Courageous Atrophy locked the bathroom stall and rummaged in his pseudo leather backpack for artificial relief. He found the little packet with the words Brain Change and attempted to justify their boast. Checking out the graffiti marked stall wall he made out these words:
Mirrors within Mirrors
Reflecting lights with Mirrors
Shake your penis with conviction
Leave the restroom of reflection
Who is gods' god? OK
Leaving the Magical bathroom he studied the small sticky bar that was packed with dollar brew drinkers. Courageous spotted some friends at a doll sized table, glued himself together and made his way over. Able was waving his beer at Batka, who was waving his vodka, completely lost in the heat of debate. Batka was screaming loudly:
"I'm too cynical? My first memory while I was in the crib, was a Kennedy funeral. I'm not sure which, just these surreal TV images in black & white of the procession. Wouldn't that be perfect as title footage over the intro of a sitcom of my life? Familiar iconography idiocy!"
"ARRRGHHH!! THE DEAD KENNEDYS, and it's on the juke box! I'm getting a Deja vu flash! Wow, psychic synchronicity!" said the freaked out Able with a punctuated sarcastic glance.
"My second media memory is a mix of a failed NASA rocket, Gulf War, 911 and Monday Night Football. All together somehow. It's like this big phony media machine designed to educate children of impressionable age 'Send the boys off, shed a tear; economic trouble? Never fear. Hail the chief, form a grimace; we made it to the moon, first down scrimmage' Batka spewed through a contorted grimace.
"Okay, so you're reduced to quick fix emotional blaming. Right. See Batka's icons drown from the Age of Aquarius, ha. Hey, y'know what's funny? If you take the peace, sign and turn down your index finger know what you get?"
"Stop patronizing me. It's true "
"Courageous. Courageous, my man from the moon," Able interrupted Batka and shouted out over his head to their approaching colleague in catastrophe.
"Yo Batka, hey Able. I was on the dark side of the moon and I tell you that man was not smiling. You know he's coming apart because like me, he's got no real job. Here's to teenage nympho dope fiends,"
Courageous sat down in a dying 1970's bar chair with ripped up red vinyl as he finished his toast and gulped down his drink. Batka stared intently at Able's transfixed stare at nothing. Courageous wondered what kept everyone constantly thinking. At moments like these he felt he never could understand anyone or what was on their minds, even as he realized that his seat was wet.
"What's up Courageous? Still don't wanna work? I'm sorry, I mean get a job as a cog? Gotta move on man. What's with the face, huh?" Batka asked Courageous as he sipped his vodka.
"Remember Dream Jean and her fabulous genes? I went out with her a couple of times? Her sister called me and said she'd OD' d.
"That's too bad man, but she was pretty much out of control, you know," offered Batka uncertainly. He wasn't certain whether Courageous hated her anymore or if he knew that Able had a fling with her. Anyway, Jean never gave a shit for Courageous.
''Her sister found her in her squat with some guy sleeping on her belly. He was so whacked out that he didn't even realize she was gone. Man, her sister said that she was always doing too many pills, molly and powders. That's screwed up, but that's what happened."
Able registered the words in the same way that he half heard the words from the TV playing an evening 'Reality' program. Suddenly, when an old friend's face came out at him from the TV, his own face twisted from boredom to shock to fear. He kept repeating under his breath the terror chant he assembled from certain non-literary works. No fear, no care. Don't let that fear glue you down. Terror is a horny bear. Even as he finished taking three deep breaths and completed another set of the terror chant, he checked the TV out again, and yes it was still him or rather the acting him, George, as an over made up actor on a dying night-time Soap. The last almost remembered memories of the evening that Able had were fuming, running along the bar, pushing people out of the way trying to destroy the TV and then getting thrown out.
Meanwhile, Courageous looked at Batka and forced a smile. He thought 'I can't believe he never suspected Jean and me hit it off. He thinks we're so different and that she'd never go for someone like me. Shit, just like me to fall for dead meat.'
Courageous stared off dreaming of circles. Circles pierced by lines. He dreamed of bowls with spoons entering its curve sloshing against thick and thin liquids. From this dreaming he realized that while the historical media influence given to phallic symbolism was always apparent, it had just been unveiled to him the wonders of the circular enclosing female symbolism. The last image on the TV as Able shut it (in his attempt to destroy it) was, quaintly enough, of a train entering a tunnel. Courageous looked at the closed TV and saw ghosts of his distortions making hand signs of devotion. Dream Jean with Courageous on the pissed on (off) subways. He easily remembered their thoughts and words, unsure which were which and whose were whose:
It took time and patience to shape the world we're in.
Lot's of stupid deaths we've stood.
Say what you mean Courageous. Show me your true colors.
There's no more time to think it through.
I think it's true that you died too.
I'm in despair, just like you!
With these words Courageous crossed his arms and squeezed her right breast ever so lightly, unseen by other underground travelers.
'God! The parallels of it all.' Jean had said accepting his two fingertips.
'But if you give it up, then it's for free.'
'God! I wonder what the tensile strength of gelled hair is?'
Able Fawlty stopped wearing used jeans after he realized that they had to be the reason for his troubled state of mind. He tore down all the "Postcards from Hell" off his walls and threw out an old Mickey Mouse back-scratcher, unsure even as he threw it out from where it had come. Able chucked ancient phone numbers on crumpled scraps of napkins and crappy flash drives that were impossible to use anymore (both physically and emotionally) into a plastic garbage pail that would also have to go. Broken joysticks from computers he no longer could use and maps of places he had never been. And that stupid raccoon tail on the door OUT! A glass of old designer water spilled a milky ooze and Able watched it fall to the ground.
Batka was back in a cab heading for his folks' home in the bowels of Brooklyn. His Bangladesh cab driver kept talking about Shaitan and Ilhim. The next afternoon Nino, his short, fat Italian third generation Sanitation worker neighbor reminded him of Batka and the cabby's boisterous conversation of the night before.
"You'se kept talkin' about four kinda Men. Foist youse sayz There's good men, there's evil men, there's bad men and there's men who just don't know. Then youse corrects yourself and says No, there's good men, there's evil men, there's simple men and there are those who can't question anymore, those that don't know. Whataya doin talkin' philosophy at four in the moinin'?"
Batka tried to recall the night before without the attaching embarrassment and said:
"Well, I was countering his limited English, communicating Muslim idealism of black and white in the context of Tao and Yin and Yang with a Talmudic fable involving four men of varying substance. Sorry we were so loud. I was working out this idea that was bothering me about how there's always one in a crowd who talks shit and trys to instigate their friends by judging their beliefs. Kind of like the court jester who could tell king the truth in a cynical joking way and not lose their head, hopefully. So I'm asking this cabby if he has any friends like that, a devil and comedian. I tried to communicate these thoughts to him in progressively more childish terms because of his non-mastery of English, until I ended up shouting about the four classes of men. Don't know how I got to that parable, but anyway, sorry if I woke you up."
"Nah, keeps me occupied," shrugged Nino while spraying his Chevy. Batka thought it was classic, especially with the water shortage in effect. Probably from some bizarre terrorist action in the Hudson. "What were ya doin' anyway?"
"I don't even know, Nino. I don't even know."
"I was a megalomaniac and everybody but me knew it. My words seemed to come out of a foreign throat. My girlfriend knew I had lost it. My friends knew I had lost it. They all came to farewell party I threw to fare bad. Nobody said anything about my ego tantrums. It took a year to figure out. My woman left me. She had already left me cold. My friends weren't really friends. The real ones just stayed away. I don't blame them. I was afraid to confront my inabilities. No, that's the wrong way to put it."
Dr. Almoste let his cigar's head fall into the full ashtray, lifted his glasses a centimeter up his nose, pawed at his bald spot and said to Courageous "Uh huh."
"I talk nonsense to old friends who knew me in my righteous phase, but they have no time for my...illness."
''Very good Courageous. It is an illness"
"I see coupled couples and I want to "
''Careful with the furniture. No, that's ok. Let it out. Now, tell me about the...The Callous Meandering Youth”
"Three words that go together, or so I had thought. They roll around the tongue easily enough. Maybe parading around with those words as my anthem have caused me to become what I parody.” Courageous lit a cigarette with his zippo in one fluid motion and continued, "I don't know. I can't really think anymore. That's what I'm trying to tell you!''
"And your partners in crime? These so called other Callous Meandering Youth?"
"The 'CMY?' Usually it consists of two or three core members. Now? It 's my buddies Able Fawlty, Batka Collins and sometimes Cecelia Sometimes. They're ok, but they're starting to lose it. I guess we all are. I mean all this stupid shit fucking with us – Sexual diseases are rampant, terrorism, anarchy...people are too fucking uninterested or uninteresting. I don't know. Then you got the job situation."
"How so?"
"I don't know, I guess it's the fact that salaries are ridiculous, rents are fucked and there's still no action! Doesn't seem even worth it to work. I mean, if you've got a place to stay. If you got a place to stay, then whoever you're staying with gets pissed that you're not doing anything. It's really fucking with me because I really don't wanna work at these cog jobs out there. It means nothing to me but I got my habits and habitat to support. So I go drinking or whatever. It's just fucked."
''And sexual disease issues? They've always been with us. Haven't you learned how to live in a society afflicted with disease?"
"Yeah, well… It's just a symptom. I mean me and Able were both doing the same girl straight off the bus who was extremely lethal after roaming the city for a year. She died, you know. OD'd. We ignored that she was getting it everywhere until she died. Damn, she died with some slob lying on her stomach. He didn't know or even care that she was dead. Just kept lying there, till she was blue lipped."
"But you've usually been pretty cautious?"
"Yeah, usually, but at the cost of my free spirit, growing paranoia costing all my relationships and mutual cynicism."
"Ah, then we get to the heart of the matter, or shall I say the phallus of the matter. Don't you think you are being immature and selfish?"
"No, no, no. When I was young there seemed to be endless possibilities everywhere, personal and social leaps. Now it seems that everyone is dissatisfied, striking out at each other, prices go up while salaries freeze, I don't know. No thoughtful, fun entertainment, no movements and no feelings. Just war, poverty and atrocities we thought we'd done away with. Nostradamus is laughing in his grave."
"Able Fawlty, I accuse you of not confronting your true monster. Your failure to see that you have dissected your social and private liabilities has caused you to blame everyone and everything but yourself for your emotional laziness."
''Yeah the price went up, War on drugs and shit. Don't you read anything?" Able was getting tired of passing the buck to his clientele. He wiped his nose and cursed the season's change.
"So I suppose if I wanted a hot TV the price would suck because of the War on Crime. What a joke. C'mon Able. It's me, Joeeey talkin' ta ya," Joey was always talkin ta ya, sniffling from an ever present powder cold and just generally weaseling about. He got his green from Able and Able got his crap from the deal of the minute. They both thought that they came out ahead, but since they both cheated each other they actually came out about equal in the end.
Able's mind was locked in on the night before. Why had he gotten so screwy when he saw himself on the TV show? Able Fawlty as George was a bottom dweller actor on the rise who had been 'discovered' by that omni-sexual producer who was always slumming it, looking for some fresh meat. The producer was dead now and Able had got his shot at fame. Knowing his downtown friends, they probably figured that it wouldn't be long till Able too would become worm food.
"Hey, Joeeey, everything's cool man? Good. Catch ya latah instigatah."
"Where ya goin? Why don't you hang a while?” Joey didn't look too good. Looked kind of like that producer did before he kicked it. Able Fawlty was becoming rock solid in his emotions. He just turned off any thought and continued the Rasta speak.
''Aye and Aye be headin downtown. Irie ta da tattoo bar ta check da fine ones."
Able threw on his backpack while mounting his bicycle and skirted the cross-town traffic, screaming Hendrix to the wind. He got home before and prepared for hitting the Tattoo Bar, where the CMY would meet again.
Courageous sat in his closet studio, took off his motorcycle jacket and stared at the small black & white TV.
The great Humpback whale was followed by Jesus in a robe. Courageous snorted a line, glanced over his shoulder, over his ripped flannel shirt and watched another minute pass by. He bit another of the three bitable fingernails he had left, spit them out along with a hard piece of brown phlegm and chased it with his watering scotch. He didn't bother wiping away the tear started at the corner of his eye, it had taken a lot to produce it. Beyond the TV he made out the fading pictures of friends kept on the cork bulletin board in pictures bearing signatures of past failures.
Sophie was still staring out at him after all these years, still dead from the car crash that smashed her body all about the BQE. She hadn't taken anyone with her and had left Courageous just the photo and memories. It hurt like it always did, when the Dewars flowed easily. Sophie was Paris. She was the statement 'When I look at the sour faces of the old and see them locked in never changing grimaces, I promise myself never. Never! Hope I die before I get that old. Ha!' And in a flash he knew what was eating at his soul, frustration and lies of a life of disposable love and tenuous honesty.
The Humpback whale spun in mid-air letting out a cry of resigned utter sadness, while the imitation of Christ walked on water. Courageous downed his drink, threw his jacket on and slammed the power button off the TV set in the middle of a driverless SUV commercial.
Four CMY minds scattered around the TLSoB Bar waiting to connect. Four went into a cave. One lacking in the courage to break the constrictions of his folly retreated to the dank end of the cave. (The hand smashes into the hard glass fast, in slow-motion violence seeking a cleansing purge). One lacking conviction and one lacking honesty. Shit, what do you think would happen?
