed. He always knew. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Von Plunderung, his gaze fixed on Anna. I shivered.
"All right. What about the Germans? German beer has quite a reputation and, though they are undoubtedly crazy, it is not in any way the same craziness found in the Norwegians or the Irish."
"True. But the Germans have never made a great beer. They make dependable beers. Just like everything else with the Germans, they are serious about their beer. Like a business. They work very hard at it and make a perfectly adequate beer--one might even say 'good'. But they don't make great beers. Without that craziness, they don't take the necessary risk that bridges the gap between utilitarian and genius. Put a gap before a German and what do you get? A bridge. Put it before a madman and you get an airplane. See what I mean?"
I threw back my shot of Absolut and the reasoning began to become clear. Really, it makes sense. Or, it made sense. I never made bridges. Of course, I never made airplanes either. Sketches of airplanes. Plans for airplanes. Theories. Guesses. But no airplanes.
"Yeah, I see," I said, thinking. "Did you know Von Plunderung was here tonight?"
"Angelo?" he asked, cocking one eye.
"The very same," I assured.
"And he hasn't come to share a drink?" he laughed, his voice thick with sarcasm.
"No," I said, "but he has his eyes on her."
"Anna?" he asked.
I nodded.
"A desire of his own, or just to spite you?" asked O'Neill.
"Is there a difference?" I said with a dry smile. We both laughed.
"Alright'" I said, moving back. "What about we Americans. United Stateseans, that is. We have the business slant of the Germans, but our beers just suck!"
"True enough! But the problem is simple. Business, like everything else, can be taken from many an angle and here in the States it is all about selling not producing. The product is not nearly so important as the presentation. The coup for U.S. beer makers is in the market share, and the road of choice is advertising; not product. It could be cow piss and people would still buy it, because the ads are the real product."
"Ah, American beer. Like making love in a canoe..."
We toasted the sentiment with the Turgesius. Not bad for a bunch of brain damaged Vikings. It was welcome after all.
All that night while we drank, I could see her. She hid in a corner with a book every chance she got. Her eyes were brilliant, reflecting the tale before her and I burned with the need to know what she read. The more Absolut and Turgesius she carried to me, the bolder I became. Inside, at least. I didn't say a word to her, but felt as if I might at any moment.
O'Neill seemed oblivious to her beauty, though he encouraged her presence for the sake of drink. And drink we did. I began to develop a taste for the new stuff and seemed to forget my favorite draught for a time. Along with the bravery that they delivered came also an intense need to piss. I could not resist.
I passed her on the way to the bathroom and resolved that I would speak to her on my way back to the table. She had looked at me as I passed. Bathed me in her gaze. She seeped into my every pore; the breath of my skin. I felt an urgency I would have been wise to ignore, but I was certain that I would go mad if I didn't fall at her feet and declare my undying love. The trouble was that I was already quite mad--or, at least, piss-ass drunk--and so much so that I was looking backward through the looking glass.
As I came to pass her again, she looked up from her book. This time I did not fear drowning, but demanded the depths. I held her eyes firmly and spoke.
"You are so beautiful!" I declared. She blushed slightly, but did not drop her gaze. Modest, but confident. Perfection.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"I just had to tell you...that you are so beautiful..." It became obvious to me that I had given not a moment's thought as to what I would say to her and, sadly, it was about to become obvious to her as well. A state of emergency declared itself inside my head and a chorus of voices came to rescue me from my embarrassment. Sanity is often difficult to recognize when one is not suffering under the yoke of an invader as I was under the influence of alcohol. It was impossible for me.
"What are you reading," I heard one voice say only to realize this one spoke aloud. In the confusion, it had commandeered my mouth without approval.
"Pride and Prejudice," she said, smiling.
The renegade seemed to have hit upon something. Her eyes were bright and open. A connection had been made.
"For what class?" I enquired.
"It is not for a class," she explained. "It is my favorite book. I've read it a hundred times."
I had read it once and under duress at that. But as I ran the story through my head it was Anna that I saw as the young Miss Bennet and now the novel was decidedly brilliant.
"Are you a literature major?" I said waiting for the doors to open wide.
"I am not in college." The doors closed. For a moment my resolve wavered. She was a peasant. But then I reminded myself of the Mighty Handful in Russia. How they praised the peasant culture with the very art that ran roughshod over it for centuries. If my Anna were a peasant, I would be her Mighty Handful, singing out her virtues.
"So you are from here?" I asked, attempting to pry my way back in.
"Yes." Her eyes were distant and I decided to retreat.
"I should get back to my table," I mumbled. When I turned, Angelo's eyes were on me, laughing. I flushed and made my retreat.
"Is she bringing us another round?" O'Neill wanted to know.
"Hmmm? Oh, no. I was asking her about her book," I said.
"What is she reading?"
"Pride and Prejudice."
"For a class?"
"No," I replied, still feeling the pain of that error. "It is her favorite book."
"So she's a whore!" he laughed.
"A whore?" I questioned, shocked that anyone could think such a thing.
"Sure. If she admires Elizabeth Bennet."
"Elizabeth Bennet was no whore," I declared.
"Nothing but," he returned. "A slut. Like a Catholic school girl, opening her thighs to all comers! Or, at least, all wealthy comers!" He laughed.
"How so?" I asked, feeling defensive.
"She is out for nothing but money," he explained. "Marriage is nothing more than a rung on the social ladder to her!"
"On the contrary, she turned down a marriage that would have secured her family estate because there was no love," I countered.
It was nearly 10:00 p.m. and my stomach began to sour from the drink. O'Neill, on the other hand, seemed to thrive. His eyes blazed and I knew the debate would not end easily.
"If it was love she was after," he pressed, "then why did she marry Darcy?"
"Because she finally discovered him to be a kind and wonderful man."
"And it is merely coincidence that she happened to discover this at the same time that she first saw his estate and discovered how rich he truly was? Pemberley put her father's estate to shame."
"But it was the words of the servants that turned her heart and not the wealth," I said, my passion rising. And it was not lost on me that the peasants were the trusted bearers of truth. "She thrives on the heart and it is that organ which her suitors must satisfy. She may let a hundred such hopefuls into her blood, but the heart expels all save the one that delivers the only true sustenance!"
"Money for a cardio-thoracic specialist?" he dug.
Anna arrived at our side.
"Another round?" she offered. It was this moment that my stomach chose to rise up.
"I can't take another drink," I declared and headed for the door with O'Neill's laughter ringing behind me.
I fell to my knees in the alley outside and began to remove the poisons from my body. By the time that O'Neill came out to check on me, my stomach was nearly empty.
"This may be a record," he laughed. "Almost a quarter after ten and you are already down for the night!"
"baughroooooooomaaaaagggghhh!" I heaved and spit the last of Turgesius from my mouth. My stomach emptied, but the aftertaste and smell remained. Any hope of a second letter from this night lay dashed by my own, miserable performance. The closest I came to writing was a line or two for a suicide note.
I think that it all would have ended there were it not for Eve. Some of her colleagues from work decided to meet for drinks at The Straw Road and Eve insisted that I be there with her. It was an agony that I could scarcely endure. An evening surrounded by mathematicians. Of course, the Una-bomber was a mathematician by training, but the majority are not as well adjusted or interesting as he.
My protests had not fallen on deaf ears, but certainly unsympathetic ones. I felt compelled to write another letter so that, even as my person suffered unspeakable humiliation in the presence of Anna, my persona might survive within her imagination.
I tried to write the letter several times, but it was only in sleep that the words seemed clear. I found myself, once again, driven from my bed in the wee hours. It had been nothing more than a dream till Eve laid her arm by my head. She had stolen my watch from me and, try as I might, I could never get her to take it off for sleep. Its tick drove me to wake and waking drove me to write:
Anna,
It is the gray stillness of early morning and the relentless tick of my own watch encircling my lover's wrist (did you imagine I slept alone?) has driven me from my bed. These are the hours when the imagination is able to etch its own reality on the formless twilight. When desire seems able to exert its will over the physical world. It is here that I live. Create. Thought may spring eternal, but its survival is precarious. The morning light too often finds me empty handed in the sunlight razed fields of my imagination.
This morning, you are my sole desire. To draw you into the strangeness that is my world. I wonder, are you of it? Here, I am that I am. Have I created you? Do I know the soul of this magnificent woman or do I imagine it? You are no less real, whichever the answer be.
Madness and chaos. Lovers are like jazz, striving for perfection through give and take. Intuition and knowledge. To grasp it is to let it go. Depth beyond explanation and it is here that I want to take you. That together we become the moment that Monk leaves his piano to dance.
Are you my Elizabeth Bennet? My prize that is no object? Jacob gave seven years to win his Rachel, only to find Leah in his bed. No trick is more common, that our lovers are illusions. I want to make you real. To have you stand with me when the sunlight strikes the field and have no doubt which is the shadow cast. I would rather another day never be born than to know the fear of your absence.
in Honor and respect,
Commandante Eamon
To my credit, I did not print it and go back to bed. This time, I waited till Eve awakened and was safely gone to work. Then I printed it, stuck it in an envelope, and walked it to the post office, downtown. All went off without a hitch and, this being done on Wednesday, the letter would probably arrive a few hours before the geek-troop and myself on Friday evening.
I was pleased. Whatever the results of the evening, I would take solace in knowing that Anna would still have her illusions about her secret admirer. Of course now a little less illusion would be nice, but that night I am not so certain I would have felt the same way.
At first, things did not seem that bad. I felt lucky, in fact. When Eve and I arrived on Friday evening, The Straw Road was packed. I suffered under the certain belief that we would all be seated in Anna's section, but even that proved wrong. We ended up in Síobhan's section. She had always been pretty nice to me. Even a bit of a flirt, sometimes. Someone delivered me from my just lot. However, I was not to feel my fortune good for long.
Eve and I were the last to arrive--my fault of course--and Eve was very unhappy about the fact. It wasn't so much that I meant to make her late as I just discovered it was not in my nature to deliver myself up without a fight. When Eve threatened to lead me by the nose with the kitchen tongs, I laughed. When she brandished them, I surrendered.
Eve was angry that we were late, but not angry enough to tell the real story. Instead, she blamed our arrival on my inability to maneuver the car in the crowded parking lot. As all eyes met me in ridicule, I shrugged sheepishly and thought that to be the end. As we sat, however, one of Eve's co-workers decided it was not enough.
"So, you have trouble in tight spaces?" he asked. I knew rude, male humor was to follow.
"Apparently so," I said.
"Well," he beamed, "why didn't you just do a multi-point turn in zero space?"
"Huh?" I said.
"I can do an eleven point turn in zero space!" he laughed...or snorted...or honked...or something and then grabbed a napkin, pulling a pen from his shirt pocket. He proceeded to fill that napkin and two others with equations that he assured me would solve all my parking woes and were simple enough that any child could understand. Not this child. I knew only one thing to do. When Síobhan came, I said:
"Whiskey. Bushmills. Bring the bottle." I didn't know how many pounds of torque were required to open the bottle. I didn't know the optimal fulcrum placement for ease of tilt or the ratio of movement of said fulcrum for each ounce of liquid removed. I didn't know the probability equations that would fill my shot glass without ever opening the bottle. I just knew it was imperative that I drink myself senseless as quickly as possible.
And senseless I became. I don't remember much of the conversation and, of that, I am glad. What I do remember is this: As I faded further and further into my head, I became convinced that I needed to move on from Eve. She was my past and Anna was my future. Of this, I convinced myself. I knew that I wouldn't leave Eve on my own. A part of me recognized her as my protector, my shelter, my provider and, to be sure, she had been with me for a long time. Rather than motivate myself to leave, I needed to motivate Eve to leave me.
My eyes made their way around the table of mathematicians. Even with the forgiving eyes of a drunk, I was certain that our home would remain incomplete if I left Eve to her own devices. I needed to widen her scope. When Síobhan returned, I sprang into action.
"Excuse me," I said.
"Do you need another drink?" she asked. I struggled to catch up with the question and found my eyes had already moved to the bottle, predicting the outcome of my thinking. A good quarter left. I started to giggle. Pretty drunk, I was. I smiled a big, silly smile and looked back up from the bottle.
"Are there any good-looking men in this bar?" I queried. Síobhan looked at me cockeyed.
"I'm not sure," she said. "We could tour the bar and see if we can't find you a respectable man. Come with?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes, I will. Yes."
I struggled to find my feet and then we were up and away. The trip was not easy, involving as it did stairs and tight walkways among the tables. It did not involve any attractive men, however. There were some that one or the other of us thought might fit the bill, but not one who led us to agreement.
We ended up standing at the front doors checking out all the new meat as it came in. I'm surprised that Síobhan didn't get into trouble. We were pretty loud and most certainly rude in our judgements of the entering men. And it was full of laughter and abuse we were when Anna came upon us.
"What are you doing?" Anna whispered, though at some considerable volume, to Síobhan.
"Looking for a good man!" Síobhan laughed. Anna's face lit up with a smile and she looked as if she had no intention of leaving us.
"Could you stay with him for a few minutes?" Síobhan asked. "I have to check on my tables and I think he is best not left unattended." I looked, somewhat afraid, to Anna's face. She was smiling. Her eyes were bright and beautiful.
"No problem," she giggled.
Things could not have been better, I felt. Anna seemed so pleased to be there with me. We laughed and joked, scoping all the men that came in till Angelo walked through the door with Adrian.
Adrian and Angelo were brothers, though you wouldn't know it to look at them. Angelo had pale blue eyes that he claimed came from the Lochlann side of the family and a wisp of thin brown hair that recognized no relative. His skin was nearly white and clung to a rather gaunt frame.
Adrian, on the other hand, had all the features of his Italian father. Thick, dark hair. Olive skin. And eyes that were nearly black. The difference was odd because the brothers did share the same father, though Angelo wouldn't admit it. He claimed to be his own father, which I was once foolish enough to suggest created an interesting mother-son relationship. No wonder we were barely speaking.
Anyway, Adrian had worshipped their father till the day that old Clementi had walked out on the family. Angelo had told me about it once, but it was a pretty twisted tale and I never really understood it. When he left, his name went with him and Angelo d'Giuliano took his mother's maiden name, Von Plunderung.
Angelo saw me straight off.
"Padriota," he hissed. But when he noticed Anna beside me, his face sweetened quick enough. I smirked. So obvious.
"Angelo," I nodded, my smirk breaking into a smile. He walked past into the bar.
"What about him?" Anna asked, nodding toward Angelo. I couldn't help but laugh.
"I don't think that's quite what I'm looking for," I said.
"Not for you," she teased. "For me!" My face sobered.
"He's not for you," I insisted. "He and I used to be close..."
"Oh!" she interrupted. "I see."
I was confused, but satisfied.
She finally had to get back to work. She escorted me back to the table to be certain that no evil befell me on my own and I sat, grinning like an idiot for what seemed an eternity after she left.
"Who was that?" Eve asked.
"Anna." I said it and the idiot grin left my face, just when it seemed most appropriate. I tried hard to recover. To look serious so as to hide the sheer pleasure I derived in saying her name and to return my face to its foolish grin so it wouldn't look like I had just seen myself serve me up for execution. The resulting train wreck of expression must have been amusing, but it was lost on me. I watched Eve's face as it began to crumple in rage and then softened so quickly--so smoothly, that I wondered if I had seen the first at all.
"That name sounds familiar," she said, and turned to her friends. A cold chill went up my spine. I watched her face, but it betrayed no malice. A cool, smooth surface. I tried desperately to clear the drunken cloud from my head--to think through the situation, but when my muddled brain found answers it seemed unable to connect them with any questions. Nothing made any sense. I poured myself another shot.
And for the longest time I hung there just like that. No one spoke to me or even looked at me. It felt odd, like I was attending my own wake, but each shot of whiskey put me more at ease. And, just when I felt a sense of stability, Anna came walking toward me. All my mental energy concentrated on her advance. Enraptured, as any animal facing the awesome, sublime, power of disaster. There could be no doubt in her course. She was meant for me. I could only wait.
"Fin," she said, "I would like for you to meet Norman Fitzqueue." She moved gracefully to the side, revealing a very handsome man. His eyes were dark and sulking, though a glint of arrogance shown through. His thinning hair was perfectly tussled as if wind blown, but more likely mousse-sculpted. The stubble on his face was neatly trimmed to three days' growth and half moon reading glasses rested on his nose. The gall!!! He had bested me in my own bar! And he was impressive. His shoulders rounded slightly and his too-large clothes hung loosely from him.
I wondered at her cruelty. But when I looked to her face there was no mocking. She glanced at Eve and then met my eyes with a wink. Ah! She had picked him for me, not to mock me. Of course Eve would want him. He was a better me! Now only to convince him of his want for Eve...I smiled. The world was glorious once again.
"Norman," I said, offering my seat, "please, join us." He took my chair and I looked for an empty chair to commandeer. Anna was a radiant smile, watching me.
"Thank you, " I whispered.
"I thought you'd like him," she said.
"Yes," I confirmed, doing my best to look mischievous, "I think he'll do."
"Are you all such mercenaries?" she asked, laughing, and walked away. Yes, I think we are. I pulled over a chair and sat down.
"I'm Fin Padriota," I said to Norman, offering my hand.
"I know," he said with something of an accent. "Anna has told me all about you." I blushed, flattered that she knew a thing to tell. An accent. What a touch! I wish I had thought of it. French, I thought, though it was a bit odd.
"Where are you from?" Only one way to the bottom of it.
"Quebec," he said. Ah. More French than the French themselves. I once knew a man from Quebec...
"Norman," I said, "I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Eve." He paused for a moment and then gave me a knowing smile, as if to say 'I understand.' Anna had told him all about me! I didn't remember telling her why I was man-hunting, but she seemed to know it all.
"It is very nice to meet you, Eve." He said it coldly and turned back to me. The wrong way altogether for seducing Eve. She was a sucker for flattery, not indifference. I'd have to do something about that.
Eve hardly acknowledged him before she slipped back into conversation with the math-heads. What had seemed so simple was turning into a chore. I'd just do the reconnaissance on my own and feed my intelligence to Eve till she saw the light.
"You are a writer?" I asked.
"A poet," he replied. Better, unless you were cornered into showing your work. It is easier to fake prose. No matter. She didn't have to keep him. Just believe that she wanted to long enough to lose interest in me.
"Really?" I said, returning the favor of the 'knowing look'. "I'd love to see your work."
Norman smiled broadly. Out of character, I thought. "We could go to my apartment now, if you would like." How very odd to bluff me. Surely he knew that I knew he was not really a poet.
"I don't think I could drag Eve from her friends," I said.
He gave me a puzzled look and said, "We could go without her."
"I don't think so," I laughed. Where is the point in that? He looked down.
"Do you like mathematics?" I asked.
"You are a mathematician?" he said, looking up.
"No," I said, "Eve is. Very good, I'm told, but I don't understand a bit of it."
"What do you do?"
"Me?" I said in disbelief. "I'm a writer." I couldn't stop giggling. What a silly game we were playing.
"Is it because of your parents?" he asked me.
"That I became a writer?"
"No, no. I meant Eve," he said. "Are you seeing her because of your parents."
"Why on earth would they want that?" This conversation was obviously too much for my drunken state. "I don't think that they care who I'm with, just so long as I'm happy."
"That's good. A lot of parents don't see it that way. But I just don't understand why you are with her, then," said Norman.
"It was a mistake," I said. "I thought that she was what I wanted. That she could make me happy."
"We all go through that," he said, placing his hand softly on my shoulder.
Síobhan returned and offered us another round, but the math folks were giving the up the ghost. It was nearly thirty minutes before twelve on a weekend night. I had a few good hours, yet. I suggested that Eve, Norman and I make it a later night, but Eve declined and suggested bed. Norman offered to accompany me on an extended carouse, but showed little interest in a night cap at our place with Eve and myself. I gave up.
As we left, Síobhan pulled me to the side.
"What do you think?" she asked. "Anna's got an eye, doesn't she?"
"Yeah, he's great," I said, "but I can't seem to get he and Eve interested in one another."
Síobhan broke into laughter. "You are so funny!"
Eve and I said nothing to one another during the drive home. I was drunk and caught up in my plotting. What could I do to draw them together?
As we dressed for bed, I asked Eve what she had thought of Norman.
"Frankly," she said, "I don't understand why this Anna person is trying to fix up my boyfriend with men."
"What!?!" I said, trying to catch up.
"You knew he was gay, right?" A moment of clarity followed by a sinking feeling of disaster. Ah.
I found myself waking in soft grass with the sun warm on my face. Before my eyes open, the gentle sound of moving water tickles my ear. I inhale the sweet air and open my eyes to see a soft-rolling river beside me. Its waters, thick and dark, so inviting that I cannot help but to swim in her. The slight chill sets my heart a beat to the quick, but the feeling is good. I float on my back, letting the river take me where she will. So peaceful. But then I notice the current quicken. The water becomes rough and wide, the bank out of my reach and moving further. My comfort turns to fear and I struggle for the land. The water is too strong. I am pulled on.
Soon, there is no land to be seen. Nothing but water and sky. The current is no more, but the waves are huge and all around me. Chaotic. Folding in on one another and pushing me down. I try to scream, but the water fills my lungs. I'm drowning.
I woke up then. Sweating. Scared. Alone.
It was probably just the whiskey, but it gave me the creeps just the same. I felt desperate. Like I needed to do something, but I didn't know what. I felt like everything was going wrong, but I wasn't sure what was really wrong, which made a fix pretty difficult. With no idea of what else to do, I sat down to write her another letter.
Anna,
I dreamt of you last night. Nothing, but you. First, only your presence, formless. I cannot see but I can sense. Your need for me, as strong as mine for you. I draw you into me and you become more. My eyes, tracing the curves, the lines of your body. I cradle you as you cut me. I welcome you as you force yourself deep inside of me.
I can feel you, carving your home, your history, your future, in my living flesh. You can exist only within me, for I define you. Give you form. Your beauty is my gift. And life in me, is yours. Your touch is creation. Birth. I feed upon your flesh. Your touch. Your gentle kiss is the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. I know you, Anna Livia, as no one else can. There is only one word. Surrender.
In Honor and respect,
Commandante Eamon
It was the first time that I had forced myself to write a letter to Anna. All the others had delivered themselves to me in dreams, complete, pushing me to write them down. Now, I was pushing the letter and I couldn't help but feel that this one was a forgery. A cheap, and obvious, imitation. I sent it anyway, but I could not escape the feeling that I had made a mistake.
Not everything was for the worst. Norman and I ran into each other a few days later and he was pretty cool about the whole affair once I explained to him what had happened. We hit it off, really, and he even offered his help in my war to win the heart of Anna Livia. In fact, we had plans to meet late on the 18th at The Straw Road.
As I walked toward The Straw Road, I could've sworn that Eve drove past me, coming from the bar. I guess that I could swear it, now. I didn't think very much about it at the time. Eve, as I have said, has her own friends and the pair of us were far from connected at the hip. I had no suspicions about her, thinking that I had snowed her completely.
When I walked in the door just a few minutes before six, I saw the Von Plunderungs sitting at the bar with Anna. I wanted to fly into a rage. To kill all. A deep breath and I stepped back out the doorway, daring only to peek in. I couldn't hear a thing they said, but I could see her smile. Her flirt. My face went hot and my knees weak. I stood somewhere between rage and surrender when Norman came up behind me.
"Fin!" he exclaimed cheerily, but when I turned his face melted into concern. "Are you sick?" he asked, feeling my head. "You look awful!"
I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs were rigid. A gasp, a pause and then a slow, deep breath.
"I'm fine," I managed. "Just a little light-headed."
Norman got me to a table. He demanded that I sit and convince him of my health before I be allowed to make my way home. I protested, but to no avail. He ordered two Guinness, claiming it would calm me, but it was undrinkable. Foul. Like something had gotten into the water. Neither of us drank.
"Your friend has done well for herself," Norman said, looking past my shoulder to the bar. I flinched, but didn't turn. "A real prize, that one," he finished.
"You know the Von Plunderungs?" I asked, surprised.
Norman laughed sheepishly, his face bright red. "I know a Von Plunderung," he said. "Gerald."
"Gerald?" I questioned.
"Gerald," he repeated, nodding toward the bar.
"You mean Angelo?" I asked, still unsure as to which he referred.
"I was introduced to him as Gerald Von Plunderung," said Norman, "but either name, he is one and the same with the man sitting next to your Anna." I winced.
"Which man? They are both Von Plunderungs."
"Oh, how lovely," he drawled. "There are more." He stared at the bar for a moment and then said, "They can't possibly be related, can they?"
"Brothers," I confirmed.
He gave them another quick study.
"The pale one," he said wistfully. "I wish it had been the dark one, but it was the pale one." Angelo.
"I'm afraid to ask," I said.
"And well you should be," he assured. "Gerald and I..." He started to take a drink, eyed the Guinness, and put it back on the table. "Gerald and I went to college together for a while," he began again. "I'd noticed him a long time before I actually met him. He was kind of cute. Seemed like the perfect gentleman. And it seemed like I always found him at the center of some discussion on universal morality, the human condition or the like. His ideals seemed so perfect...I was charmed. He was exactly what I thought polite, intellectual society in university should be."
I nodded. I remembered being charmed by Von Plunderung, too. It took me a long time to catch on that high ideals didn't mean the same thing when talked about as when lived. Angelo got a lot of mileage out of talking.
"It wasn't until mid-year that I finally met him," continued Norman. "I saw him at a Christmas party held just after first semester finals and decided to make myself known. I sat down directly in front of him as he lectured a group of us on the finer points of Locke. His introduction of money into his social model in the Second Treatise on Government, to be exact. The discussion was a little dry, but my cup was not. I might have been a little drunk."
Out of habit, Norman reached for his Guinness and took a drink. His face screwed up and he put the drink down, pushing it away.
"Gab, but that is nasty!" he spat. "Anyway, much to my surprise Gerald invited me back to his place to continue the discussion after the party officially died. I didn't hesitate. Of course, we made a show of discussing Locke at first, but it didn't last long. Before I knew it, we were kissing and..."
"You were what!?!" I gasped.
"I know, I know," he said. "In retrospect, it doesn't seem like such a great idea. I wish that it had been his brother." He gave a lecherous glance to Adrian. "What is his name?"
"Adrian," I managed.
"Is that it?" he asked without expecting response. "What a lovely name." He paused, continuing his gaze. "I've met him before." He spoke almost as if to himself. "With Gerald, the night I met you. I just assumed that they...Well, he was the one that encouraged me when Anna asked if I wanted to meet you. Assured me that I could have you..." He trailed off, keeping his gaze on Adrian.
I couldn't believe Adrian was involved, the little bastard. We had had some minor disagreements over little things like Easter (I was convinced it fell on Monday), but, all in all, we had remained friends after Angelo had grown away from me. I guess that was over, judging by my meeting with Norman.
"I'll blame the next bit on the drink," he continued, "because I'm really not into that sort of thing. Before I knew it, I was tied, face down, to his bed feeling the sting of a riding crop across my backside!" I was in complete shock. Angelo had always been something of a homophobe and a prude! "He wasn't playing around, either. He beat the piss out of me and I screamed for him to stop. The wails didn't bring any mercy and the little bastard beat me harder while he fucked me. After he had satisfied himself, he left me tied while he cleaned off. I thought he'd never undo those ropes. And the marks they left on me..." he lost himself, examining his wrists as if the marks were still there.
"I had no idea!" I managed through my shock. "He's that violent?"
Norman laughed a short, deep laugh.
"If it weren't for the riding crop and the rope burns," he said, "I almost wouldn't have known I'd been fucked! His natural endowments leave him in need of some enhancement, I'm afraid."
"You really wouldn't have known?" I smiled, shaking my head.
"Well, I guess the syphilis might have given it away..."
"The what!?!" I wailed.
"Syphilis," he said. "Did I leave that out?"
I nodded.
"I don't think I was the only one," Norman smiled. "There were a few jokes around campus not long after Gerald left to study abroad. That he had been sent away by the health department in order to curb our V.D. outbreak. That a local hardware store had begun ordering rope accordingly when Gerald was in town and his unannounced leaving had crushed them with inventory." He smiled.
I convinced Norman that Anna deserved warning. We abandoned our stout, barely touched, and walked down to the bar. Angelo met me with a look of contempt that melted into befuddlement when he noticed Norman beside me. I smiled.
"Anna," I said softly, "could I talk to you for a minute?" She gave me an odd look, but, before she could speak, Angelo did so for her.
"You have something to say, Padriota?" Angelo asked. "You are better to keep it to yourself. All you Fins have tales for truth and we don't need to waste the time on it."
"Norman has just been telling me of your fondness for tails and the ties that bind," I drawled. "It may seem odd, but I'm certain that, if you let me tell my whole tale, you will get it in the end."
Angelo's face flushed in anger and his brother stood up in front of him.
"We have no quarrel with you, Fitzqueue," Adrian said. "But you!" he flared, pointing at me.
"I've had enough of your bullshit, Adrian!" I shouted, throwing a right straight to his mouth. It didn't feel so good, I must admit, satisfying as it may have been. I jammed my knuckle on his teeth. Adrian dropped to the floor, blood flowing from his newly formed gap.
Angelo came up quickly, but paused when I turned on him.
"Get him out of here," he said to Norman, "or I'll cut him to shreds and drown the pieces in a bath of vinegar he'll not soon forget! You wait till you see what the pain you inflicted causes," he threatened, looking at his fallen brother.
"You are mistaken, Angelo," I mused, getting a hold of myself. "Pain is not the cause, but the symptom of a lack of common sense!"
"He'th jutht another loother," lisped Adrian.
"A loser, am I?" I taunted. "And your wit be so much more clever than my own? And while we are on the subject of shortcomings, friend Angelo..." I caught Anna's horrified face and my heart sank. This was not at all what I had intended for her. I wanted to protect her and she was frightened. I failed the day, but could not give up.
"Write no epitaphs for me today," I laughed. "I'll not be hanging around, thanks."
"I'll be watching over you," Angelo promised.
Norman and I left.
I slept in on that Monday. It seemed that the sun rose a little late for me. I set out to write Anna a different sort of letter. A letter that was from both myself and her admirer. A merger in an attempt to repair the damage I felt had been done a few days previous. I had barely begun to write when I heard a movement behind me.
"I wouldn't bother with that if I were you." Eve stood in the doorway of my study. I wondered how long she had been there, feeling as if my thoughts were visible on the back of my head.
"With what?" I choked, clearing the screen.
"The letter," she said matter-of-factly. "It'll only get you in trouble, now."
She couldn't have seen it. Even if she had been there for a while, my head blocked the view of the screen from the doorway. It had to be a bluff based on the first letter that I had so stupidly left out. Nothing more than suspicion.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, turning my chair.
"She's talking to the police about a restraining order, right now." Something in her manner gave me chills. A certainty that should not have been there.
"Why..." Oops. That would be the wrong interrogative for a man ingnorant of who 'she' happened to be. "What the Hell are you talking about?"
"Anna Livia," she said smoothly. My heart leapt. I swallowed hard, knowing the color of my face betrayed me.
"From the Straw Road?" I queried, wishing I could sound as ignorant as Eve did certain.
"Yes, from the Straw Road." She was getting testy. We both knew I was dead to rights.
"A restraining order for what?" I asked, a sweat breaking out on my forehead.
"To stop you from sending those stupid letters," she snapped. "I've been on your computer. I've read them all."
"Impossible!" I stammered. I had them all password protected. She couldn't have read a one, save the first...
"Because of the password?" she smiled. "Never put your faith in Microsoft."
"What!?!"
"Everyone knows about the bug in Microsoft Word." Her voice was thick with contempt. True enough. Microsoft Word was idiot proof. You were able to password protect all your documents, but, lest you forget, if a person failed to enter the correct password three times in a row, Word would ask said person if they would like to change the password. A nice feature if you happen to be the only person using your computer, in which case the password use is a little silly. I didn't know that at the time, but Eve began to quote from other letters and I came to believe that she had broken through Microsoft's security.
"All right, all right! So I wrote the letters." Eve's eyes narrowed, but she did not speak. "Why would she get a restraining order put on me for that? And how could she, anyway? She doesn't know who I am!" Eve smiled broadly. Oh.
Through gritted teeth I pleaded, "But the letters were nice!"
"Anna thought so, too," Eve assured me. "That is, till she read your journal."
"Hah!" I crowed. "I don't keep a journal."
"Don't you?" she asked, bemused. "Then where do you suppose the one that Anna has came from?"
It took a minute, but then it started to sink in. Unbelieveable. No one in their right mind would do such a thing.
The satisfaction in Eve's smile grew thicker. "I don't know what convinced them more. The part about your obsession with 'The Silence of the Lambs' or your attraction to Angelo." My stomach turned with sudden violence and I thought I would throw up right there.
"My what?" I gasped in disbelief.
"Oh, now don't be coy," she oozed. "Everyone knows your true motive now."
"And what would that motive be?" I asked through clenched teeth.
"To win Angelo, of course," she smiled. "Anna was just a Trojan Horse to get you into the city. Literally!" she cackled.
I had always known that art was dangerous. Not just in the sense that Sun Tzu had called war an art, or in the way that art could open up a thousand, unexplored ideas and release them on the world; but in a certain knowledge that art created the world and not the reverse. I had always wondered, had Amairgen kept his mouth shut, who would have paid the foggy due.
It was a crazy idea, that a sane person would want Angelo in their home. But I suppose that the implication was that I had not my sanity given the premise that I was planning Anna to be the centerpiece of my own private dinner party. My first impulse was to declare the idea crazy when it should have been to declare that I was not. Of course, at the time, I had not the benefit of having read my own journal and my only concern was Anna.
"I have a craving for biscuits," I said, and, grabbing Eve's umbrella, I stormed out of the house and headed for the Straw Road. There was not a cloud in the sky.
I stormed into the bar and looked for Anna. There was quite a crowd, but in an instant I had found her at the top of the stairs near where I had seen her for the very first time. The weight of my stare brought her eyes to me, but only for an instant. She looked away nervously and I followed her eyes to a pair of large, uniformed men. The men looked from her to me in some bizarre, visual game of tag and my heart jumped in panic.
"Anna!" I cried, pleading with my eyes. She turned her back and I watched as the muscle moved in on me. I thrust the umbrella out before me, separating the sea of bodies, and made for her. "Anna!" I cried again. "They are all lies!"
The crowd was thick and difficult to navigate. Nearly submerged in bodies, I could not hope to escape the policemen closing on either side. In desparation, I raised the umbrella and swung at the head of the first officer to come near. My first stroke missed and as I readied for a second I felt the dull thud of a billy club across my wrists. The umbrella fell harmlessly at the feet of my intended target. I surrendered. From the corner of her eye, Anna watched as the officers marched me, in handcuffs, from the Straw Road.
My memories of that Monday are oddly sweet. I was taken to the police station where no one believed my story. It didn't matter. Eve had lost her key in a mysterious crash to which some Apple computers are quite prone, but the letters I had already admitted to. They were enough for a restraining order. No more visits to the Straw Road when Anna was working and no more letters.
After my day in court, I had gone for a walk down by the Duille River on campus. A mist hung above the water. I sat down beside the water and stared into that mist for what seemed a very long time. The focus in my eyes waned and I thought I saw form in vapor. I penned a last letter to Anna, though I knew I could not send it.
Anna,
I know that it is Eve's key that has carried me away from you, though I also know it could not be done without your consent. All that I thought was mine, you have turned against me and you have done it with the work of my own hand. Time can turn a thing just as you have. To a new place, in a new light what is my defeat shall be my victory.
The same key that banishes me, so by it I shall return. Whomever your suitors may be in my absence, I know it is to me that your heart will come. Like geese returning from a long winter, so my will shall be laid upon your waters. As the sun is born, so must it die. And as it dies, so must it rise again. My light will play upon your waters, my army within your city. There is no greater love than that which I have for you. You are that you are and I am your creation. Till I return, I shall know only famine for you are my only sustenance. I will always be hungry for you.
In Honor and respect,
Commandante Eamon
I laid the letter in the water and watched as the paper surrendered the ink into the stream. My words, blurring, fading from the page. The clouds of ink dissapating into the clarity of the Duille; blending with the current. I began to sing.
I am the Wind that Blows over the Sea;
I am the Wave of the Ocean;
I am the Murmur of the billows;
I am the Ox of the Seven Combats;
I am the Vulture on the rock;
I am a Ray of the Sun;
I am the fairest of Plants;
I am a Wild Boar in valour;
I am a Salmon in the Water;
I am a Lake in the plain;
I am the Craft of the artificer;
I am a Word of Science;
I am the Spear-point that gives battle;
I am the God that creates in the head of man the fire of thought.
Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, if not I?
Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?
Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I? |