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An Excerpt from Apology
8/4/94
I'm sitting here in this coffee shop. Y'know the one
there by Allen street. The town is filled with
thousands of middle class college kids living off
their parent's money.
The coffee shop is where the
ones come to play the part of sophisticated bohemians.
The pretensions glow from their line-less faces as
they sip cappuccinos and nibble strawberry scones.
The boys to my right are discussing Nabokov with a
serious air, a copy of Sartre's Cuba lies
conspicuously on the table.
The young woman on my left
is declaring that she can never allow her creativity
to be stifled by entering the work force. The man with
her scratches his goatee in agreement, occasionally
suggesting they go back to his place to hear his new
Washington Squares CD. Matt has just designed a new
Îinternational symbol for peace. He moves from table
to table trying to sell hand painted T-shirts that
bear the design. Tomorrow he's leaving for the 25th
anniversary Woodstock concert where he hopes to strike
it rich with his creation. He asks me, "Do you think I
should go to MTV with this or not? I don't know if I
want to corrupt myself with the MTV generation."
The
anal lab attendant from the university stops by my
table to ask of my ancestry. He's sure I look
'particularly European'' and says I remind him of an
underground film actor. Ornelia is playing head games
with the philosophy instructer who's trying to get
back in her bed. She says, "to look at him you'd never
think he has a donkey dick down to his knees."
Gopha the skinny Indian boy feels inclined to sing me
a verse of 'It Ain't Me Babe' when I ask him if he's a
friend of Monica's. Jason is trying to talk Gopha into
a dollar bet on a game of chess. Between times Jason
will chew your ear off with his plans to conquer the
music industry while studying entertainment law, but
when it comes to his never ending dollar chess matches
he's quiet as a church mouse.
I sit among them. To all surface appearances one and
the same. If they could only see I would rather reach
into their flesh and tear out their shallow little
hearts than listen to another second of their prattle.
With no job, no gigs, and my girlfriend's so far gone
she might as well be one another planet, I've been
leading the writer's quiet cafe life. Spending my free
time outdoors drinking iced teas and cheap wines. With
a friendly facade I chat amiably with whatever
stalwart genius decides to squander away their hours
in my vicinity.
But behind my eyes is an unspoken challenge to any
and every one of these social elites to just once say
one thing that would inspire me. Just one little idea
which is new and meaningful. Any emotion which would
incite my animal passions to seek enlightenment.
Unfortunately original thoughts are nil here. Even a
crude spark would enliven me, but they only deliver
the failure of dull mediocrity.
In my secret mind I wish to run like a madman banging
gongs and speaking in tongues. Or maybe jump on a
table and shove a baklava stick up my ass as I sing
the Star Spangled Banner in the forgotten language of
the Hottentots.
I know these thoughts only reveal me
as a fool because the spark I search for cannot be
shocked into existence by Dadaistic acts of obscene
performance art. Where it truly comes from is one of
the mysteries which will always haunt me.
But alas, the woman at me left has acceded to the
temptation of the Washington Squares. And Matt has
made T-shirt sale to the scruffy girl in the tie die
frock. Jason moves his rook to check, and for all my
wrath all I get is a bitter taste in my mouth which
all the Chablis in America won't wash away.
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