An unfortunate modern-day allegory of Steve Kowalski, continued continued
Steve Kowalski, disguised as the narrator in his own poem, stands in a long-established middle-class neighborhood, U.S.A., his emaciated figure, once ravaged by lung cancer but now recovering, hidden amidst very old and stately township trees and under the additional cover of a hot, sultry summer night, is overwhelmed by a violent sexual passion and lust for a neighborhood girl, who lives just across the street, a case of building blue balls and an increasingly painful erection pounding against his shorts, convulsing in spasmodic tremors.
And there she is, he clearly sees her, despite the night’s dark, and what’s she doing out at 4 a.m., sauntering back and forth on the sidewalk in front of her home, barefoot and in nothing but a short flighty summer dress that looks more like a nightie. She’s not wearing underwear, we’re pretty sure.
She, who’d once avoided the narrator, ignored him, “steered past” him, now directs her actions and behavior at him while maintaining an appearance that she’s not, in what is fairly nearly a taunt, temptation, tease, and tantalizing dare, which both fuels the narrator’s anger and fires up his sex jets even more.
Apparently having a thing for Irish girls, Kowalski has the narrator refer to his target prey as “the O’Leary girl”, although for our purposes, we believe we have enough evidence to strongly assert that this “O’Leary girl” is merely a stand-in for Commix Girl of Kyiv, Ukraine.
And though dark, I clearly see
The O’Leary girl across the street
Who once steered past me
Is now somehow wary of my intentions,
Will submit, moved perhaps by pity,
Pity to be mounted,
God and mischief mingling in her skirts,
Will submit.
And all sorrow for my sake, canceled,
Will die and be drenched, steeped, redeemed in admiration.
The narrator is saying that if this girl is steamy now where she’d been cold before because she feels sorry for him, he doesn’t need it, and the indignation that ignites within him because of this only helps to heighten his desire and devastating sexual intentions.
The lines also contain a defilement of God, which, as some poetic experts suggest, is a declaration of Kowalski’s own religious rebellion against his strict upbringing as a Roman Catholic.
With his vile and depraved act of rape, now on the cusp of its consummation and achievement, the narrator is saying, outrageously, shockingly, that not only will any pity and sorrow his victim may have felt for him before be “canceled”, but will return, or be reborn or recast or transformed – the poet Kowalski – again, sacrilegiously, outlandishly – uses the word “redeemed” – in the form of her admiration for him.
Don’t write the rest of that poem, Steve! Steve… STEVE!!!
Oh, why must we be subjected to this? Why can’t we have the alternative reality, of Steve Kowalski, back in Kyiv, where he really is, dropping all the childish nonsense of his poetry, having learned a lesson and grown up thanks to the double humiliation of his beating at the claws of The Ferret and the corollary avenging act by Commix Girl for his sake, and acting – finally, finally – like a man.
This is what we want. Clearly, this is as it should be; the logical, rational progression of the growth of a mind… and heart; the maturation of a decent, sound, and strong soul.
This is the version we want, that we demand and cry out for – it’s this!: Kowalski acts like a man, stops writing all this lurid nonsense, and approaches the girl, Commix Girl, for better or worse, in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he actually lives this very moment, and not in some poem taking place in a neighborhood he never knew in America, nor could have known (other than maybe driving through one, visiting a friend there, or seeing suchlike on film), having grown up poor. In the continuing sequence of this alternative action, Kowalski then takes it on the chin if he has to, swallows his pride, loses to the better man if necessary, or inevitable, whether it’s necessary or not, and apologizes to Commix Girl, regardless of the outcome for him, for acting like such an asshole.
But, no, this is crazy! This is absolutely insane!
Don’t do it, Steve, don’t go there, I beg you, don’t write the rest of that poem, please, Steve, not just for your sake, but think of Kyiv Unedited, think of The Commix! What’s Nicolas Cage going to think?! Steve… Steve… STEVE!!!
And across the street – the O’Leary girl –
I take god down, on the sidewalk,
Down, bare, sultry night, in the gutter, down,
I press with hands against her breasts,
And then with relative calm, weave in and
Out of her agitated dress.
Oh, the horror of it all, the absolute and complete abject horror, you filth, you depraved infernal monster… Steve… Steve… you scum… I know you not… Steve – go fuck yourself. Steve, go to hell…
Five blocks down Chestnut Street
The stoplight blinking red turns green.
And I breathe so easily again, tonight,
So suddenly, I feel, that it was all
Worthwhile.
Morning is upon us. The traffic light switches to its daily routine and now awaits to regulate the morning rush-hour. The change from a blinking red to green is also a metaphor for the rapist narrator’s thinking that, with his crime accomplished, everything is now okay.
Meanwhile, back in Kyiv, as Steve Kowalski, drenched in sweat, crashes his head masochistically against his writing table and thrusts his fingers painfully through his hair, in the bohemian yet quickly gentrifying district of Podil, Goldstein enters Commix Café.
Filed by Saint Stephan, July 6, 2016