Belinda trundled into the San Remo, escaping the clattering midday of godless weekday early afternoon, seeking eager respite from her alone open raw depths in South Houston darkbar charms, if only for just for a place to let her pestering thoughts swirl the air out of themselves in early cocktail hour. Sure, there were the usual ghastly characters who were known to arrive promptly upon opening hour, but at least at San Remo, Lin wouldn't have to worry about being accosted in the short a-line dress by any over eager Ernie's over at MACE (and besides, MACE wasn't open yet). Belinda could be relied upon to well be left alone here usually, as San Remo was historically known to be a gentleman's establishment quite, though such designation of bar certainly didn't go against Belinda's poorly concealed fag hag tendencies.
Waylon Jennings' Good Hearted Woman from the scene in Deerhunter was playing probably accidentally, but indeed it worked quite well, was already bumping with vitality and healthily chugging through the more than half empty bar, and quite making one feel like they arrived in some prime moment and scene. Though there was a new bartender there yes—a boy, who Linda probably had seen before.
In characteristic de faco gruffness, Belinda neither nodded nor greeted the boy teen-ing bar—a young healthy spoiled beauty of face was he.
Who are you. Where's Marco.
Marco isn't working toda—
Your new.
What can I get you, he abruptly giving a fine stain to salient of the tavern's otherwise Jenning's mood.
Oh, shucks, lemme think. I'll have, I'll hava Cordial Médoc, no, that won't work, no, no, give me a Danish, a Danish Gin fizz—light on the Peter Heering, heavy on the kirchwassner, strained in Delmonico glass, with shards of ice, and an extra slice lime, yes.
I don't, we're, not to serve that here—
Of course you do, now chop chop, get going sonny, I'm parched, quite.
I don't know that one, we're not—
Marco! Marco! Where's Marco!
I told you he—
Why not you use you're book over there laddie, look and follow the little instructions innit, surely a little one such as yourself may be able to follow along quite fine, yes.
We aren't offering that at this . . . suggest you order something off the board.
'Tis off the board!
On the board . . .
Well, then what good then are ya!
Linda looked away at nothing in particular, attempting to shave the boy's willowing willpower with expiring murder minutes here, and exuding a very certain insanity with every dig of lip stick drag now—but the barteen-er still held firm.
Your serious, aren't ya?!
Please, Miss, tender in passive condescending subtle aggression, just—what we offer . . . from.
Okay, well, I try not to short circuit your'e poor gulliver then. V&T and a black beauty, Belinda in her usual and expected spike sharp lipped English-Protestant air of non-rectitude.
Vodka and tonic. And I can't, we don't—serve the—
V&T I said to command to you—black beauty I said to command to me, now get-get going along, now little Pip. . .
Who does one havta give rim to get a drink around 'ere!, Belinda decried out loud to bar, a first of many self referential quips to come here and now surely. Someone shouted something, but it couldn't too well be heard from a far, and besides Linda's attention darted somewhere else completely now.
The barteen-er brought V&T over with full expedience as to get the transaction right over with, a subtle move, but one that was unacceptable and very well out of line, not just to our dear Linda, but also to the scores and scores of service industry workers throughout the ages who comported themselves in such way, as to keep emotion at bay, and to adhere to strict protocols that venerable establishments in this city where once well known for and quite strictly held to. But those were the long vanished Old New York days of yore, when establishments were held ruthlessly firm by owners, who kept it down from the clown carousel of outer lopers who perpetually came and went—outer lopers, if allowed to do so what they pleased, would only bastardize their small part in leaving lasting dent of damage to vital social ecosystems that with which needed constant and vigilant protection from such arms.
Put it on my tab.
If Kyle heard this, he gave no sign.
You want to keep it open.
No, I said put it on my tab, Belinda knowing even though she made such distinction, it would probably still cause trouble later, but her drink was here now and she carefully (and conspicuously) pulled her silver purloined pill box from her scorched Neo Cagole purse looked put together like a prop right out of Mad Max, swallowed black beauty like vitamin.
That first swallow of her devotcka vods was indeed the best thing to transpire thus far today. With the black beauty set to ease to hatch like rattlesnake egg in Linda's stomach soon, Belinda could feel her tension already begin to wither away, Lin veering near and closer to viewing life's never ending comedy from distance now in the effulgent alcohol's immediate lock.
So you must have a name, what's the one they giveya, Belinda, now in whimsy of dialogue—her very predictable second act of being somewhat agreeable now catenary of opposite, existing in dialectic with the initial establishing hostility she used to so wield herself against the world, which most people found quite charming after soldiering through her hate at first sight, bite your arm off theatrics she so famously was known so to use to test.
Kyle . . .
Well Kyle, let me tell you—
Belinda now found herself out-rouged for once, as Kyle let himself be interrupted in a conveniently obsequious way by some Mary who just walked up to bar, as in for Kyle conveniently now snubbing Lin and walking away—as any normal person who's ever been to any establishment knows, that a patron certainly doesn't have to be acknowledged or taken care of upon absolute very first second with which Kyle now so insisted upon.
Suddenly a friendly old gent with large nose, a bit like Frank O' Hara's, and certainly cultivated in his own twinings, took stool and sidled next to Linda at bar.
Spurious, and with quite auspicious statement he greeted Lin, Well, I do wonder where Marco does indeed find them . . .
That's giving Marco a bit much credit, as he does not so much find them—that would imply much effort on his part. He's more, let's them—'them' meaning anyone, find him.
I couldn't help but notice your interaction from where I sat. My apologies, I can very well tell your a woman with high standards, that unfortunately this, this, plebe could not nor would not accommodate.
I mean was not the San Remo ever well known for it's exotic drinks once I thought !? I mean really, 'we don't serve that 'ere' is clearly a load of tosh'.
No, quite, very much so, and indeed, and certainly the drinks weren't the only exotic things to be found here, quite.
And this plonker here, he wouldn't seem ta know Gore Vidal from Kilgore Trout I tell ya. . .
Yes, it is very unfortunate. And I hope you would please allow me to make up for such corrosive behaviour on display, by giving me the pleasure of buying you're next drink.
Ah, yeas, quite fine and thank ya—from what it looks, mine about half empty anyways now—I'll have another one of these . . .
And Madame, please allow me to introduce myself to you, my name is Reginald St. Claire, but my close friends call me Randy-
Please to make you're acquaintance Randy, I'm Belinda Mulgrave.
Mulgrave, Mulgrave, not from Derbyshire Mulgraves perhaps?
Ah, guilty as—well it seems my blood blue klutz clan precedes me, yet again.
Well, I must say, I noticed just how you walked in, I said to myself that right there is a Lady of Manners certainly.
Yes, but I'm no professional heiress—quite afraid not the string of mansions I've been raised in, nor the land, nor the jewelry, or any of my family's holdings anywhere, are ever to become quite available to me—laws, of, or, er, one certain law actually—primogeniture in particular, in which it somehow ends up all going to a bumpkin distant Atlassian cousin in South Africa, who, who, I quite rather prefer not to think about right now . . .
The barteen-er finally approached Lin and Reginold, he addressed Reggie with a pointed friendliness to undercut Belinda, as to say he had taken up occupation with the same agreeable bevy of people here, as if Reginald was a Monopoly property card which he had also now possessed, and as if Lin had no advantage over him (which quite the opposite, in fact Belinda well did now).
Dewars, no, no, make Glenlivet rocks, and get the Lady whatever she like, hopefully you learn yerself some manners long the way, Charlie, Reggie setting straight to Kyle now noticeably sunk into sand.
The black beauty had not yet rattled it's separate fire into Linda's exhausted and de-tuned, de-nuded prefrontal cortex, though she could for a very short second be content upon Vodka's blooming preliminary effects. When Linda drank, and it took her years for her to ever notice this, but when she consumed alcohol, her sense of smell became the ever so heightened. Drunk, her increased sense of smell was certainly something so very subtle, something that she half noticed drunk, but she was always too buzzed to make such concrete observation to herself and make it printed conscious upon her thoughts, that which by next day, it was something she neither remembered nor ever thought about. But now the rot smells and decay of the bars were a very alluring thing to Belinda, no longer something barely registered, previously set somewhere slightly in front of subconscious level. Now that Linda knew this side effect, she well paid attention to her sense smell, relishing in it, and the smell added to the aura of the dramatic phenomenology and quaint psychological effects that which alcohol so well rung out—at the San Remo she could smell the historic blood iron and old wooden attic high right above her.
The attic at the San Remo, the attic at the San Remo, I can smell, I can smell, the attic of the San Remo, Linda would end up sing-songing to herself—and now that she found herself doing this, she knew the speed was most certainly jopping in.
Belinda Mulgrave, come sit with us you must, I simply forbid you now from being alone now dear, Reginald warmly commanded.
Runner for gaming room Reginald led Belinda to other side of San Remo, towards his irascible gang, and immediately, it became quite clear that Belinda was now falling in with Reginald as ringleader with these well aged tormentors.
Belinda, meet the gang, this is Clive, Douglas, Dickie Laundry, Peter, Hans, Paul Brightwell and Uloff. Everyone, this is Belinda Mulgrave of the Derbyshire Mulgraves.
As much as Belinda frequented the San Remo, it was only day time work hours—it would seem now in stroke of luck, that Belinda should now cross paths at the San Remo with this band of immediate-upon-notice ostentatious band of hooligans usually otherwise known to mock the midnight bell.
Their interconversion resumed, but Belinda didn't feel walled off, as what was otherwise so very easy to find oneself in in this area when introduced to group of strangers.
So where there where we, oh, and, and I don't like the room at all, the furniture was a bit naff, Douglas brassed off conversation to table.
And the clerk?
Oh, and the clerk yes. He put on his white comforter and tried to warm himself with candle.
Dingy and a ding-y.
His face was all ruddy, as was all the falling snow so intent upon its purpose—the fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole of the boarding house.
Quite unexpected from the initial proposition advertised, surely.
Quite. It was astonishing. Quite a porkie to tell one yes, just to get one to come back then—on Chirstmas eve no less!
Oh, a Black Christmas surely, sounds like you found yourself a bit hemmed in . . .
Ah, the lies these walls have heard.
Dickie Landry turned to Belinda, focusing the table's attention towards her now, And what about you? What do you do around here in these parts, Belinda?
Belinda lights a cigarette carefully with single match, and blows the smoke out fast as not to be rude, I secure loans for local institution I'd rather not mention—for all they know, I'm out doing research right now . . .
Well, maybe you are, maybe you are, my dear, Peter gay with giving Linda a conspiratorial wink across the table.
And I think we all well know just what institution Belinda is taking pains not to mention, Reginald stating stoically, reinforcing the impression that Belinda had fallen in with not the usual pedestrian lunch bar crowd.
No, totally.
Is a lot of work, keeps one busy I'd imagine?, Uloff querying helpfully.
Belinda with words impeded by the ice in mouth upon her tongue from sip she took, Nnoo no, on the contrary. I have a lot of free time, too much free time, actually. I find and secure maybe twenty to thirty loans last fiscal—hand it over to the the back end, consult with other department how they will be set, and then they do all the rest. I write up a little something about it for publishing, but then I have to give tours sporadically, which I do do indeed find quite tedious.
You find the general public in the city to be quite burdensome?
Oh, fully. I mean, maybe it's my upbringing, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I just quite find educating the general public to be quite revolting and dare I say, beneath me.
Quite understandable, Reginald reinforcing supportively, such semiotic to Belinda was of one now being surely among sympathetic ear.
On the tv above the bar away, the sitcom where a Jim Henson like puppet llama surreally existing and living in a real actor sitcom taking place in Xenia Ohio, sits calm holding a car jack, while the host family is predictably bewildered by the llama's inbred hi-jinx or just innocent natural proclivities.
Belinda was now jouncing off the black beauty, which meant she would succumb to giving too much information out now, And these people I deal directly with, the stories I could tell. The stories I could tell, no really. You knowww, if only, if only, I had like some platform, a platform! Someone should tell Sterling Ruby, tell Sterling Ruby that he's simply, that he's only 'successful', which, is only predicated by myopia or the wild historical amnesiac aporias of the market—I mean what year is this? He's basically larping as Jack Whitten in nineteen seventy three. I mean imagine, imagine being a grown man who's a painter at this point in history! If your not a gay man or woman you reallly don't need to be painting—do something else.
Maybe someone tell Albert Oehlen designing skateboard decks to stow it.
Belinda looked up to see surprise, surprise, it was Limousine Cyruss, her buddy, standing over her seated at the table with Peter, Hans and Paul. Cyruss' comment about Albert Oehlen, was a reference to Belinda's unabashed hatred and hostility towards Oehlen all along, that which she had well indulged with Cyruss before.
Cyruss, what a little sod like you doing here!
I was just at Tomkins and was passing this way—I know this is you're lunch spot, but I thought I'd peak in anyways this late to see if you were here.
Cyruss was an artist who sucked the marrow out of the what was left of the bone of artistic activity that was now barely possible in this broken down third-world conditions infrastructure of a city, this art apocalypse New York was now subsumed in but was quite in denial about. Cyruss used his skateboard to break away from a now overpopulated and foreclosed skate subculture now run into gamestream normativity by all bad agents of industry, all the tame lamers, a subculture that was once directly and vitally related to punk and then later peak hip hop, and was once a roguish autonomous industry that heralded unprecedented self assimilated board companies that were to surpass fashion, media, and design from about 1990 - 1996, before dwindling into complete bathos and then to becoming bigger than ever under it's own very very worst secondhand embarrassing conditions. Cyruss basically lived on the streets of NY, culling out what little was left of unused architectural components (unused architectural components, from the already skate maxxed unused exhausted architectural components already run into the ground—it really is that bad), that Cyruss, by finding and crushing what little was left of unexplored trick variations and maneuvers from all the exhausted skateboard tricks maxxed out by an ocean of practitioners over populated catastrophe and normies and normie second and normie third and normie fifth cousins who all just until recently decided to start skateboarding. With Cyruss' contemporary practice, this involved documenting stabbing mark wounds with axl on maxxed out curbs, building concrete wax wedges in unused underpass, bending safety poles to grind for short plonks, building and setting up wooden boxes at Tomkins and fostering an adhoc small community for local kids around, and Cyruss doing all this, carrying his micro co on his back like first born son all the while. By picking the bones of what was left of the carcass of skateboarding, otherwise exploited by goons and gooners, misguided skate jocks, youtuber ubergeeks, young entitled dorks who can't even be bothered to watch easily now available seminal videos of past that were miracles of teleological and cultural development and that at one time actually had to be vigorously tracked down in their rarity, but goons nonetheless who can now bombard local shops instead with constant phone calls and harass employees about and wait in hours in line for one simple thematic/color variation drop for a basic stock catastrophically overhyped low top shoe raffle instead (instead of indulging in ground breaking, I-want-to-move-to-another-city-because-this-skate-video exists skate videos of past—vital skate videos devolved in people making videos un-boxing the shoes—it really is that bad). Skateboarding now is the precious young sister, that their older brother just let all the homies fuck and pass around at their parents' house and gravely debase in a tragedy of commons obliteration by everyone who left their fingerprints there—Cyruss' methodology was stripped down, un-practicable non-tricks in the most harsh and impossible conditions, and making products of an acidic gauwdy and hyper schitzo kitsch gauche strained to near breaking point post postmodern fashion forward fleamarket/bodega junk aesthetic existing in the wake of facing a right wing unwittingly NOW co-opting their little postmodernism Trump kitsch (they so ignorant about pomo, they don't even realize what Trump pomo even is, and instead conveniently conflating politicized 'postmodern' with 'marxism', which makes absolutely no sense). With no other choice to contend against such apocalypse, it is some sick poetic justice that Cyruss' methodology would still contain an extreme variation of the same junk sick aesthetic to fight and innoculate itself against, and it really was that bad.
Cyruss wasn't drinking, sat with Belinda for a while. Belinda motorhead drunk, Cyruss may have given Belinda full attention, if not suspiciously entertained with whatever it was she was now yammering on about. Cyruss, ever so quiet the gentleman, lighting Belinda's next cig, and Belinda's next cig, Belinda's next cig.
Belinda said she heard about some new way they had figured out for news to travel—downside was even though it was more accurate, possibly having wider, far ranging reach, somehow most people will be only less informed, maybe even wildly uninformed, or gravely reactionary, even possibly violent.
Your so hyper critical, Belinda, you're media analysis cracks me up though. Your so like, just good at the news, culture analysis, or all that. Tried to tell the homie the other day what, how when you were saying how the future of music, is directly paying musicians to do a small concert at you're house.
Ah, sweets. Ya know, that causes me great unease.
No, you know what, you would, should meet this one, or one girl. Or there's one, spiky girl, Maren, or Maren, something who are the mystery girls— Cage, possibly, I think—you'd probably get well along enough. Oh, and I thought she does, or I think she does come from colosal across the pond or also too weirdly, but it's like, like you, you two would or would seem to share something like, like that. But she's an interesting, I mean for sure, or I heard she's or some say she is so severe, though—also but uncanny or maybe just above it all, but she messes with transistors, or she's these transistors, business hours too, like trying a way for people to rent her devices, illegal broadcast, whatever message range, pornographers want to broadcast phone sex on public airwaves and if you think about it, it's it's it is just public air waves, something, something like what—
We, in a moment on the threshold of a new history which now includes "discourses that have just ceased to be ours," as Michael Foucault once wrote; as such it might point to "gaps" in contemporary thought, gaps that might in turn be converted into beginnings. Which in a way certainly now beckons . . . Belinda and Maren in future.
Cage: When I was youngsta, me family never permitted me to ever to visit Claridges amongst the sod sodden commoners, never permitted you know was I . . .
Mulgrave: Sounds reasonable to me, I should say—your family was looking after you!
Cage: But ya know whot? But I went, I snuck off though.
Mulgrave: Oh, no Maren, you didn't!
Maren: Yes I did!
Cage: And you know whot.
Mulgrave: No, no, I don't.
Cage: There was something about the cheap toys of the commoners at the department store there, that frankly, I quite immediately found alluring . . .
Mulgrave: A cheap toy, being attracted to cheap toy, brilliant . . .
Cage: Ow yesss, but ya know whot I would do? I would just pick up whateva malenky toy I so fancied, I'd pick it up then and just carry it out, scurry it right out Claridges plain as day!
Mulgrave: Oh, Maren, I should say, no you didn't! Isn't that illegal??
Cage: Yes! Yes! An, and, I did this, did this for years, well into young adulthood and never once had gotten I absconded by the quarry there ever!
Mulgrave: You were quite a precarious one I should say! And I know probably not much with you has certainly ever so much changed, dear.
Cage: But Claridges, Claridges was where I stole me Paddington.
Mulgrave: Oh, precarious Paddington Bear—named from the station from which he was abandoned.
Cage: As a wee youngsta I used to go around and play cops and robbers with Paddington . . .
Mulgrave: Oh, how charming,
Cage: And one day I pinned pinned Paddington down, sitting on his small blue peacoat chest . . .
Mulgrave: Ok.
Cage: I may have been sweating from running around the paddock the whole time. So I rested, wrested sitting on Paddington's chest, if only to catch me breath.
Mulgrave: Or lose your breath. Well Paddington certainly wasn't a cheap toy, or maybe he was . . .
Cage: But then something strange happened, or or occured . . .
Mulgrave: Go on.
Cage: I was sittin' on em like saddle of me bicycle, Paddington you thief, Paddington you robber I says, trying to get away was he, he so started like rubbing off against me, until strangely, very strangely, I felt some . . . release.
Mulgrave: Surely you as cop now copping, as Paddington padding now robbing.
Cage: But it was later then I realized. You know what?
Mulgrave: Oh, old Paddington, so much to answer for, always getting into the marmalade for a sandwich. Always so hungry.
Cage: The tag, Paddington's tag it say:
Mulgrave: Please Look After This Bear, Thank You.
Cage: Please Look After This Bear, Thank You. Yes. But then I realized, I realized the last person must have found him a bit too much, I suspect. I really don't think it was his grandmother who wrote the note . . .
Easy peasy there, hun—you seem not so much to sip, than a rather wallop, Hans cautioned Linda.
I spill not without reason, Linda gave, with face now like she's concentrating on unbroken ribbon of finish line.
Kyle brought a steaming tray of shots and trollied them to the table presided by Reginald, Come over here, get over here you two . . .
Well we, the Silver Table Knights of the San Remo do declare . . . , Reginald, going on so stately.
Well, yes, we're still here, yes, Peter echoing in everyday fashion.
Still holding court, Hans looking over his elbow.
Uloff reinforcing with some grim amusement, Still holding it down.
As nothing neither gets un-noticed nor unsaid, still we say, Peter going on again.
Still after all these years, Hans sighed.
Belinda squinting her eyes to jog motor brain, That actually sounds—No, no I think I heard of you, I know you!
They ask us the same question over and over again, as if the answer but will ever change . . .
And what's that?, Belinda genuinely curious.
How do you, or rather, how does one become OG,
And that's . . .
Well, there's only one way to my dear . . .
Yes, yes—there's only one way . . .
And what, what is that . . . . Belinda stummering.
Well, firstly the only way to become OG is is . . .
Peter, Hans and Uloff answer in unison, You got to OG!!
No way getting around it, dear—well, at least certainly no one's found a way to yet, Reginald affirms.
Surely no other way! Surely no other way than OG'n but to OG! But it makes perfect sense! Belinda answering back in babbler.
We still run this area, which means we basically run New York, which certainly still means we run the world—for now.
Overstimulated Belinda, No I know, wait, I do know you, yes, yes the Silver Table Knights of the San Remo yes! It was, no, no I saw you in Ninth Street Women, Ninth Street Women or by, by Mary Gabriel, I think I saw that—no, no, Larry Rivers!
Reginald replying so sagely, Oh, Old Larry, yes, suffice to say Larry couldn't french kiss to save a burning orphanage . . .
Peter circling his jigger on the table, eyes swirling on the remainder, Knights amongst themselves.
He was very athletic though,
Yes, quite,
And was built like the boiler room of the RMS Lusitania . . .
He could shovel coal all night just to get us back out to sea—men that is . . .
And one wouldn't have to worry too terribly much about ever getting all backed up . . .
Backed up yes, backed up against the heated iron bars, backed up against the railing!
Send, send for a round of Peruvian pisco, one for everyone, dear.
A toast! A toast! To friends, to old friends, new friends and to our new friend Belinda Mulgrave—a bit of a dishy one she is, and certainly a most brassed off, though certainly a comely figure I might say. So raise your glasses now friends. Strike hands with me, for the glass is brim, the dew is on the heather, and love is good, and life is long, and friends are best together. Long live the San Remo, the Silver Knights and everyone here, Cheers!
Cheers!
And let the grain wash away what the moon fails to bless!
Cheers! Cheers!
And you never delivered the Red Sparrow, and it must have been near midnight by now as the late eve seemed to take so quickly treacherous a turn, the yellow chantilly straight, that Reggie's friend handed to Belinda tasted too much of powder puff now, really set wrong against the 'phetamine. The blare and blaze of yellow swept over, enveloped Belinda.
Cyruss was now gone, the last thing she remembered now was him saying something, some off the cuff, perhaps not so off the cuff thing that if he wasn't so busy with skateboarding he would probably date Belinda. Belinda not remembering her response, but even (or especially) in half blackout she could still be trusted in herself to evasively demure.
It was time to withdraw, count thy dead, and certainly a sober all the entire night cheesed off Kyle waited for the right moment with which to dispatch precisely what he'd been waiting for.
Not that Belinda asked for an account of how much was raked up yet—Kyle nonchalant though, took it up to himself to present her with bill quietly, hiding in his own twerpening passivity.
What is this is??
Your bill for the night, Kyle with studied servant forbearance.
Even if I so requested to close out, which I did not—I told you put it up on me tab!
I'm—didn't, never got authorization from . . . to do that.
I said put it on me tab, because I settle up with Marco—Marco, you know, your'e boss.
Please, if you could just pay you're bill now . . .
Look you little Cooze—you heard me, you well heard me didn't ya—and now you feign ignorant. Given, I'm sure playing dumb comes quite so naturally to you, so . . .
Please, Miss, if you could just pay you're bill and you can be on your way . . .
What you—Ah, keep you're hair up tosser, ok fine.
Belinda opened the black pizza parlour wallet with the bill handwritten on guest check bar notepad, she threw a hundred Euro, a twenty Euro, a five Euro—all she had.
There, keep thy change.
Kyle opened up the spaghetti wallet, looking at what he knew he already saw, like he's Inspector General.
We don't accept foreign currency, can you use you're card.
Since when you little f*ggot, I always can get dollar for pound exchange when I settle up here, and it works out quite nicely in you're favor stupid because of our superior conversion rate.
Pleaze, Miss, if you can pay with card or actual American dollars.
I left you a 45 Euro tip, which you well do not deserve!—and that's before the conversion rate, that's sixty, seventy dollars just for you're little éclat rudeness!
He handed back the wallet, to which Belinda did not reach out to grab. Reacting, Kyle violently lobbed the lasagna bill vinyl jacket onto the table.
Belinda picked up tumbler, like it was an apple, threw it and glass shattered like a birth twig against waitscotting, ricocheting all about the floor.
As Belinda exiting opened the heavy front door to San Remo, she heard Kyle behind her:
Don't ever come back here!
Days later Belinda arrives skating away from office hours at Whitney, those academic 'spergs. Belinda opens door, sees Marco thank god.
Marco is measuring the levels of the bottles behind the bar—who does he think he's fooling. Though certainly, actors must act even when no one is around.
Stop trying to look busy, Marco, it's only me. Let me buy you a shot.
Marco looks up from ledger, with immediate larping as serious look. Turning-over-a-new-leaf Marco with his fake reading glasses, there he is—he's certainly arrived, though it's quite doubtful, or actually it's very certain he can't even kind of read.
Hey Belinda, Marco greets tragically, like he's counselor pushed to limit by some calamitous patient, or like boss about to fire an employee during step into my office.
What's—that? Don't gimme that.
You tell me Belinda, I heard about. I heard about you the other night.
Heard about me what—
Cruising, cursing for everyone in the bar to hear, you're wild rudeness, refusing to pay, throwing a glass at one of my employees, should I keep going?
Oh, dear Marco—I can tell you've been rehearsing that line the last few days. Broadway is in that direction, honey.
I'm afraid we are just going to have to get on the same page, same page.
Oh, got on the same page, you say. Got on the same page, he says! Look at you! Mr. Manager now!
I'm serious Belinda, what happened the other night—cannot, will not ever happen here again.
Your kidding me?? This bar has seen by far worse surely! No, actually, this bar historically demands much worse! I'm hardly Jackson Pollock in '55, queenie, hardly old stinky DeKooning. You're little employee, you're little employee there is throwing his little weight around, that's what, while your not around, and all because I caught you two necking in the hallway.
Those have nothing to do with that, it's your behavior, your a grown woman, Belinda.
I'm a grown woman. You want to got on same page? You really want to got to. Let's get there then! First off, you're little Kyle passive aggressively refused to acknowledge that I do run a tab here, which most neighborhood bars of character are quite well loath to do you know, ya know, and which I have long proven I am well good for. That's unacceptable. He goes up to me at the end of night, and way out of line—
Well, look, Kyle probably didn't know. He probably just didn't know, Belinda . . .
That little toft. He very well did know—I even told 'em!
Look Kyles' young and kind of naive. I'll give you that. And he does make things hard on himself, has general hard time. Other people have been saying that also—
I certainly can agree with that!
He's just young, he is. Trust me we are working on him, but—
Oh, your working on him all right! There are no buts, he was just way out of line. He was breaking Rank, and I put him in his sorry place. How does that make me the bad guy now. I am actually regulating. I'm regulating in a way that is increasingly become more lost here these days, I should say.
Well, he said you straight up refused to pay—
Refused to pay, he didn't accept me payment! Does that sound like me?
I don't know, I don't know—he said you refused to pay.
I left him 125 Euros for a like sixty dollar tab, which is par for here, being an international pilgrimage destination. You think? He was ungratefully, unjustifiably tipped about 75 bucks, which he didn't even, didn't deserve. And this, despite his little attitude, I was still quite generous with him!
Oh, well he didn't say that. I didn't know. Maybe, he just didn't know we accept foreign currency and convert it at the bank when we deposit for special cases?
You know Marco, I've been pursing my lips, but I just got to say this now—by enabling your feeble employee, your really just enabling yourself, man. We can see that. We can all see it. Maybe you need to see that.
We, who's we? Who else says that?
Well, me, me, notable members of the Knight's Table.
The what.
Silver Table Knights of the San Remo—they also says so . . .
The what of the San Remo??
The Silver Table Knights—Reginald, Dickie Laundry, Peter, Uloff. They even inducted me into their little sovereign sect the other night.
What are you talking about?
I never met them before—I'm usually here during the day—but the Knights, the night crowd.
What Knights. What nite crowd.
They hold night court right over—there.
Belinda, Belinda, I knew you were bad at it. But your not making any sense. I have no idea what your talking about.
Your trying to tell me that you don't know Reginald, Dickie Laundry. The Silver Table Knights of the San Remo. Larry Rivers.
Larry Rivers?? That old queen sword Larry Rivers used to come here, by here like in the sixties, I think. I would have heard about it. Silver Table Knights?? Come on . . .
Silver Table Knights of the San Remo.
No, Larry Rivers and his gang used to come here—that does sound familiar, I think, but that was old school, like old New York School era or something like—I know that much. Metiver used to go on about some old eccentric faries like that—
Well, they said they were the OG's. They were this, this group, this coterie, that group of green acid tongue Sallies. They run, run, run the whole damn scene—
Belinda, Kyle said you were pretty out of it. You even had your boyfriend come for you, and you got aggressive with him, he tried to take you home and then you wouldn't leave. And then he left. Kyle said you were alone on the other side of the bar all up until close.
But that's—
Coming back like all of love's poisoned darts, now mirrored by the actual non-Jasper Johns commercial dart targets, that ones Marco as newly appointed manager of the San Remo lamely installed, now watched back menacingly in the background leaden in dread.
Larry Rivers?? I think he's even like dead. And if he is not long dead, he's certainly at least never here.
But they were older, they could have been old friends!
Look Belinda. I've yet to tell a patron this, I've yet to say this, to a patron here, but you seriously got to take some time off. I don't know much about the art world—
Art sphere—
Art sphere, whatever. But don't think you are the first curator who takes drugs, rests on their laurels, ducks out here and dicks around, thinks they cannot get fired from their appointment.
I wasn't on drugs, just prescription speed, just alcohol . . .
Marco stared silent at Belinda, for rare once on the side of immutable, unassailable to silly onlooker seemingly objective fact.
Everyone listens to the executioner's song. And how will you act in the land of the dead. An abandoned and haunted Irakian carillion star ship the size of large continent floats in space near earth, can be seen below from the already annexed land—their blue halo circles of exhaustion, a votive prepared, and who are these mystery girls, the sexed up ghosts, and now they no longer sell nickel bags. When I first started buying marijuana, I in instinct felt dealer should be responsible for supplying his own papers—it was how I always felt, that same rolling paperless unaccountability of dealer, that which was, may have been the same undercurrent of all activity loosely revolving around life here. There are many varieties of dreams. When you had a frightened romance dream about somebody significant right before one wakes, but when your dreaming and they are awake somewhere far off—is there a possibility one still could be in communion with the other's same awake subconscious? There is no one broad law, there are many, different laws to apply to different ones then. You get what you want when you no longer want it. Fact. And when you have it, it has an automatic phenomenological homliness that makes you not appreciate what is now un-mysterious yours. Meditation never works or it would be more standardized. And where does there exist a certain point of mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and incommunicable, high and low, cease to be contradictions? I rose up for rivers, left the bar, tossed bills waiter's way and walked out. Punk was no longer on the table. I got into my car, headed behind the rearview mirror, and I was there, it was nine p.m.
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