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Bastille Days Letter #1

Nic Bernstein

2571a North Fratney

July 16, 1989

Dear X

Another stab at letter writing, and so soon! I felt that the first was enigmatic enough to warrant a second, so here goes...

It's about nine at night, and I've just returned from downtown. I went down about five this evening to finally do that work I've said I would do every Sunday for the past two months. I did not watch the parade today, in person or on t.v., instead I stayed at home and read an H.G. Wells book, "The Undying Fire." A very interesting 225 page book, which is a sort of Socratic dialog about God, religion, science and education. It went rather well with a pot of coffee and a half pack of cigarettes.

I arrived downtown just in time to see the great unwashed as they left the scene of the day's festivities. I had to walk a few blocks, as the buses were still on irregular rounds (Whoo! Something new?!?). The sidewalks were a veritable cornucopia of refuse. Newspapers, cans, bottles and various garbage of every description was there; free for the taking as it were. Several vagrants eyed me warily ever and again as I neared a spent container rather to their liking. I guess as I was entering downtown, rather than leaving it, they presumed I was, like them, there to harvest the leavings of the masses.

The Safe House, as I arrived, was flooding rather rapidly. I quickly grabbed the necessary provisions, and repaired to the computer. Upon my entrance I had already ascertained that the Wells Street door did not, in fact, operate as advertised, on Sundays. I conversed swiftly with the computer, and spent some time in what must of seemed some sort of dumb tranfixtion, my eyes glued to the screen in manifest disbelief. There, on the screen before me, like some grand restitution for all of my resolute insistence that nothing could be wrong, was a programming error. Not just any programming error this! No, this was an error epic in proportions! I had programmed all of the time functions of the system absolutely BACKWARDS!!!

Not only did the door not function correctly on Sundays, but due to my brilliant flub had not Ever operated past midnight. With blind amazement, and a definite feeling of being brought down to size, I corrected my mistake and returned, tail between my legs, to the bar.

The seething throng which had once been the audience to the parade was now quenching it's rather appreciable appetites as I walked into the main salon. After an apology to Brian, and an aperitif to sooth my wounded ego, I found myself answering to the plaintiff cries of the wait staff. Only two women were working amongst that serpentine crowd which was all stomach and mouth. I say serpentine for even as the head of this creature was making for the exit, the tail had yet to appear through the entrance. In short order I was clearing tables and arranging furniture, as the surprised waitresses cooed with delight.

A half an hour's work, and all was well again within the dining area. The tables were clean, the floor swept, the table tents well stocked and the place generally straightened away. As I went to the bar to say my farewells, I was confronted by the chef. As he had a knife, and I did not, I was in no position to argue. I quickly did as he demanded, eating a rather large portion of shrimp, green beans and rice, before finally making my escape.

Once out in the streets again, the night seemed very different from the day which had preceded it. The city and by this I mean the very substance of the town, not the people, or for that matter the buildings and other various edifices, no, the very meat which is the city seemed to me to be completely spent, and, I fancied, fully prepared to have a cigarette and then roll over and go to sleep. The city had been really and truly fucked silly by the hundreds of thousands of people who had been having their way with it for the past three days, and it seemed that the very ground heaved for breath, like the breast of a weary, yet satisfied lover.

This is not to say that the abusers of our fair city's virtues had all dispersed, and that the streets were bare. Not at all. For I perceived that in the distance the revelry continued. Even as the street sweepers and vacuum trucks picked up the debris of this urban rape, this Casanova of a crowd was carrying on in some other quarters, as might a yet unsatiated lover who, having abused to the fullest the sensory capacities of one erogenous zone, will move on to another, and another until it's appetite has been fulfilled.

Were this scene to be a landscape, it would be painted not in colors, but rather in the distilled essence of the myriad varied players who were sprawled across it. There is something about an event such as this which even the hand of master cannot render in it's fullest. For how can even the most adroit of paintings capture that smell which is a mix of spilt beer and dung. How can the most clinical of photographs instill in your mind that sense of wastage and lassitude which comes from watching a man of the streets go from spot to spot around the streets drinking the remainders of a score half empty beers, weaving, as he does so, like an inexperienced unicycle rider.

In the heavens, looking on with some lewd sense of approval, was a very nearly full moon. I truly believe that for all of it's fascination with this scene, the moon itself was even somewhat aghast, as it was blushing a rich apricot in color, against the steely blue of the twilight sky.

Presently I found myself walking toward this latest arena of defilement, transfixed, as it were, by the very notion of the continued debasement of this fair lady, our City. The crowds had dwindled somewhat from their previous peaks, as no doubt some of the offenders had taken to their senses and returned to their yet clean and chaste suburbs to deny any culpability in the weekend's affairs. I looked, in vain, for our friend Tom Toy, at his place of employment, and his places of rest, in hopes that even if he could not explain this modern day equivalent to the fall of those biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, perhaps he could at least share with me the sense of awe at it's unfolding.

At last I, myself, was feeling spent and sordid. I began to wind my way toward the holy ground of the Route 14. A spot I knew, at least, should be safe of these heathen throngs. As I "excuse me"'d my way through the crowd I stopped briefly at O'Conners for a repairative tonic. I had just seen a ghost!, or it might as well have been one, as I had traipsed in the relative safety of Cathedral Square (and I won't even go into all of the potential paragraphs of digression which that surround conjures up).

I had heard a faintly recognizable voice holler "Nic!" I had stopped in my tracks, and spun about, seeking the source of this affront. I say affront as up to this time I had gone unrecognized. I was just a face in the crowd, a silent observer of these pagan rights and debaucheries, but now I had been placed. My social instincts had failed me dearly, for I could have just continued in my way, apparently ignorant of this hallo, but now here I found myself, facing my assailant. Imagine how truly low and base I felt once I discovered it was none other than Mr. Coffey! Here was a man I had met only perhaps three times in my entire life and he was identifying me here, across the breadth of the fountain there, as surely as if I were in a lineup accused of some horrid crime or other against the greater humanity.

I did all that I could think of, I waved at him and hollered something incomprehensible, and disappeared myself again into the masses. After sweeping around the nearest stage, in what I must say, looking back on it, was a rather clandestine manner, I did, as I have stated, stop in at O'Connors.

If I may digress at this moment, as though I have ever asked your permission before, let me spend just a moment to remark on that one thing which does most truly set this Bastille Days celebration apart from the others. In a spirit which I would like to fancy was rather much a part of the Carnivalé celebration of the last century mark, the tavern keepers in the surroundings of this particular festival seem to feel it their duty to serve unto the masses a most bountiful assortment of alcoholic beverages for such reasonable prices as a mere 95 cents! It has been my distinct pleasure, during this entire festival, to help them out as much as possible in the disposal of what must be none other than excess vintage.

Now don't get me wrong, it was through no great need of refreshment on my part, nor of any sense of duty to these stalwarts of our great burgh, that I stopped in this pub on this particular night. No, not at all. It was merely that I needed coach fare for to make my escape good, and this was the best manner I could think of by which to attain it. And it was simple civility, as well, that made me impart of the drink, once I had acquired it.

Back to my story, (yes, it ends soon, don't fret). I had made a plan, simple as it was, that as soon I made free of the bar I would work through the crowd to the Holy Place, and wait there for my passage home. I was not but two steps into this plan when yet another voice beckoned to me from the crowd. I cannot, this time, blame the same social instincts which had got me into trouble before. No, these were entirely different ones. For this time the voice was distinctly female in timbre. I turned to address a not altogether unfamiliar face and before my mind (a little dulled at this point due to the insistent benevolence of various barkeeps) could place it, my mouth, completely unassisted, was saying "Hello Diane."

Now I must take a moment to explain why my mind was so slow here on the up take, as it were. On Friday last, I was, with your mother, heading towards the very self same bar which I have already mentioned, when there, by the side of the road I saw a rather fetching young woman in an inexplicably complicated garment. Feeling rather as I did on that wonderful evening when we were at that damnable "Icebreaker" festival, I once again took it upon myself to "Icebreak." I approached the young lady. "Excuse me", I said, "but I must ask why you are wearing such a complicated outfit, what is it's story?" "I'm dancing the Can Can in front of the Phister at 9:00." she replied with a, and you can check your sources if you wish, definite and indisputable twinkle in her eye. "I'll be there!" I said. "I'll be looking for you!" she replied.

Oh, how my heart had soared at that brief but important interchange! In the afterglow of those words I even, temporarily, forgot how I had just such a short time ago felt endeared to the Lady Karen by the delicate way she had let the blue line of her eyeliner pen sweep down across her cheek. Upon my insistence, and against the spirit of the group, we went to the appointed place at the appointed time, but alas, there was no Can Can to be seen. I would not weaken in my resolve to meet again this lovely women in the complicated garb. For a full forty five minutes or so we waited for the Cans to Can, but they did not. Finally, downtrodden and despaired, I acquiesced to the wishes of the group, and we repaired to the car for the ride home. But, I was not so quickly rid of my vision, or of my longing for her touch.

It was with this in my heart that I so rapidly had answered this latest recognition of my self. Foolish though it was, as this lovely waif of two days past had not even got my name. But the heart of a lovesick fool is sometimes quicker to act than his mind is to think. And you can quote me on that!

But this was not my lovely waif, This was not my large automobile, this was none other than the best friend of my former fiancee'. We talked for a time before she said, "So how is Joy, I haven't seen her in, it must be two years now." "I don't know," I replied, "I haven't seen her in about that my self." I at least felt better about the conversation at this point, knowing that my every move, my every word or phrase, was not going to be reported back to that woman who had destroyed once and for all whatever sense I ever had of fair justice in things romantic.

Presently her escort, a rather pallid gentleman named John, rejoined her, and I took this as my excuse to take leave. Finally my goal was safely within sight. A few hurried steps, and I was at the Holy Place! And yet still the torments of the night would not release me!! For just as surely as, on Friday last, I had been stricken with that garrulous quality which enables me to pass, unscathed, through the most difficult of circumstances. Tonight I was stricken with the counter, a sort of hyper sensitivity to things absurd. And here, confronting me at the Holy Place, was one of the worst of the night.

A rather gaunt old fellow, looking a little worse for the night, was standing next to the Holy Sign Post. He was a blasphemy upon it! For in his simple demeanor, alone in this world and oblivious to the larger world about him, he was wearing a shirt which read...

I'm with

Stupid

Nic