Issue #98

Sir Isaac Brock, Swiss Cheese, Esmeralda, and Jaunts

by Salvatore Difalco

Sir Isaac Brock

Not a syllable will be a fib. I hold my hand over my heart as I stare into the armoire mirror in my bedroom and make this mental pledge. Then I repeat it out loud, for obvious reasons. Not a syllable will be a fib. People might ask who I am addressing in these instances besides myself, and I argue that one in my field must imagine an eavesdropper or, pushing things further, conceive of an interested elderly man from a bygone era leaning out of his tenement window in a soiled undershirt, brandishing an ear trumpet, and following the narrative, such as it is. But even this conceit falters when we consider technological advances that render much of this imagined action badly dated fiction. Perhaps, in which case, I rather stumble into fulfilling my endeavor, which could easily be inferred by the attentive ear. Shoot ahead, then, to the action. When I venture into the local plaza, pigeons advance on me without hesitation, as if they know me, or know my type. They bob and peck at my boots, but I have nothing to offer them. When I try to shoo them away, they flap their wings and coo but do not scatter. A local bird woman, wearing a Persian rug like a shawl, approaches and tells me that the pigeons are little souls, that I should not in any fashion restrain expressions of kindness toward them. "You never know when they will save your life," she states. Her dark eyelids close and open and close over wet green irises like mussel shells. We meet people like this in this life and have no right to pass judgment, but video quod video. "Have they saved yours? Have they saved your life?" I ask. Her eyelids clack. "You ask the wrong question," she says, but does not elaborate and abruptly shuffles off toward the pigeon-whitened bronze statue of Sir Isaac Brock mounted on a muscular stallion. I have never been a history buff. I presume many excellent words are written about this fellow, Sir Isaac Brock, but I am not the scribe to reproduce them in this space. A statue in a plaza is neither here nor there in my conceptualization of the world, which is to say, save for the pigeon shit, this statue looks okay to me, it looks fine. Video quod video. It has obviously oft been vandalized and defiled, by humans as well as pigeons and various other avians and vermin, but it persists and likely will persist for an eon unless leveled through some violent geothermal event or via cynical political maneuvers that deem it incorrect and a blight to the commons and sanction its removal. A passing man in a pea jacket pauses and looks me up and down. Wrinkled beyond expression, the eyes buried in creases, his face heaves slightly as he gathers himself. "What is it?" I say. "Do you have any idea who Isaac Brock was?" he asks. I cannot discern if he is posing a legitimate question from lack of knowledge or if he is one of those spicy old fellows who partake of mind games. I am almost compelled to shake him, to rattle him about as if he were some fetid scraggly tree. "Perhaps a plaque at the base of the statue will tell you all you need to know," I say. "You don't know?" he says, surprised. "I'm not from here," I respond, clenching my fists. "That's no excuse," he says. I hear sudden flapping and squawking. The pigeons have returned. The old man looks at them, mouth agape. My hands relax. He fishes through the pockets of his pea jacket. "I came prepared," he says, scattering fistfuls of breadcrumbs among the pigeons. "One should always come prepared," he says.

***

Swiss Cheese

I numbered, as many others did or thought they did, among the good. Or so I believed. You have heard this statement before, perhaps while grocery shopping, or while waiting in the dentist's or doctor's office. Perhaps such words flew past you one evening at the subway stop— say some man with fingerless gloves and dirt-encrusted fingernails, muttering to himself. His presence appalled the other waiting passengers, each with their own desires and rituals and paranoias, each with their own little story playing out in their head if not across the world's stage. "We are all so insignificant!" I wanted to shout at times, but I restrained myself for fear of agitating an individual sensitive to his or her own worthlessness. But no, I was one of the good ones. I had convinced myself I was one of these enlightened, or anointed if you will, souls. But the whole deal is Swiss cheese when all is said and done. Everything is full of holes—the world, our stories about the world. Even my conception of myself is peppered with perforations.

"What gave you that impression?" asked my good friend Peter Palotta one afternoon over coffee at a local cafe. Peter always dressed from head to toe in black, which made everything he said seem veritable. "I mean," he added, "what gave you the impression that you are good?" He sipped from his coffee as I pondered his question. "Has the world provided you with evidence or validation for this designation?" he continued. "Emails, pamphlets, perhaps a group chat? Do you, for instance, perform volunteer activities with a legitimate agency to help the poor, the old, or the adversely afflicted? Are you well known in the community for such activities? Do you contribute large amounts of money to reputable charities or directly to destitute individuals? These are questions one feels compelled to ask in these situations."

But Peter knew very well that being the abject solipsist I was, I belonged to no community as such and I could hardly rub together two nickels. Thus perhaps—and Peter's bundled body language implied it—my poverty of spirit and pocket militate against any possibility of being good. Did I not know that? Peter knew it without expending much brain power. Have I been so blind to my own absurdity? O you millions of perturbations! O you hordes of annoyances! O you brain full of holes! O you stupid stupid man!

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Peter said. "Being good is the job of stout souls—those rare spiritual warriors able to withstand the relentless barrage of arrows and spears of negation. This work is not for everyone. Even I am not good, friend. I number among the not-so-good, pardon the expression. But you, you are possessed of an inherent and burgeoning frailty. Ahem. Perhaps you are too frail to recognize your own frailties. Forgive me for my candour."

I stared at Peter a long while, my emotions spanning their full spectrum. I understood nothing any better than before. Nevertheless, in the end, I felt a great calm overcome me—thanks to Peter—and a sparkling clarity. If friends cannot be candid, then all is lost, I thought. On the other hand, oftentimes candour can be a two-edged sword, slicing off more than it safeguards.

***

Esmeralda

I painted a cat in oils on a wooden plank. My friend Carlos came over and examined it. He studied it raptly, sometimes gripping his chin in his palm, or thoughtfully tilting his head left or right, or backing away from the painting only to zoom back to it, his face inches away. After an hour he turned to me and said, "I slept with your wife yesterday. I'm terribly sorry about that." I told him I knew about it already. I wasn't angry. The wife and I had not been getting along for years. Her betrayal was inevitable. "How did you know?" Carlos asked. "I caught it on video," I said. Carlos punched his fist in hand. "Damn, I told her I thought we were being surveilled," he said. "She didn't care. But I wish you hadn't done that." I smiled mirthlessly. Carlos and I had been friends for about ten years. I thought he was a bit of a weirdo, to be honest. He collected Royal Doulton figurines and didn't believe in bathing. He had amassed some one hundred figurines over the years—I had little truck for such things. As for bathing, he cleansed himself with cider vinegar sponge baths and washed his hair once a month with lye bar soap. I wondered how this went over with the wife. Maybe she dug it. I had tolerated his idiosyncrasies because I found him amusing, and I had no friends. At this moment he was in no position to be spouting anything but an abject apology, but Carlos was the sort of man who could not read a room. "You want to see the video?" I asked. He stared at me with his small black eyes but said nothing. "You put on quite the show, brother," I said with a chuckle. "Really lathered up. Is that normal for you?" His eyes darted to the floor, then to the ceiling, then to the floor again. "So tell me," I said, "what did you think of the painting? I based it on the memory of my childhood cat, Esmeralda. Don't ask me why I named her Esmeralda. It was long before the disco tune came out, you know, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." Carlos covered his mouth with his hand and mumbled something. "What was that?" I said. "It doesn't look like a cat," he said. "It doesn't?" I said, fixing my eyes on a spot just above his forehead. A minute passed. "I mean—I mean it doesn't look like an Esmeralda," he stammered.

***

Jaunts

I did not harmonize well with my fiancée. She spoke in a deep green voice that conflicted with my sky blue essentialism. Because of this she perceived me as a dark cloud, as negation of her verdant vocalizations and Earth-steady presence. "Stop being so top-heavy!" she lamented. "You keep hinting at storms. Will it storm today! Tell me, will it storm?" Her name will be left blank for this account. Naming her would likely cause the real person from whom her portrait is drawn to despair or to seek legal council. Perhaps I should admit that my thirst for perfection has prompted unreasonable expectations of the world and of my limited reporting abilities.

My fiancée often pulled faces when she disagreed with my train of thought, transmitted directly from brain to mouth and projected out to the world without filter. Fault me for candour. But was this not why she fell for me in the first place? I confide in you, gentle reader, for I have no friends to speak of and am resigned to spending the rest of my life without company.

It ended one evening on a jaunt down the esplanade. I had worn a brown tailcoat. I had not worn a brown tailcoat but let's say I had worn one. My fiancée looked resplendent in a pale green dress with a dark green shawl. A red silk ribbon adorned her fine blonde hair. But the moment she started speaking, I withdrew into myself. "Are you so petty?" she asked. "It's painful," I said. "I feel my nerves being shredded." Under the soft sodium esplanade lights her face appeared angelic but ferocious as angels can be. "It's off," she said in a deep green whisper, and walked away, her thick calf muscles flexing with determination.

I am not a Greek thirsting for companionship or beauty. At least not at this moment in time. Spare me the bromides and old chestnuts about love and loss and compromise. Sometimes it is better to step away from the wickedness of disharmony before it happens.

This is a peculiar story, and I wonder who you are reading it.