Excerpt from the novel Liebendigo — Alex Cocotas

A hypotenuse of light cut through the front of the restaurant, a former auto garage whose steel roller shutters had been replaced by an aluminum-framed glass façade and a post-prandial, visually-porous rolling grille—money, in the twenty-first century, cloaks itself in transparency—also aluminum, casting a sharply contrasting glare, like over-exposed photo, on patrons at the foremost tables and the ever-increasing number of would-be patrons waiting for their name to be called by the entrance, or, as it were, if your name had already been called, the exit. 

“It’s crowded.”

The restaurant was usually this busy on weekends, it was not unusual to wait an hour or longer, at peak hours, to be seated; for now that the central impediment to human development, the threat of food shortages after a bad harvest, has largely disappeared, residents of the world’s richest cities voluntarily wait hours for a meal, following the previous discovery of swart and slighter body mass: sometimes only a snack. 

“Yeah…” he replied ambiguously. His eyes continued to wander about room. 

The space was long and narrow, natural light yielding, with depth, to the citric-glow of large glass orbs with decorative filament, retro designs once practical now pleasing, and had high-ceilings, a capacious and capricious air for sonic accumulation, individual contributions—the low pulse of coffee grinder, short excerpts of conversation, shallow commentary, broad outline of songs over speakers—briefly prominent and again receding, like a thread in a great tapestry whose detail impresses but whose overall effect is necessarily general. 

Faintly so can you understand why I want a daughter while I’m still young I want to hold her perceptible. A cover of original echoed by perceptibly drunk guy sometime I can’t hm hm hm I’m moooovin pass hm hm hm a gun at the next table. 

Not just the lighting: the table where they sat—ruby red laminate top, edges rounded and wrapped in grooved aluminum trim—the chair on which they sat—plastic eames-style seat, a red a tad too orange, tubular steel legs—and the flooring on which both stood—porcelain tiles, small black squares between white octagons, glossy finish—wavered between past and present, vintage and retro, aesthetic isotopes of varying half-life, radiating material history; and yet totally surface, history obscuring lack of history, ultimately irrelevant, to all but buyer and seller, whether original or reproduction; serving, rather, a different purpose: to tell customer and, as reproduced image, potential customer, this is where you should be—and therefore current. 

His gaze returned to Erin, framed by exposed brick wall behind. She wore a black branded fleece, white logo stitched over left breast, unzipped, under which a beige cashmere sweater, flesh-veiled collarbones showing above crew collar; her hair, conventionally classified as blond but lacking the gradated cereal-spectrum the word normally conjures, was, depending on the lighting, white-seeming or pale-yellow, shifting precipitously to dark brown at roots, almost black in contrast, most evident at the natural part, slightly off-center, just off to the right—his left—on top of head, but reflected in eyebrows and peaking through elsewhere, the effect, overall, not unlike that produced by overexposure to chlorine—fell largely in front of shoulders, reaching just below clavicles in uneven advance, thin and somewhat frazzled, especially at the ends; her complexion was pale, her lips a pale pink, and, as though refracted through, her skin, soft and structurally-aloof, dispersed a similar hue; her features lacked the natural borders of a singular prominence but gained, in lieu, a discrete unity: her expression animated by humid pleasure. In front of each lay three sheets of paper in three shades of lilac and a glass of water; between them a sunflower in a carafe. She was already watching Ted; above him in wood-block letters on shelf above bar was written H A M B O N E, his head almost perfectly positioned under the B. She found this amusing. 

“I was about to say something very—a little dumb.”

Both paused: the awkward tango of early encounter.  

“But now I’ve seen the light,” he continued.

“What were you gonna say?” Her lips were slightly ajar. 

Ted shifted eyes askance. “I was gonna say—” He closed eyes and took a breath. “Funerals usually are. I know, I know,” he immediately tacked, “terrible, awful, embarrassing. As if this was one great big funeral. Funeral for what? It doesn’t even make sense. What was I getting at? Like on a practical level it doesn’t even make any sense, if you think about it. Are funerals usually full? That doesn’t make sense—like, do they have to be? Couldn’t they be empty? That’s a thing, right?” He flicked head and rolled eyes. “I give up,” he exhaled. 

Her mouth creased, aperture curved. Hambone. Ted made sweeping gesture with hand. He leaned back in his chair, immediately came back forward.

“I’ve never really been to brunch,” he continued, “That’s not true: I’ve been to brunch—but not really. I’ve been to brunch but, let’s say, I’ve never really brunched. In fact, I had a very strong opinion about it: I hated it. Hated brunch.”

“Why do you hate brunch?”

As though question plummeted through placid thought-surface, Ted’s face stretched contemplative, ruffled brow like outward ripple. 

“Ho-nest-ly…” drawled. “I don’t even know why. I thought it was—anti-democratic…or something. I used to talk about it all the time: brunch is elitist, brunch is obnoxious, overpriced food. People rolled their eyes: Here he goes again on the brunch thing. I don’t even know where I picked it up, when I picked it up, why I picked it up. I used to talk about diners a lot—diners: now those are truly democratic establishments. Never went to them either!

“But you know,” he continued. “I’m looking around here,” he looked around, “and I’m thinking, brunch isn’t so bad. Food looks good, smells good—and you can drink at 10 am in the morning without anyone wondering if you have a problem. Everyone’s having a good time—look at those guys over there,” he hitched thumb, “They haven’t stopped laughing since we got here. What’s not to like? Maybe it was me who was the elitist this entire time. Brunch is good—brunch is great. Oh god!” expression singed by burning bush: “It’s true: I’m on Team Brunch.”

He fell back in chair and mode loosened. “I feel like a new man,” added.

“You’re re-dick-u-lus,” she said abreast soft laughter. She almost added something to the effect of: It’s not too late to repent and go to a diner—the sort of benign playful banter spontaneously adopted between them—but unbidden awareness checked mirth. It had only been two days; it was really more like twenty hours. She did not know this person across from her?, not really. He could be anyone, really. (Ted’s appearance suddenly acquired an alien character.) Some guy—and with flash-transformation really seemed Some Guy—makes a comment on the book you’re reading—and why?—then—well, obviously—one suggestion following another—mostly his—here you are two days—twenty hours—later, intimately diagnosing the character of this strange man who is, objectively, a stranger. Objectivity, like a guillotine, instantly severed head and heart, and the disembodied insights disheartened. Can’t imagine what he probably thinks of me, she thought. She was not the kind of person who did things like this. Today was Sunday—except for that one time—which meant—and that other time—she had to work tomorrow. Did he understand this? Did she? But, it occurred to her, what does it matter. “I like brunch,” she buffered, rearing earnest, “It’s a nice way to meet friends and catch up. Or relax after working all week. Plus…”

“Are you ready to order?” A waitress had arrived, a stocky young woman whose features seemed to belong to one of the world’s great cultural seams, or simply the stitched-up bricolage of an American city, her visage a visible compendium of stress and forced courtesy. Like the rest of the wait staff she wore a plain t-shirt (charcoal-grey, crew-neck) and jeans (dark blue faded around thighs), the articles if not the concept of their choosing, a liberation from the provided uniform to a slightly broader uniformity, bought and maintained by employee. 

“Yes—we are!” Ted enthused.

“That’s great,” blunted waitress. 

“Erin?” baton’d Ted. 

The sharp edge of waitress’s attention, shifting abruptly, severed Erin’s curiosity in shakshouka verdé. “I’ll have the eggs benedict,” she said.

“Wonderful.”

“No salmon on that?” Ted asked.

“I’m not crazy about salmon.”

Ted made show of grievous injury, clutched his broken heart, or where his broken heart would be if mirror-reflected: “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“And for you.”

Ted picked up menu and looked at it as though written in foreign script. “What is better: the duck hash or the shrimp n’ grits?”

“I like the shrimp n’ grits personally. But they’re both good.”

“I’ll have the duck hash.” He looked up. “But not because I don’t trust your opinion. I just needed it to help me figure out what I really wanted, like when you take one option away and you realize that that was what you really wanted the entire time, you know.”

“Wonderful choice.”

“And can I get the egg poached?”

“Sure.”

“And a side of maple bacon. Why not.”

“Why not. Anything to drink?”

“I’ll have a Bloody Mary.”

“Water is fine, thanks,” Erin said, “Actually, maybe a coffee.” 

“First brunch!”

“Ok, fine. A Bellini.”

“So let’s see. We have an eggs benedict, a duck hash, a side of maple bacon, a coffee, a Bellini, and a Bloody Mary.”

“Make that two coffees.”

“Two coffees.”

The waitress straightened posture as she finished writing.

“Very good. I’ll be back with your drinks in a bit.”

The waitress’s exit briefly lacuna’d conversation-flow. Erin wondered if she should think it charming or creepy that he—effectively—said she was the reason he likes brunch—but what did it matter, she thought, and went on thinking about it. The laughter-hearty boys a few tables over began chanting poop-dickin’ Bill poop-dickin’ Bill poop-dickin’ Bill, except for one of their company, presumably Bill of the pooped dick, pace and volume increasing until fists pounded on table-top, setting plates, glasses, cutlery a-rattle. They glanced over. The waitress swept speed-walking past their table. Others glanced too; heads shook, eyes rolled, sighs sounded, none of which seemed to bother the intended recipients, if they were the intended recipients. The excitement soon subsided. One of the table, the same who had refrained, perhaps the eponymous Bill, volubly apologized to all and none—sorry folks they’re animals can’t take ‘em anywhere—arms spread wide, to amusement of his pack.

Their eyes met above sunflower’s corolla. They smiled. 

“You never mentioned that you also wrote movies,” Erin said. 

Ted loosed reverie. 

“Ah uh-yeah, well—that’s because I really don’t.”

“But your roommate said something about a movie.”

“Yeah—I mean, no. Well, yes,” he clarified. “Yes: it’s true. Dan is making a movie, and he wants me for some reason to help him out. Not that I know anything about that stuff.”

“Ah, cool,” she lilted genial, “I didn’t know that he—I thought he worked in finance or something. What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s a-uh…” He paused and fluster ebbed. He raised hand like scout’s honor. “I’m like Honest Abe: I cannot tell a lie. It’s a porno. Dan is making a porno.”

A brief lull. Erin’s face in stasis between polar emotions.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” she said. 

“Unfortunately not,” Ted commiserated, the we-regret-to-inform-you tone of fatal vicissitude. “Dan has taken it upon himself to make pornography.”

“I’ll get you those drinks in a minute,” waitress said in passing.

“And you’re helping him?”

Ted shifted in seat; one leg began bouncing, occasionally communing table-leg, setting all a-shiver.

“`Sort of. Not really. Here’s how it is,” he placed hands on table. “Dan’s going through a, let’s call it, hard time,” he finger-quoted phrase, “and the other night, while we were watching the debate, this idea just sort of suddenly came to him to make a porno about Lieben—you know, Lieben,” (she nodded), “Yes, well, he was quite taken—appalled—by her, I guess you could say, and joked, or so I thought, that someone should make a porno about her, like a devastating satire of all she stands for, and I sorta said, jokingly, yeah you should do it—and here’s the thing: he wasn’t joking! He actually wants to do it! Or if he is joking then I have to admit it’s a pretty elab’rate trick and he’s fooled me pretty good.” He briefly mulled the possibility. “And now he wants me to help him—as if I know anything about that sort of thing.” He brightened. “But there’s no way he’ll actually go through with it, that’s for sure. More of a thinker than a stinker, if you catch my drift. And there’s no way she can actually win the nomination besides, so…I’m sorta like a UN observer, I guess you could say.”

“Yeah…” she drawled, stripping content to sound. None of this matters, she reminded herself, or was reminded from without by force of habit, or what had become such since her three-year (rounding up) college boyfriend—what plans they had!—“unintentionally” (probably slipped and fell in fully erect) slept with the vice president of the Save Darfur campaign—they were gonna do Teach for America—they were all involved in: Mom was right (don’t take it too seriously always said). She would enjoy herself some, which is what matters now, and work to be where she’d want to be when it would matter, which was—she couldn’t exactly say, but not now: not for a few more years at least. What that was—where she would be—was like a landmark’s form looming in distance, vague yet certifiable, the specific path uncertain but the destination immobile, and there was no other destination: she was determined to defy what was expected of her, or maybe what had been expected of her mother, but really to not become her mother. “Sounds like a pretty dumb idea, to be honest.”

“A stupid idea,” heaped Ted.

“What a waste of time,” she continued, “when there’s so many other things you could be doing.”

“I’m always giving him ideas—so many ideas!”

“And to make porn.” Erin furthered, inattentive to Ted. “That’s just so—sleazy.” Her features made gentle contortions of denunciation. “Like there’s nothing better to do than that.” She capped a smile. Well that was that, she was thinking, which in her thoughts was more of a Well That Was That, and tomorrow work, and after work dinner with Lisa, and Tuesday the date with what’s-his-name (more of a What’s-His-Name) from that finance-philanthropy event, which meant not much but a decent meal and buzzy sleep—alone—and Wednesday…

“I’m not so sure about that,” sounded Ted like voice through air vent. 

Erin seemed to look up although looking right at; her expression a scratched record of harmonic thought. 

“What?”

Ted’s smile beguiling and guileless.

“Does Dan deserve to be covered in honey and left in a lion’s den? Possibly. We’ll let the courts decide. But I’m not so sure about this ‘por-no’” his index fingers lieu’d window-wiper motion for quotation-marks, “libel being tossed around. I plead the fifth in that matter.”

“What?” Erin repeated. 

“Will—or should I say would—it involve maybe even gratuitous amounts of man on woman, woman on man, woman on woman, woman on man on woman, man on woman on man, man on woman on man on woman, and—maybe, just maybe—o holy of holies!—man on man intercourse?” He brought hand thoughtfully to chin. “Most likely.” Thumb stroked chin. “But does that necessarily make it a porno?”

“You…called it a…porno…not me,” staggered Erin. Her face momentarily draped indecisive. He was joking—no, he was making fun of her—or maybe he was serious? As much as none of this matters—and it didn’t matter—she didn’t like being made fun of. 

“Sure, sure: but let’s not get hogged down in truffles. Besides can you really blame someone for believing what society wants them to believe,” he inflected ambiguously. “The point is, if there even is a point, that what Dan is doing—based on what he’s told me—is not just an I ordered a pizza and bit off more than I can chew sort of thing—not that sort of sleazy, really sleazy stuff—but something grander—maybe ambitious is the word—utilizing—yes, utilizing—sex to create a comprehensive critique of American culture. And maybe that’s just maybe art.”

“What’s that?” her head tilted down as spoke, eyes orbed a-wide. 

“Yeah, could be. Why not?” He bunched features. “Whatever else he may be, Dan is no slouch at the movies.”

“Are you—?”

“Let’s see, we have two coffees.”

Ted, smiling like soap bubbles, perspective determined and distorted by perspective, turned head and, facsimile of delighted surprise, opened mouth and clutched chest.

“We got a Bloody Mary.”

“That would be me.”

“That would be you. And that means you,” the waitress reoriented, “are the Bellini, if I’m not mistaken.”

Erin did not respond, vocal or extraverbal. 

“I’m a fool!” Ted cried after sip.

“Nob’dy’s perfect,” muttered waitress. “Can I do anything else f’ya?”

Erin looked up with freshly-plastered cheer than had not finished drying. “Yes, please. I’ll have a Bloody Mary.” The waitress found the reversal mildly unnerving.

“And I,” announced Ted, “a Bellini.”

“Anotha’ Bellini ‘nd anotha’ Bloody. But reverse. Comin’ right up.” She paused and glanced side-side: they were looking at one another, the invisible curtain between them—her and them—drawn. She rolled her eyes, confident that neither would notice. 

The Bloody Mary and Bellini were served in glass mason jars. The coffee mugs were novelty and various, likely sourced in local secondhand stores or flea markets; Erin’s announced PROUD DAD; Ted’s informed, A Cat’s Best Friend Is A Cat, along with an image of a cat embracing itself in an anthropomorphic manner.

Ted sounded satisfaction: ahhhh, or maybe haaaa. “That’s a beautiful thing,” said. “D’ya wanna try?”

She didn’t like to be made of, to be the butt of a joke, partly from being on the butt-end of the two degrees equals one child equation, partly because it’s mean and that wasn’t her thing, and partly because this was a favored tactic of her ex-boyfriend (variously Mr. Says The Right Things or The Asshole), who, it became obvious, had always used it to enforce a certain dynamic in their relationship, to force her into a certain role, a warning sign right from the start. Not that this was a relationship, nor was she sure she was being made of; but ever since The Asshole was innocently blind-sided by that hippy-granola-naturally-deodorized-aka-horrible-smelling whore—who also never shaved fyi—and ps definitely had herpes—ever since that blind act of fate she had come to realize how much of her self she had given over to others; or how little of herself there seemed to be in her self. Not just The Asshole, but everyone. With Mr. Says The Right Things saying all the right things to someone else, their plans off, the prospect of spending two years in some random city in some failing school seemed less and less appealing. Part of the reason she decided to move to New York, if not the reason, was purely its distance from everything and everyone she knew; she would be out of their reach. Her friends—love ‘em to death, reunited and it feels so good, etc.—were all gonna move to The City (more commonly San Francisco, under no circumstance Frisco), and go on doing the same things, keep on keepin’ on and so on, and as much as she wanted to live again in the city of her birth, first eight years and every other weekend thereafter, her friends—love ‘em to death, look who I found, etc—expected her to be a certain person, and she no longer wanted to be just that person. Reading, for example; she had always loved to read, had majored in English, but books were never something—love ‘em to death, been missing this little one, etc—they were gonna talk about, on the margins at best, as interlude—that’s so interesting you’re such a smartie Erin—to who-who or what the Polo Boys (occasionally Men Who Tread Water) had done now; and sometimes she wanted more than social antics. A common experience, commonly experienced at chronological nodes, for friendship forms less of mutual feeling than commonly thought as through mutual social needs arising from a social context: the needs persist, the context changes—you arrive at a university of thirty thousand at eighteen daunted, decide to join, or maybe just drifted and joined, a social organization and through a seemingly randomized process—a word here, what you wore, who knows—you’re thrown in with a cohort (retrospectively Babies) to brave the social wilds, then the lay of the land changes; the most adept drift and drift without ever letting their innate sense of loyalty suffer, the losers are simply loyal. She found a position at a non-profit, which gave her decision the appearance of inevitability, something she did nothing to dispel, through a friend, Ellen, of her mother’s from her New York years, later revealed, after a bottle of wine, to be her lesbian experimentation years (but more like Les-Ex Years), before the mystery marriage and the less mysterious divorce and the move to Belmont (it has an ice rink) and the procession of half-formed plans for careers, ventures and adventures that never came to fruition and could never fully obscure that she was not really independent, and long before she said, Enjoy yourself, I’d be doing the same thing if I was your age, and also said, Don’t worry about the money, live; but never revealed if she was a former lover, Ellen, who she met for coffee once and kept saying, You look so much like Karen, and once welled up and said, I just can’t believe it, then apologized. 

What’s so nice about it, Erin would regale on trips home, is that so many people are in a similar situation, but the truth was that what San Francisco was for Berkeley, New York was for a thousand more places; and that the place she had grown up hearing about had changed; mostly, in her view, for the better—she was less sanguine about threats of rape or robbery than Mom, for whom the words New York were orbited by the three moons: dangerous, wild, and dirty—but also for the worse: more difficult, it seemed, to meet people or even places to meet people, especially if you’re looking for a little more than Wanna Fuck; the truth was that independence and distance and doing your own thing could be a little lonely sometimes, especially when you have to voyeuristically watch all your old friends doing the same old things and having a great old time of it—without you; the truth was that after two years she had found less people in a similar situation that she had expected. Not that she was sure he was joking, not that it mattered, although she had enjoyed herself—until now—which is what matters—until it doesn’t—but if he was serious—not that anyone could seriously believe that.

“I just ordered one,” she said with the neutral affect of fact.  

“Well you’ve made a wonderful decision. You won’t regret it. Hey,” voice pivoted, “you ever been to that bookstore around here. Book Thug Nation—stupid name, I know—or great name? Maybe we can cruise over there after, if yur feelin’ the feelin’.”

Subtly ah home lemme go home home is wherever I’m with you audible.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

He looked confused. “I-uh…think so?” Maybe she liked the name. 

“You really think your roommate is making art when he’s making porn. Porn,” she repeated for emphasis, drawing out phonemes. 

“Oh,” he contracted face. “We’re still talking about this?”

“And you agree with that!”

Like many Californians Erin had to contend with two powerful, at times contradictory, personality traits: a profound aversion to conflict, hence the impenetrable mass of qualifiers shrouding the Californian vernacular; and a profound belief in the world’s ability to change for the better: in their own image, that is; since this ideal—that is, themselves—is signally, demonstrably correct, the manifestation of evolved life itself, the chosen (Californians) waver between pity and revulsion for their unenlightened brethren (everyone else); most Californians, faced with a stubborn and futile resistance to the inevitable, evangelize salvation through the inarguable proof of their exemplary existence, a few, for reasons mysterious, go one step further and seek to persuade through positive action; and so she reiterated:

“Do you really think that?” almost tenderly, tendering redemption— redemption, in a secular age, the right opinion, or on a grander scale, the right side of history—history, in a secular age, the horizon line of heaven and hell: life-as-lived a purgatory waiting, as past becomes past, for a final, joyless judgement that, as in times past, is already irrelevant.     

“Me?” Ted said like an android discovering the subjective. “No, no…” he hastened. “That’s Dan’s thing.” His face percolated. “But…” a pained look passed across face, as though a confession unwillingly wrenched from conscience, “objectively-speaking, he may have a point.”

“That porn—is art?”

“Or can be,” Ted clarified.

“Like…” eyes flashed away, aside, again reposed on Ted against, “Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali?”

“Well, it’s not painting I guess, but—” a slight hitch, “in theory, yes.”

“Like literature. Shakespeare. Like what you want to do. Or what you claim you want to do.”

“Well,” lips pushed out with slightly simian semblance. “Well,” he segued to lithe tone: “Sure, why not? Maybe they’re not so different, if you think about it.”

Erin made a sound, the nature of which is the nature of which as perceived, unperceived, it seemed, by Ted.

“I mean,” his expression briefly absorbed in various thought-tranches: “No one really reads anymore. No point in trying to pretend oth’rwise: nothin’ doin’ there. So why still read? To fuck, basically. I mean…yeah—that’s basically it. Literature fucks, that’s the truth. You’d never fuck someone because they watched some TV show, but you’d maybe fuck someone because they were reading a book you like or like the books you like. TV don’t fuck, movies maybe fuck, but literature for sure fucks. Books are human plumage. It’s all a fuck imperative, at the end of the day—basically. That’s what’s so shitty about those e-book things, if you think about it!” He laughed. “I mean,” eyes settled on her, “would you have even talked to me if I was reading, I dunno, Ayn Rand? I wouldn’t have!”

Erin, who had several times opened mouth to speak, thwarted by inconsiderate flow external and considerate manners internal, finally spoke:

“I think there’s a big—”

“Hey guys! Or should I say: guy and girl?” It was a new waitress: shallow v-neck, black, and acid-wash jeans. Her grapefruit-colored lips framed enameled teeth in cantaloupe-slice opening; her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail; her eyelashes possessed a vaguely individual character; in her hand, a tray. She had the affected calm of received accolade one finds in performers; or phrased differently, she looked like she had just rounded-off a back handspring into a layout backflip with two and a half twists and stuck the landing. “My name’s Jen-ny,” she lilted mellifluously. “Sam’s going on break for a quick one five, so I’ll be takin’ care of y’all for a lil’ bit.”

“Sam’s not dead, is she?” Ted asked with adolescent simplicity.

“Ha ha ha no, of course not!”

“That’s good,” he replied indifferently.

“Ha ha, yeah!” There was a pause. Jenny’s eyes shifted side-side—one look at Erin confirmed it: they were breaking up—she knew that look anywhere, poor girl—and him just joking with her like that in front of her—no good, it ain’t no good—then down to tray. “A-nother of the same for both y’all?”

“Just the opposite, actually. Erin’s a stickler for symmetry.”

“Ah, I’m the same way!” the waitress said, addressing Erin and really trying to say, I’ve been there too girl, don’t let it get you down; and then added, “Funny, ain’t it,” as she settled drinks on table.

“Thanks,” Erin responded.

The waitress was thinking, Anytime girl, anytime, and just wanted to give this girl—this Erin—a hug right there, and said, “Anything else I can do for you?” and thinking, I would give that hug if she asked, right then and there, then thinking that she has cool hair and then deciding, right then and there, to dye her own—new city, new hair. 

“Don’t think so,” Ted replied.

“Great. Give me a holla! if you need anything else,” Jenny said, and departed thinking, full on bleach-white, oh. hells. yes.

“Yeah,” Ted said turning back to Erin. “You have a point. But I’m not so sure myself. We also gotta think about potential. No one reads. No point in crying over a sailed ship. But think how many people watch porn! Probably like, what, fifty million every day, maybe even more. And that’s just in the US! God only knows how many internationally. A billion? Two billion? Jesus, it’s hard to even wrap your head around that. And think! They’re all watching American porn. What else is still like that? No one goes to the movies, no one reads. TV? TV don’t fuck. Wow,” he said with different intonation, a new character emerging in speech, “I thought Dan had lost it, like maybe had really gone a little crazy, but I gotta admit—begrudgingly,” he gave Erin a significant look, “of course—he may really be on to something here.” He lifted chin, “Porn may be America’s last viable art form. Porn could be the art of the future. Wow,” his look dissipated in wonder, “the crazy bastard.” He shook his head and smiled. 

“And you think that’s a good thing?”

Ted roused. “I dunno. It was—more of a non-partisan analysis, I guess.”

“Do you think porn is a good thing?” Erin asked, but really wanting to ask: How would you like a finger up your butt without asking?

Although, realistically, these finance meets philanthropy events (to her more of a Finance Wants To Fuck Philantropy) that she went to for work—voluntarily nudged—Erin is meat unspoken—to convince Banker Bros and the occasional, bless her, Banker Babe to give something back to the community were, these events, not the best place to find someone willing to give something back to their partner, or someone who will even consider you partner. She didn’t mind the events themselves so much, maybe even enjoyed them if she was being honest; but maybe she should have somehow expected that, in retrospect; in fact, she basically had; or at least that’s what she told herself; him she told, “What the fuck are you doing?” Whoopsie, he said. Whoopsie. 

“Hmm. Dunno.” He propped elbow and rapped finger-tips on chin. “I haven’t thought about it too much, to be honest. I’m pretty eh on it myself personally.” He droned ponderous sound of introspection then remembered an article he had read…at some point. “What do you think?” Might have been a post.

“No, I don’t—I don’t think it’s a good thing at all.”

“That’s interesting,” Ted said, still remembering the article, if indeed it was article, or at least remembered impression, if he had indeed read it. He tapped finger on cheek. “Why’s that?”

“Because it’s bad for women,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Ted. He nodded, perhaps improvisation on perhaps article perhaps read. 

“Because, if you think about it, it really affects how people will perceive women. They’ll start thinking all women are easy,” and like being anally probed for example, “and then they’ll start treating all women like that too, when it reality that’s just some poor girl who needs money and has to live out some guy’s fantasy.” 

“Yeah,” said Ted. His chin bounced up-down as if landing on invisible spring.

“Because if it really is like you think it is—not that I really think it is, by the way—then that means that for a lot of girls,” thinking of the students she mentored, “the best thing they can get going is to have sex with some guy for money, what seems like a lot of money at that age, but not thinking, you know, that it’s not like something you can do for the rest of your life; that it’s not, you know, something that will pay off later, but actually like the opposite, that maybe it could ruin a lot of things for you later and you’re not really thinking about that, especially at that age; but, you know, some girls,” thinking about some of the girls she mentored, “probably won’t be able to resist the money—I mean that’s a lot of money for a lot of people—and so they’ll do it, not thinking of the consequences for themselves obviously; but also, you know, for other girls too; that they’re sort of perpetuating this whole thing—unintentionally of course, but I mean yeah, basically,” said, thinking vaguely of how she’d feel if a Roxy or a Nessa, good girls who made stupid decisions (like why not use a condom), would actually do that: sympathy, disappointment, but sympathetic disappointment more than disappointed sympathy. Erin not infrequently had contingency emotions for theoretical futures.

“Yeah,” said Ted, bobbing along. The conversation slackened. The article or whatever it was hadn’t prepared him for this. He couldn’t exactly say “that’s interesting” again—or could he?—and so he said, “I hadn’t thought about it like that, that’s interesting.”

He took a sip of drink nearest to (right) hand, Blood Mary as it were. Mmm, sounded at gravity’s engagement, hoping this would, somehow, alter course of conversation. 

Struggling loose I’m just an animal looking for a home and share the same space for a minute or two and you love me till my heart stops love me till I’m dead from indistinct web.

“And you think that’s a good thing?” she asked, shifting with native ease to maternal tone and presence befitting. An implicit smile appeared about mouth, if not mirth. 

“Well no…” Ted drawled, drawing words out from one side of mouth to other, an analogous movement in eyes. Something about her tone was like bellows to the cooling embers of his interest, kindling some combustible instinct. He spoke as one steps in the dark: “But isn’t that, you know, sort of how it already—is?

A subtle kneading of Erin’s expression curdled the whole. 

“I mean,” he continued in tone increasingly elastic, “I didn’t, as far as I know, make any of that up. I’m pretty sure it’s a fact that more people accidentally jizz on themselves every day in this country than read a novel. You gotta play it as it comes, ya know. And right now they’re being fed nothin’ but this good for nothin’ bad for women garbage. But everything was bad for women at some point, if you think about it—movies, books, you name it—bad for women! So now, you know, maybe porn just needs something to give it that nudge and get it past its bad for women stage, into its…not bad for women stage, or whatever that may be. Could be more of a not not good for women thing. Hard to say. Either way, we can’t be elitists about the whole thing, even if we both agree that it is dreadfully bad for women, in its current form at least.”

Unsure what to address first Erin latched on least ambiguous uncertainty: “Elitists about what?”

“The pornographic arts,” he said simply. 

“Porn is not art,” she reflexed. She wanted to say more but didn’t want to sound like a hectoring killjoy, sensing in it the shade of expectation—maybe because her mother used to lecture her and her friends about the horrors of teen idols or branded clothing in a manner a tad too overbearing (sort of a There She Goes Again), which even if she was right, and in the long-run she usually was, made you immediately seek the shelter of teen idols and branded clothing; or this image, which didn’t correspond to a single life experience seemingly, of a humorless, indignant (and, yes, overweight) woman haranguing everyone and everything in the name of women, the fact that she had never met such a person, at least not that she could remember, in no way dispelling her desire to not become this person; and so she added, flashing smile: “I mean, the acting is terr-i-bull,” trying to capture, or recapture, some of the levity from the previous two days; or, as it were, twenty hours.

“Ah but what is art?” Ted rhetoricized, summing up an epoch of art history. “Maybe porn just needs that final nudge, someone to take it to the next level. Maybe there just hasn’t been a Tolstoy of porn or Flow-bert of porn, or even the Dickens of porn, let alone the Austen of porn, and maybe Dan—he’s like trying to be, I dunno, the Swift of porn. But don’t you see!” he exclaimed with sudden vigor. “This is why he can’t be trusted! If Dan really pulls it off—I can’t even think about it—it would be a disaster—nothing but the most sleazy, disgusting, shameless, nasty, sleaziest stuff.” He actually seemed indignant. “Because Dan is definitely not thinking about what’s good for women, not even what’s not not good for women. And—if he succeeded—just think of the consequences—I don’t even want to think about it. Isn’t it obvious? We have to stop him!” he urged—earnestly, it seemed.  

“What—do you mean?” she wavered. If he were to come out and say that this was a great big joke she might actually be relieved.

“I for one,” Ted placed hand on chest, “would be happy—relieved—to have you on board. To fight the good fight. Or the not not good fight.”

“What makes you think,” confusion quavering through, “I’d want to do that?”

“To save the world—or to not not save the world—from Dan’s evil but admittedly sort of brilliant plan.”

Erin laughed as though preemptively activating joke. “I’m not going to work on a porn movie,” fluttered words over low roil.

“Well it’s up to you, of course.” He shrugged shoulders and expression echoed gesture.

“I’m not gonna work on a porn movie,” she repeated.

“Your call,” he said indifferently.

A prude would not work on the porn movie. 

One plate landed on table. “The duck hash will be out in a jiff!”

***

Alex Cocotas is a writer living in Berlin. His journalism and essays have appeared in The Guardian, Tablet, The Paris Review, The Baffler, The Forward, Quartz, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Jacobin, The New Inquiry, Full Stop Magazine, and The Awl, among others. Liebendigo, from which this is excerpted, is his first novel and is currently seeking a publisher.