An unfortunate modern-day allegory of Steve Kowalski, concluded but not concluded, although it appears that things might have actually gotten better. It’s for you to decide…
Time: Midsummer 2016, Daytime, after lunch, but not late
Place: Commix Café
The dwarf David Lynch elbows his way out of the crowd of protesting Jews as he emerges from the Hasidic Strip Bar and heads across the street to the Commix Café.
Knowing the city well by now and his way around (the metro lines, and all that), he is highly confident. Many people know him by sight and they like to greet him. Their greetings are heartfelt and sincere:
“Hi, Dave!”; “Hey, Dave, how are you?!”
They wave to him and the dwarf David Lynch waves back. The Ukrainian people have not allowed this kind of adulation of David Lynch or Clint Eastwood, just now sitting in the Commix Café, and this has made them feel strange, lost, and forgotten in an off-putting way they have never in decades of memory known, but the people here really like the dwarf.
The dwarf takes it all in stride. It’s all as it should be. After all, he’s David Lynch! His passport, with all his voyaging stamps staining its pages, proves it.
He pushes the Commix Café door open with his foot.
“That place is pure evil,” he says to Eastwood and Lynch, pointing a stubby-fingered hand back at the strip bar. “If I were you, I wouldn’t go in there – you wouldn’t handle it.”
“Yeah, but you’re not us, Shorty,” says Eastwood, “so why don’t you beat it before I do you the favor.”
“Yeah, right,” says the dwarf, unwrapping a cigar out of his jacket and throwing the plastic on the floor. He takes out a cutter and allows the cigar tip to fly across a couple of tables.
He finally turns his attention to Goldstein, as though noticing him for the first time, and says, “Yeah, I know you… Goldstein… The Entertainment King… the producer…”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Goldstein says, excited by the dwarf’s recognition though not recognizing the dwarf, who lights his cigar.
He takes a few puffs: “Yeah… I remember you aaahh ba-a-a-a-ack i-i-i-i-in… ’75, yeah, that’s right, ’75. You’d scored your first big movie deal and then bought yourself that Porsche and –”
“I clinched that deal in ’73, well-eh, it was the end of ’73, and bought the Porsche in ’74. And then I –”
“That’s right. And then you bought all of that useless real estate where Los Loseros ends, acres and acres of it, starting with the plot your Entertainment King sits on – ha ha…!”
“That land’s not useless, my little friend – oh, no, you’ll see, because pretty damn soon, all that property’s gonna be –”
“Dwarf!” It’s Commix Girl. “If you don’t put that stinking cigar out, I’ll put it out for you – on your head!”
“Say, you’d better watch it, sister, before I beat the shit out of you the way I did that first time in the Chinese place!”
“Dwarf! I really mean it! Put that cigar out NOW!!!”
“Don’t bore me, sis, I’ve got better things to do with my time than listen to your little girly crying. So, if any of you losers wants to join David Lynch the famous director for some Chink chow, you know where to find me. And that includes you, Goldstein.”
“DWARF!!!”
“Hey, that’s a good idea,” says Eastwood. “Goldstein, why don’t you go along with Shorty, here, and Dave and me will catch up with you later.”
“I’M DAVID LYNCH!!!”
“Sure, sure, I think I’ll do that,” says a happy glowing Goldstein, as he struggles to get his stomach out of the booth.
As Commix Girl makes her way toward the dwarf, the dwarf deftly puts Goldstein between them as he rushes to the door while covering himself in one of the greatest shows of unconcerned bravado ever displayed in the history of theatrical mankind.
Now outside, in a final gesture of malevolent defiance and glee, the dwarf opens the door and blows a large plume of cigar smoke into the café before breaking into a toddling run toward the metro with Goldstein holding his stomach and struggling to keep up behind him.
Now Steve Kowalski walks in. We heard him trying to greet the dwarf, but his voice could not catch up with the small fleeing being.
Aside from Commix Girl, he is surrounded by men – David Lynch, Clint Eastwood gritting his teeth, Littman sulking up at him from under his lids – each one of whom automatically hates Kowalski for his own reason.
The feeling is mutual. So, what’s Steve Kowalski supposed to do, take each one of them down? There’s Eastwood over there, an old man, with all those crevices and wrinkles, and…
No, there is no ending here, no grand finale, no denouement, no resolution.
We do not know what will happen to Kowalski, whom he will fight, or how he will get out of this situation.
Commix Girl looks at him, and that’s all she does.
Filed by Saint Stephan, July 6, 2016