banging out critiques and denunciations.”
Vladimir smiled. One had to give points to this youth willing to carry on a fight dressed in Baobab’s gamy boxers, jeans draped around the ankles.
“Laszlo!” Baobab shouted. “You’re filming with Laszlo, am I right?”
“Peasant!” she shouted back, slamming a bathroom door behind her. “Sicilian peasant!”
“What? Come again?” Baobab turned in the direction of the kitchen and the breakables. “My grandfather was a parliamentarian before Mussolini! You Staten Island whore!”
“Okay, okay,” Vladimir said, taking hold of one approaching Popeye arm. “Now we go, we have a drink. Come, Garibaldi. Here are your cigarettes and your lighter. We go, we go.”
THEY WENT . A cab was hailed to haul them to Baobab’s favorite bar in the meat-packing district. A few years hence this tattered part of downtown would catch the eye of the barbarian hordes from Teaneck and Garden City, and later become a bona fidehipster playground, but for now it was all but abandoned at night—a fitting locale for Baobab’s favorite bar.
The Carcass had an authentic pool of blood at the entrance, courtesy of a neighboring hog-slaughtering outfit. One could still see the conveyor belts that transported the heifers of yesteryear running along the length of the Carcass’s ceiling. Below one could also be as anachronistic as needed: put some Lynyrd Skynyrd on the jukebox, whip out a stick of beef jerky, ruminate out loud on the contours of the waitress, or watch a trio of emaciated graduate students standing around the pool table with their cue sticks at attention, as if waiting for funding to appear. The usual crowd.
“So?” They had both asked the question. Bourbon was on the way.
“This Laszlo person is a problem?”
“Damn Magyar poser’s trying to screw my baby girl,” Baobab said. “Weren’t the Hungarians part of the Great Tatar Horde originally?”
“You’re thinking of my mother.” Mongolka!
“No, I assure you, this Laszlo’s quite the barbarian. He has that international odor. And his personal pronouns are a mess . . . Yes, of course I know how I sound. And if I was a girl aged sixteen and had the opportunity to tango with some putz who had groomed Fellini’s dog, or whatever Laszlo’s claim to fame is, I’d sign up in a Budapest minute.”
“But has he actually made any movies?”
“The Hungarian version of The Road to Mandalay. Very allegorical, I hear. Vlad, have I ever told you that all love is socioeconomic?”
“Yes.” Actually, no.
“I’ll tell you one more time then. All love is socioeconomic. It’s the gradients in status that make arousal possible. Roberta is younger than me, I’m more experienced than her, she’s smarterthan me, Laszlo’s more European than her, you’re more educated than Challah, Challah’s . . . Challah . . .”
“Challah’s a problem,” Vladimir said. The waitress was arriving with the bourbons, and Vladimir looked to her pleasant figure—pleasant in the Western sense, meaning: impossibly thin, but with breasts. She was clothed entirely in two large swatches of leather, the leather fake and shiny in a self-mocking way, absolutely correct for 1993, the first year when mocking the mainstream had become the mainstream. Also, the waitress had no hair on her head, an arrangement Vladimir had warmed to over the years, despite his fondness for rooting his nose through musty locks and curls. And finally, the waitress had a face, a fact lost on most of the patrons, but not on Vladimir who admired the way one overdone eyelash stuck miserably to the skin below. Pathos! Yes, she was a high-quality person, this waitress, and it saddened Vladimir that she wouldn’t look at him in the least as she served the bourbons.
“Perhaps these . . . Oh, I will not succumb to your lingo. Okay, fine, perhaps these gradients in status between Challah and myself are no longer enough to arouse me.”
“You’re saying
Vladimir smiled. One had to give points to this youth willing to carry on a fight dressed in Baobab’s gamy boxers, jeans draped around the ankles.
“Laszlo!” Baobab shouted. “You’re filming with Laszlo, am I right?”
“Peasant!” she shouted back, slamming a bathroom door behind her. “Sicilian peasant!”
“What? Come again?” Baobab turned in the direction of the kitchen and the breakables. “My grandfather was a parliamentarian before Mussolini! You Staten Island whore!”
“Okay, okay,” Vladimir said, taking hold of one approaching Popeye arm. “Now we go, we have a drink. Come, Garibaldi. Here are your cigarettes and your lighter. We go, we go.”
THEY WENT . A cab was hailed to haul them to Baobab’s favorite bar in the meat-packing district. A few years hence this tattered part of downtown would catch the eye of the barbarian hordes from Teaneck and Garden City, and later become a bona fidehipster playground, but for now it was all but abandoned at night—a fitting locale for Baobab’s favorite bar.
The Carcass had an authentic pool of blood at the entrance, courtesy of a neighboring hog-slaughtering outfit. One could still see the conveyor belts that transported the heifers of yesteryear running along the length of the Carcass’s ceiling. Below one could also be as anachronistic as needed: put some Lynyrd Skynyrd on the jukebox, whip out a stick of beef jerky, ruminate out loud on the contours of the waitress, or watch a trio of emaciated graduate students standing around the pool table with their cue sticks at attention, as if waiting for funding to appear. The usual crowd.
“So?” They had both asked the question. Bourbon was on the way.
“This Laszlo person is a problem?”
“Damn Magyar poser’s trying to screw my baby girl,” Baobab said. “Weren’t the Hungarians part of the Great Tatar Horde originally?”
“You’re thinking of my mother.” Mongolka!
“No, I assure you, this Laszlo’s quite the barbarian. He has that international odor. And his personal pronouns are a mess . . . Yes, of course I know how I sound. And if I was a girl aged sixteen and had the opportunity to tango with some putz who had groomed Fellini’s dog, or whatever Laszlo’s claim to fame is, I’d sign up in a Budapest minute.”
“But has he actually made any movies?”
“The Hungarian version of The Road to Mandalay. Very allegorical, I hear. Vlad, have I ever told you that all love is socioeconomic?”
“Yes.” Actually, no.
“I’ll tell you one more time then. All love is socioeconomic. It’s the gradients in status that make arousal possible. Roberta is younger than me, I’m more experienced than her, she’s smarterthan me, Laszlo’s more European than her, you’re more educated than Challah, Challah’s . . . Challah . . .”
“Challah’s a problem,” Vladimir said. The waitress was arriving with the bourbons, and Vladimir looked to her pleasant figure—pleasant in the Western sense, meaning: impossibly thin, but with breasts. She was clothed entirely in two large swatches of leather, the leather fake and shiny in a self-mocking way, absolutely correct for 1993, the first year when mocking the mainstream had become the mainstream. Also, the waitress had no hair on her head, an arrangement Vladimir had warmed to over the years, despite his fondness for rooting his nose through musty locks and curls. And finally, the waitress had a face, a fact lost on most of the patrons, but not on Vladimir who admired the way one overdone eyelash stuck miserably to the skin below. Pathos! Yes, she was a high-quality person, this waitress, and it saddened Vladimir that she wouldn’t look at him in the least as she served the bourbons.
“Perhaps these . . . Oh, I will not succumb to your lingo. Okay, fine, perhaps these gradients in status between Challah and myself are no longer enough to arouse me.”
“You’re saying
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