Steve Kowalski writes about something he doesn’t understand
I really don’t understand what the point of all this is or what I’m doing here. I don’t understand why I couldn’t tell John Smith I wasn’t doing any kind of food review for The Checkout – that my job for this outfit, as yet not completely defined, or understood for that matter, is supposed to be a radically different thing.
Smith says it’s one thing I can strut around like Aeschylus after winning a poetry contest, and another thing altogether to write about the real world in unembellished stripped-down prose. But I can’t say I know what that means, and sooner than anything, it probably means nothing at all – just some connected words.
He’s sitting a few steps up and behind me on a stool behind a high table, having a mineral water. The premises is a thin café sliced into a building wall.
It’s part of an establishment called Viola’s, most of which is downstairs, and this little place up here on street level might as well be called something else altogether, except they share a kitchen.
Viola’s has a long history as part of a network of similar places that’s not worth going into.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting at the last table just before the steps behind me – where Smith is. The seating is like a small divan on either side of a table. This divan-table motif repeats itself a few more times in front of me right up to the door, like you’re looking in a mirror and there’s a mirror behind you and so what you see is an infinity of the same thing diminishing like railroad tracks toward the horizon.
A narrow swathe of floor separates the wall against which I’m sitting and the opposite wall. Halfway up that wall, the wall is just a wall, but then the wainscoting ends, from whence it becomes a mirror up to the ceiling. This wall is lined with raised tables surrounded by barstools, kind of like the one where Smith is sitting. When you look in the mirror, you see reflected in it a chandelier, although you don’t necessarily see the chandelier unless you look in the mirror.
There’s not much room in this place at all. I’m not hungry, because I’m upset to be sitting here taking these notes. So I’m also just drinking mineral water – “with gas”. Smith can see me, but I can’t see him, unless I crane my neck around behind me.
The door is part glass, and if you look through it, you will see the place where the Lenin statue used to stand – at the bottom of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard – although you wouldn’t know how historical this spot is unless you knew the statue had been here to begin with. A couple blocks to the left, the protesters are burning the city. Lenin taught revolution, so he should be able to take a taste of his own medicine.
Now, I don’t know if this is some kind of set up, or joke, or experiment on Smith’s part, but occupying the mini-divans on either side of the first table, a couple of tables up ahead of me, just before the door, are The Half Guinea, facing me, and Milk Bone, who has changed his person into more of a dog so that he can enjoy the floor under the table at The Half Guinea’s feet. These two I know.
Across the table from The Half Guinea, if I’m not mistaken, is the preternatural monster known as The Hunched Cornish. I do not know him, and he can’t see me, although I know he is aware of my presence, has perhaps a small inkling as to who I am, and knows that I am taking notes.
He also knows John Smith is farthest back, observing all of us. Like me, The Hunched Cornish would have to crane his neck around to see him, but even more, both because he is farther away, and because of his monstrous configuration and colossal physical bulk squeezed between a mini-divan and a table.
I know Smith knows The Hunched Cornish and is perhaps only somewhat familiar with The Half Guinea, although he is on good terms with Milk Bone. Clearly, The Half Guinea sees John Smith – much as he sees me, except that Smith is a little farther away.
Thus, The Half Guinea sees everything going one way, while John Smith sees it all going the other, except I’d have to give the advantage to Smith, since he is perched above and behind us – maybe a meter or so higher, while The Half Guinea has to lean out of his divan to get his vision around The Hunched Cornish.
I figure I come in third, seeing both The Half Guinea and The Hunched Cornish, in a manner of speaking, but not seeing John Smith, who is behind me.
In this respect, The Hunched Cornish sits at the greatest disadvantage to us all.
Except he wants it that way, since he is exaggeratedly preoccupied with his Venus Baby – a mutant Welsh Losser product.
He has sat the baby on one of the high stools from the table across the floor and has moved the stool next to their table. Milk Bone seems to be excited by the baby, who is doing quite well sitting on the stool without a back, teetering back and forth but never falling off. It seems The Hunched Cornish is aware the baby is capable of this, otherwise he would never have sat it on the high stool to begin with, but probably next to himself.
But it seems like he is doing this for show – even though the baby is not really his.
The baby, which is apparently male gendered, is so beautiful, it is lewd, and that lewdness makes it depraved-looking and grotesque. But the man-dog seems to really like it. The Half Guinea seems disgusted, but is doing a brave job keeping it to himself, making conversation with The Hunched Cornish, handling the situation as if the baby wasn’t there.
The Hunched Cornish is taking notes, as if he were doing a restaurant review.
And John Smith? He’s taking notes too.
Steve Kowalski, January 30, 2014