Memories on a Bird
by Al Malers
part 1
Andante, staccatissimo
“Hey, you, what’s your name? Johnny?”
“Jimmy.”
“Give me another splash from that bottle, Johnny. I swear, it’s the hottest swill in all of New Orleans!”
“Listen, of course it’s none of my business, but I think you’ve had enough.”
“Are you serious, John? You think I’m already inebriate, right? Who are you to me: my mother, maybe? Or maybe you’ve forgotten that Prohibition was repealed thirty-three years ago? So, shut up. I myself know when I have enough. Look, I’m still standing, which means everything’s fine. By the way, where is your toilet? I think it’s time for me to share some of your wonderful booze with the rest of the world.”
“Sure, man, hold on a moment. Cigarette Butt! Yeah, you! Get your ass here and take the gentleman to the toilet, don’t you see, he won’t get there on his own?”
“Cigarette Butt? Wonderful! I’m gonna puke with a Cigarette Butt then. Let’s go.”
* * *
“So, is this your toilet? Well, I expected something more. Okay, wait for me here; this action doesn’t require witnesses.”
“Are you finished, sir?”
“I guess... Wait... Yeah, now I’m done. Man, you do look like a cigarette butt.”
“I know.”
“I bet you do. And your real name? What did your mother call you?”
“Cigarette Butt. She called me Cigarette Butt. She said that she went out for a smoke, and when she was about to throw away the cigarette, I appeared from what was left of it.”
“Your mother has a rich imagination. Parents usually make up stories about the stork. You still won’t tell me your real name?”
“I will. It’s Mathieu.”
“Mathieu? Are you French or what?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a Frenchman. Have you?”
“Dude, I’m from New York. I saw things you never even dreamed of. And I’ve met lots of people. Important people, I mean. And you? Where do you come from? Who are your parents?”
“My mother’s Haitian, father’s Brazilian. Was. Were. They died. Well, at least that’s what I think of them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? It’s okay. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You know what? You’re cool, Cigarette Butt. But I like Mathieu better. I’ll call you Matt, okay? And you can call me ‘Honcho.’ That’s what everybody calls me.”
“I heard you told those people at the counter that you’re Barry.”
“That’s right. Barry Zielinski I am. So, tell me, Matt, are you a musician? Blues, bebop or something tougher?”
“No, I don’t know anything about syncopation.”
“Weird. Maybe you’re into trade then? Well, selling all sorts of funny substances? I hear that’s what all scum like you do.”
“I don’t know anything about substances. Or about trade. Is there anything else you wanted to ask?”
“There is. What do you do?”
“Here? Nothing, just hanging around.”
“No, you didn’t get it. What do you do in your life?”
“Nothing, just hanging around. Just living.”
“Let me guess. Now you’re gonna tell me you don’t know anything about life, right?”
“No. I think I know something. And I want to find out more. If I’m lucky enough and live a couple more years.”
“And what if you’re unlucky?”
“Then about five, or even ten. I’m twenty-seven... I mean, I’ll be twenty-seven in two years, if I’m not mistaken. A beautiful age to die, that’s what I’ve decided. If you’re lucky, of course. Let’s get out of here, this toilet stinks of dung and claustrophobia. I’ll tell you something. You’re the only person I’ve talked to for more than five minutes in the last couple of weeks. So, I’ll tell you, Barry: I draw. My name is Mathieu de Oliveira, and I draw all kinds of crazy stuff.”
Rain. Large drops of New Orleans rain tap an uneven rhythm on a slippery metal window sill of a lonely godforsaken juke joint. The city has sunk into chaotic autumn twilight, which makes you think that inside each piece of bedraggled rain there is a small lantern coming straight from the sky.
The damp air from the street habitually rules the bar, making its way through the rattling, cloudy glass of the non-closing windows. It brings with it the echoing rustle of passing cars and the feeling of uneasy emptiness, the one you often had as a child, but learnt to brush off as an adult.
The few visitors to the establishment seem no more alive than the raindrops. In front of each of them, there is a glass filled with their hope that this day will very soon fade into intoxicated oblivion. In the farthest corner from the entrance, hidden from drunken vandals, a spattered Seeburg jukebox is stuck to the floor and, from it, Brenda Lee’s clear voice is telling the story of how love turned out to be so cruel to her and how very, very sorry she is. Nobody cares. Soon the ten cents thrown in by some wealthy patron will run out, and she will fall silent, and no one will even bother to revive her unearthly voice into this cruel twilight. The bar will once again be filled with its usual drunken silence.
Two people are sitting at one of the tables: one is wearing a brown baggy tunic with a torn collar and sleeves that are too short for this time of year. The second one has red spiky hair and a wide pear-shaped nose on a face shiny from dampness and alcohol. His once white shirt has already lost all its former freshness and is saturated with the obsessive sweat of the American South.
“You know, Matt...” — drinking makes it hard to concentrate — “I noticed you right away. You were sitting there, in the corner, so miserable, like a dog kicked out of the house. Where do you live, artist?”
“Somewhere here...” Cigarette Butt waves his hand vaguely. “There’s a room here, across the road, in the basement. It contains my bed and my paintings. That’s why I sleep and draw there. And I live somewhere here: sometimes in this bar, sometimes at Sally’s, around the corner. She is good. She doesn’t even seem to remember my name, and I respect her for that.”
“Man, your pathetic shacks are long overdue for demolition. By the way, that’s what I came for. I’m like that wolf from a fairy tale that, of course, no one has read to you: I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in. Heard of ‘Zielinski and Sons’?” Barry casts a weary drunken glance at his interlocutor.
“Nope.”
“Construction company. My father, my older brothers and me. Now listen here. Fifty-five years ago, my dad was just like you, like a stray dog. An unwelcomed immigrant with no past and a vague future. But he’s a tough man, my father, I tell ya. He rose from the very bottom, crawled out of the stinking slums of New York, and now his sons reached New Orleans, where tomorrow they will begin to demolish your dirty, miserable hovels in order to build housing for educated and successful people like us. Now that’s what I call a decent life.”
Cigarette Butt shrugs his shoulders indifferently and quietly mutters, “Don’t be upset, brother. Perhaps things would have turned out differently if your father had been able to draw.”
Barry desperately wants to get angry, but he can’t because words just don’t get through his throat, constrained by sour stench.
“Listen,” he finally squeezes out, “tell me, how much do you earn from your paintings?”
“Did I mention that I sell them?”
“You don’t? And you’ve never wanted anyone to buy them?”
“I don’t know anything about sales.”
“Then maybe you organize exhibitions? Expose your masterpieces to the world?”
Cigarette Butt shakes his head. “If a lot of people look at them, they will lose their meaning. Everyone will take what they want, and eventually they will collapse.”
“Oh, will they? Who, the people or the paintings?”
“I don’t care about people.”
“Then why do you paint? Why do you make things that no one’s gonna see and that won’t bring you any profit?”
“So that I have them. So that they exist in this world, with me. Isn’t it a good reason?”
Rain. Drops. Lights. Dusk is screaming hysterically outside the windows.
“Smoke?” Barry hits the table with a pack of Phillies.
“Nope. I don’t smoke. It’s enough for me that I am a Cigarette Butt, myself.”
“Makes sense. Maybe you’ll have a drink then? I’ll treat you, of course.”
“Sorry. I don’t drink.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Drinking makes the world colorful, and it annoys me. You know, I was sick as a child. I don’t know, sort of sick. And one day, when I was feeling really bad, I realized that all things had suddenly lost their color. They became... how’s it called... faceless. At first, I was kind of scared a little, and then I didn’t care. This world has never been nice to me, so it was just one of its evil tricks.
“I remember when my parents were still alive, many people came to us. Our flat was filthy and stinky and those people were stinky, too. They drank and smoked, and their conversations, their laughter, every movement of theirs stank so much that I constantly felt sick. I had to learn to hold my breath all the time and it was incredibly uncomfortable.
“One day, one of the guests pulled me out of the closet where I usually hid and tried to talk to me. This man had long white hair, very unkempt, and glasses which made him look like a dead fish. I held my breath, as usual, and I kept silent, because you can’t speak when you’re not breathing. My mother saw it and told the man that I was stupid and couldn’t put two words together. She said, ‘Don’t waste your time on him, Andy. And don’t touch him, or he’ll throw his tantrum again and we’ll all go deaf.’
“I hoped that now he’d leave me alone, but he laughed and said it was no problem. He went into his pocket and took four pencils out of it. It was weird, but I could see their colors: blue, red, orange and green, and they were so bright that my eyes started to hurt. He put the pencils in front of me and left, and I crawled back into the closet because I was feeling sick again.
“When everyone fell asleep, I took these pencils and began to look at them. I sat with them for a long time — several days, probably — turning them over and over in my hands, trying to find the perfect combination of these four colors. I thought I found it but, a second later, it disappeared, and I had to start over. And then I realized that there are no ideal combinations; it all depends not on the pencils but on the one who’s holding them. And I’m holding my pencils now. All the time. And I don’t need to drink or to get high to see the colors of the world.”
Barry had to answer. “If you want my opinion, it’s some kind of nonsense. Rare bullshit. No wonder you want to die in a couple of years, without drinking. It helps me. Keeps me going. It’s not like I have a hard life or anything, no, I’m not complaining, God forbid! But damn it, you’re right! This world sometimes lacks color.”
“Yeah. I’m glad you understand.”
“And what do you paint? Still-life, portraits, nudité?”
“Nothing. I told you, it all depends on what you want to see.”
“Are you kidding me!?” Barry’s glass slams on the table and a few cloudy drops splash out. They look like drops of rain, but they do not contain those heavenly lights that are so pleasant to look at on the window glass.
“Did I offend you?” Cigarette Butt flinches and nervously bites his lips. “No, no, sorry, I can explain it once again...”
“Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Well, your paintings, of course. You said you live nearby, right?”
“Across the road.”
“Let’s go. I can’t wait to see how you waste your life.”
* * *
It’s damp and stuffy outside. If your shoes have holes, you can be sure that puddles will sneak into them before you even take your first step. The city looks like a frightened stray kitten, huddled between garbage cans, waiting for food or death. Exactly four steps lead to the basement. The staircase is crippled by numerous indifferent feet and crumbles in some places, exposing its unsightly stone insides.
“Okay, it’s not the cleanest place in the world, but could be worse.” Barry looks around curiously. “Well, I’m ready to admire. There’s enough alcohol in my blood to talk about art.”
“Maybe... How about this one?” Cigarette Butt shifts from foot to foot and hesitantly fiddles with the torn collar of his shirt, as if expecting some support from it at this crucial moment. “It’s gonna be a bit dusty now, cover your nose with your sleeve, okay?”
A dirty gray rag carelessly flies into the air and, from under it, squinting from the unexpectedly bright light, a canvas appears, plastered with an insane cacophony of shapes and colors. It looks like a girl whose skirt was lifted by a sudden gust of wind, revealing something not intended for prying eyes. A dim electric lamp, crookedly attached to the uneven, cracked ceiling, unsuccessfully tries to shout down this riot of paints that has finally broken free from its dusty confinement.
“So, what can I say, Matt? Basically, I like it. It’s fresh and unusual, and you’ve surely spent a ton of paints on it, which are quite costly, I know. But I have just one question. A tiny one...” Barry makes a dramatic pause for a punchline. “What did you call this crap?”
“Memories on a Bird.”
“Memories. On a bird. Of course, that’s exactly what I thought. No, seriously, what else can you call it? Just tell me this. If the picture is about a bird, then, probably, it should have a... what’s it called? Ah, bird, right?” Barry finally laughs, a drunken, impolite laugh. “So, where is it?”
“Nowhere. This name just matches its rhythm.”
“Does it? Oh, okay then. But to be honest, I’ve never heard a dumber explanation in my life. Now, why ‘on’ the bird and not ‘of’ the bird?”
Copyright © 2024 by Al Malers
