It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure
De Sade
It was in an attempt to ride the fatback pig of another Pulitzer success, and take to his spiraling madness out of the bum hungry gaze of the tabloids, that Coakes’ agent suggested he finish his novel. The Great American Novel, to fit on the ever expanding shelves of Great American Novels. He suggested they pitch its greatness somewhere between The Great Gatsby (surely only a Great American Novel because it has the word ‘great’ in the title) and On the Road (which was great due to its ability to inspire the feeling all great European novels create - mind numbing boredom and hatred of it’s singularly unlikable characters). Something epoch defining, but which also spoke to universal human truths, a book like Little House on the Prairie.
And so, Iago sat down and typed up fifty generic reviews, only needing titles and actors names inserted in the blanks, and booked passage to the Greek Islands. He reasoned that in order to gain perspective on the Homeland, one must be as far away from it as possible.
Forty-eight hours later, Iago Coakes sat chain farting in his bedpod on the first class deck of the Airbus Megajet, flying away from the land of the free. Coakes was leaving for the first time since a grand tour in his twenties, seventeen capital cities in two weeks, had left him with a lasting distrust of Europe and it’s odd bathroom etiquette.
He wore a bright, shiny blue tracksuit, with thin white stripes lost on acres of folds. Thin as he had become, the bottoms hung off him like skirts, and had had to be tied at the ends with lengths of yellow plastic cord. He’d tried watching one of the movies on the in flight entertainment system, but the tiny glowing screen seemed such an evident parody of the monolithic plasma wall in his den that he’d given up in squinting fury. He’d tried to get drunk, but they refused to serve him after he’d complained about the dinky monitor size. They’d presumed he was drunk already.
Food came, perhaps it was tasty, Coakes couldn’t tell, but it was presented on such an ugly, utilitarian tray that he hadn’t eaten a bite, instead mashing it into unrecognizability with the included small sinister plastic knife. The blade was dwarfed by his hand and broke, splintering painfully into his palm. Undoubtedly this was the worst thing about 9-11, all the metal cutlery had been confiscated and Coakes had to eat with the soft unstable utensils of a submental. Bin Laden was a true monster. Eventually he fell asleep, somewhere above the Atlantic, and dreamt of Juliet.
He walked the slow foot pendulum walk he’d used in college, into the bookshop where he had first seen her. He had been buying copies of his collected criticism to boost the sales. She had been shoplifting Gene Simmon’s autobiography again, in translation. She was young and thin, and dressed in generic beach wear. Her pale skin melded into tan at her elbow and the back of her neck, below short boyish hair, was as dark as an Asians. She’d looked up and caught him staring, near open mouthed. She had smiled, then quickly ducked back behind the bookshelf between them, and when he’d stood on his toes to look over, she had been waiting, and said,
“I knew you would.”
Then she’d stood up and loudly, almost shouting, yelled,
“Pervert, stop eyefucking me!” and as everyone in the shop had turned and looked at Iago as he reddened and mounted a worry stiff, she’d slipped out of the store.
As she’d passed through the sliding electronic doors, she’d half turned and blown him a kiss.
In the dream, she wasn’t wearing anything below the waist, and when she yelled,
“Pervert,” his trousers had fallen off too, revealing a nappy. He was holding a rusting hacksaw, his hands bloody.
They woke him for breakfast, a kipper, specially requested by his agent; black Arabian coffee, and half a grape fruit, neither of which Coakes touched. He ate the fish slowly, sweating despite the AC, and when the plane bumped, touching down amid squeals of breaks he leapt up, out of the seat and ran to the door, yelling wordlessly, blind panic. He was escorted back to his seat by a burly gay, and given a formal police warning upon arrival.
Coakes found Athens desperately hot and dusty, and full of hairy people speaking a language he did not understand. It reminded him of LA. After a day’s respite on the top floor of an international brand hotel, he caught the passenger ferry to Rhodes. He sat on deck for a while, next to a chain smoking Jewish couple from Florida. They talked incessantly of death.
“We’re on our way out, no two ways about it. We’ll die together, we’re going to Switzerland next year. We’re trying to see as much of the world as we can before we go. That way, when we die, we’ll take as much of it with us as possible”.
They didn’t recognize him, and he hated them for it. Still he liked their certain knowledge of death, that they knew for definite they weren’t immortal. He watched the gulls rawk above, following the fishing boats out of port. That morning Coakes had picked up his freshly tailored writers suit. It had been ordered from old measurements, before the exercise had stripped the fat from his bones. It was a linen suit, white, with white shirt and black tie, or a cravat - dependent on mood, and a white fedora hat. It was cut in a style favoured by Hemingway. By mid morning the slovenly sun had turned white and crawled high into the sky. He was far too hot out, and he fled inside, furiously fanning with the hat. He found the small bar full of smoke and grey haired men, drinking cheap local beer. They paused when he entered, and after one cleared his throat on Coakes’s foot, they roared with laughter. He ordered a drink and farted, a real guff, one he suspected left a brown patch on the back of his new trousers. Smoke curled from the tips of hand rolled cigarettes and newspapers warred with the silence. Then someone said something in Greek and again the room burst into mirth. After that he’d retreated to the small dirty cabin. Four beds filled the place, two up, two down, and the window, or porthole, whatever, was frosted. He’d slept fitfully, at one point waking as someone tried the door. It was locked and the drunk stumbled off to find somewhere else to sleep. In the morning, he’d eaten eggs in the small galley, and sat on deck, smelling the salt and diesel.
Many hours later they bumped into port. A blast of the ships horn sent people scrambling to cars and lorries and the foot passengers to the starboard side of the ship. Coakes walked down the long dusty gang plank, fanning himself. A man, dressed in an ill fitting suit of black Lycra and sporting fake aviator sunglasses held a sign with his name on it, and walked forward when he waved.
“Mr Coakes, welcome Rhodes! Please, if we hurry we can make the evening ferry to Symi” he said, breathless.
They walked to a white jeep, with a black canvass soft top. It had obviously been crashed; scrapes and dents peppered one side of the vehicle. The driver opened Coakes door for him, quickly winding down the window using the handle, and entered on the other side. They sped off into the crowded streets. The native spoke of his wife and daughter. His daughter, he boasted, was a great beauty, very healthy, very strong, and he watched Coakes’ face as he said it. He flipped down the sun guard on the drivers side and pulled out some photographs. They were of his family. The daughter looked in rude health, fleshy and fat, with great tree trunk thighs and bulging stomach.
“She loves America. Loves the Brittany. The Nas. The X to the P, Exposure. She watches much MTV”.
“You know, America is exactly like it is on MTV,” snarled Coakes.
“Yes, and Greece is like Plato’s writings too. We are ruled by philosopher kings made of gold and mud”, the driver laughed long and hard at this, swerving the jeep through a market place, leaning on the car horn, as if to echo his laughter.
“Still, she is young, eh? She is looking for a job, do you need a housekeeper on the island?”
Coakes had not thought of this, and thought of how useful a Margarita might be to have around.
“I’ll see”.
They pulled into the small port were the ferry ran from, and as Coakes climbed out of the jeep, the driver pushed a photograph into Coakes hand,
“I’ll send her in a few days, you decide then, ok?”
As Coakes walked to the ship, he studied the photograph; a Michelin mascot, all bulbous folds and stacked spare tires. A reminder of himself, before… She had a fine downy rug of hair on her upper lip. Perhaps she could bleach it. Fat women were eager, and grateful too.
The ferry scraped the metal gangway against the concrete pier as she edged slowly into the harbour. One side of the wharf was taken up by a long low row of terracotta coloured buildings, warehouses probably, with dusty grey roof tiles. The names of the merchants that owned them were painted in high tall letters on their sides. On the other side a small cluster of shops and houses, and a cafe, formed a square. Dusty mustard trees gave it some shade, and in the centre of the paved plaza a small fountain coughed water rudely into the air. Small birds drank at the bowl and white stains on its side testified to their regular presence. The harbour itself was dotted with small fishing boas, eyes painted upon their bows, as had been traditional since classical times.
Coakes wandered down the plank, the evening sunshine giving the whitewashed buildings a bright orange glow. He was tired and drained from the travel and looked up at the high volcanic hills where his cottage was perched, sighing deeply. He was already sweating from the ferry ride and the sea air had made him fiercely hungry. He walked up the slight incline to the cafe were he sat down in a bending white plastic chair. He ordered a lemonade, and when a half glass of fresh lemon juice, a pot of sugar and a bottle of soda water arrived, Coakes felt a thrill surge up his spine. He’d seen this on television, and knew what to do.
The waiter has a head taller than him and powerfully built. His face was tanned and weathered. He had dark eyes and his hair was greying at the temples. His mustachio was so luscious that Coakes could not help but be impressed. He tried to hold the mans eye when he ordered his food, but couldn’t. The waiter returned to the kitchen, almost sauntering, and shouted to the chef. He turned and prepared;
Socrates and Sons’ Herb Grilled Sea Trout, with Garlic Boiled Potatoes.
Ingredients,
1 small seatrout
1 tablespoon of capers
Half teaspoon of cardamom seeds
1 sprig of fresh parsley
1 sprig of young thyme
A squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepperFirst gut and clean the fish as if it is your woman. Then descale it carefully, making sure not to break the gentle skin. Place the capers, cardamom seeds, parsley and thyme, and black pepper in a pestle with a teaspoon of olive oil and the lemon juice. Grind to a fine paste, as our brave Partisans ground the Fascists at Sarandë. Rub the paste into the belly of the fish, as Alexander rubbed olive oil into the cheeks of Hephaistion, and rub the skin with sea salt. Place on a barbecue when the coals have whitened, and cook for 4-5 minutes, as you would cook your wifes lover, until the skin is crispy. Then turn and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with a knob of garlic butter, a green salad or garlic boiled potatoes, and smile to your guests, for they they dine in Greece.
Coakes slowly sipped his drink and watched the sun dance on the waves. It created blinding flashes like a thanksgiving sparkler. He removed his wide brimmed hat and fanned himself slowly, letting the sea breeze cool his damp hair. He let the hat rest upon the blue plastic table and took another sip of the bitterly refreshing drink. His food arrived, the waiter casually placing his strong richly haired hand on Coakes shoulder. Iago turned his head and stared at the hand then, almost trembling, looked into the man’s eyes. The waiter smiled slowly, and walked back to lean against the kitchen wall. Coakes swallowed hard.
He ate his food slowly, gently pealing the crispy skin back from the pale white flesh. It was delicious and fresh tasting, the vinegar soaked capers adding surprising zest. He paused to order a caveat of white wine and then finished it. He ate with a slow determination to taste every bite. He turned, wiping his chin with a thin paper napkin, and asked for the bill. The waiter stood against the wall, sniffing his finger nails, staring at Coakes. He signed the bill, starting a tab. He asked about the cottage, where he would find the agent.
“I am the agent, you are Mr Coakes, yes?”
He thrust his hand into the deep pockets of his trousers and jangled it around until it emerged triumphant, holding a key. His hand lingered as it pressed the warm brass key into Coakes moist grip. He eyes held Coakes’s for a second, cheeks seeming to redden under the full mustache. Coakes left, and walked up the hill, in trousers far too big for him. Looking for all the world like the little tramp.
Iago sweated up the hill. His breath ragged. The salty perspiration was playing hell with his dry flaking skin. He’d almost abandoned his soft brown leather suitcase on the climb. He was much fitter than before, but had been stone tired before he’d sat down for dinner. Up ahead, fast against the hillside, was his destination; a small stone cottage with whitewashed outer walls, and pink terracotta tiles on the roof, looking grey in the moonlight. The blue door was low enough that he had to bow his way through, and a shock of red flowers grew from fat terracotta pots either side of the door. To one side, a lemon tree with wide branches with a stone bench beneath grew next to a low table. Inside, the bright electric light briefly blinded Coakes. The cottage was plainly furnished. A table with high back chairs in wood, a sofa, an easy chair, a long bookshelf full of Japanese novels, a small kitchenette off to one side, and a simple bedroom. In the bathroom there was a lavatory, a shower, and one of those things for washing your arse. Coakes high-fived the mirror in wonder when he saw it. He imagined what it would be like to fart while the thing gushed water up his ane. The whole experience promised to be marvellously exhilarating.
He returned to the sitting room and slumped onto the sofa, stretching his legs onto the coffee table, easing what was this evening an arthritic yaw. He reached a blind paw for the remote, but couldn’t find it. Sat up again, legs down. Where was it? Actually, he thought, never mind the remote, where’s fuckin’ the television. Coakes stood, looking wildly around the room, breathing hard through his nose. Nothing. He moved to the cupboards, pulling open wooden doors by their ceramic handles. There were a few dusted bottles, and an umbrella, but no television. Coakes felt his legs go.
Minutes later he stood up swearing, ashamed at the sadly familiar damp patch on back of his trousers. There was a puddle on the polished stone floor. He washed and changed with resigned efficiency, the electric shower spluttering. Coakes stood under the pissweak jet, missing his hydrotheraputic SilverTAG shower, specially customised for his unique measurements, with revolving pressure jets and BOSE surround woofer. Coakes missed his television. He missed even the tiny excuse for a screen in the headrest of an aeroplane. What the hell had he got himself into here?
He retrieved a bottle of wine from the cupboard, and opening it with a fish shaped cork screw, drank deep from the bottle. He stumbled out, out into the noise of the crickets, and lay slumped on the bench. The lights of the town fizzed below. He could see the orange glow of the citadel. None of it mattered. He was alone. More alone than he’d been since the stray had left him. He had forsaken his God, his father, his mother, his Springer. He regretted the loss more than anything in his life. Well perhaps not anything, he felt the bile rise in his throat as images of Gore spun up from beneath his feet like premonitions of hell. Al Gore, smug and innovative. ‘I used to be.. Used to be.. next president’, his bloated left wing face snorting horribly. Christ. And the murder too, yes he regretted that.
The next day he bought a stock of groceries and had them delivered to the house while he set of to discover the island with a small map. He settled on a beach. Doctors had told him that sunlight would clear up most of his skin complaints. It was one of those cures that was worse than the illness. Light, Jesus’s fiendish bleachrays. He’d refused to consider it in the polluted sink of LA, and was secretly terrified of skin cancer roiling his magnificent face. Here surely though, he’d be safe, everyone said the Mediterranean’s lived for hundreds of years, bathing in olive oil.
Days later, Iago sweated over the brow of the hill and trudged down towards the beach. The bright white sand was a sword stroke against the deep blue sea and sparse green and brown of the hill side. It was deserted, save for the screeches of the white feathered birds diving into the sea a little way out. The sea itself rolled gently in, the verve taken from it by the sand shelf that started a mile or so out.
Coakes walked slowly, conscious of the pain in his knees. His weight, though now mostly gone, had taken its toll, wearing away much of the cartilage. His knees clicked mercilessly. He held a antique cane umbrella, he’d found in the small cupboard in the cottage. with which he abated the rays of the sun.
His shirt, blue linen, had its sleeves rolled up, and was unbuttoned all the way to the naval. He was proud of his flat belly, despite the fat purple scar that stretched the breadth of it. They’d told him it would fade with time, but it hadn’t changed at all in the three months since he’d pealed off the the gray bandages, and seen it for the first time, minus the flat white flesh tongue of spare gut.
When he reached the beach he threw his bag down carelessly on the sand, knowing his rugged laptop was safe in a soft camel leather case, and stripped off, carefully folding the clothes. He angled the umbrella carefully, so that covered his head, then started into the exercise regime. First push ups, his slick face hovering a half inch above the sand; then stomach crunches. Then an hour of Ashanti yoga. Finally, wretched and dehydrated, he dug the water bottle out of his satchel and drank deep, then padded down to the sea, his retread body glistening with sweat.
He swam into the warm shallow water of the bay and tried for the deeper cool further out, but arms tired from raising flesh from earth could only carry so far, before their protests forced the newly thin man back. There he stood for minutes, drying in the warm wind, desperately seeking breath that returned casually, with the slow coquettish tease of a crooked dame.
Coakes stumbled back up the beach, to lie on two large towels placed there to keep the sand out of his anus, his head shaded by the ancient umbrella. He pulled out the small white computer, hiding it from the sun under a face towl, and wrote of Oakley. One day he’d fallen asleep like this, his body in the sun and woke with cock and balls sun pinked and delicate. This morning he had carefully rubbed factor 45 onto the peeling skin. He had become hard with the stimulation, his balls aching with unreleased load, but soon the horror had risen, deflated him and left a trail of vomit, he could not remember bringing up, on his bathroom floor.
He wrote till the sun began to sink in the sky, desperately typing, as it sank behind the ridge, and then, finishing the water, he dressed again. The walk back was punishing as ever, the heat hardly abated. Coakes always needed another shower upon reaching the cottage. Then he’d sit a while, his body and mind numb with the taunt workout, as stillness entered. He was at his happiest. Then he would rise and eat some bread and anchovies, and drink some chilled red wine. He played some Buddy Holly records on the small gray stereo. He hated Holly, even his death was showy and disingenuous. He used the music to rise his bile and feed the energy with which to edit.
Coakes planned to travel to the village café for dinner, but there were hours left to waste. He poured another glass of wine and ate some crackers from the cool larder. He sat down on the armchair, with half its springs gone, and sank deep. He cast his gaze slowly round the room. He noticed, as if for the first time, a dull water-colour of a fishing boat. It hung limp and unlit over the fireplace. He would have mounted the plasma screen there, in pride of place, visible from the kitchen and the toilets open door. But there was no television here. He was truly alone for the first time in years. He stared for a bit at the water-colour, willing it to move.
Coakes finished the glass and several crackers, and reached for the bottle. He sipped again at the worn lip of the glass and thought back to his final evening in LA, intricately reliving his last night of television. Real television, not hirsute newscasters mumbling or the screams of the soccer matches they repeated time and again on the tiny CRT in the taverna. He’d been in a large hotel suite, near the airport. All beige minimalism. He’d lain on the bed, naked, goosebumps covering his arms and legs from the cool blow of the AC. A whore, not his idea, lying coiled beside him. There had been a total failure, much weeping and mania. Then they’d watched late night television together, side by side. She’d laid her head on his lap, hot shallow breath toasting his crotch. As each new tangerine host slapped onto the stage, as each weird, useless product was unveiled to the spasmodic applause of, perhaps, a studio audience; blood, encouraged by her breath, suffused his cock, making it half hard, and her tongue snaked out over his second head. The whores saliva chilled instantly under the AC, but Coakes hadn’t noticed, he’d been one with the television, in a alpha trance. She’d suckled him slow and gentle, lest he puke onto her head again. He’d cum suddenly, shocking himself. The girl had laughed at his look of bewilderment and terror, his greasy semen on her lips. He’d tried to smile, but the tears had come quickly, of gratitude and sadness, and of guilt. They’d watched public access for a while, then as the day broke, she’d dressed and, muttering about collage, left. He smiled, finally, at her back. His review, typed quickly in the first class lounge for that Sundays arts supplement, had been a blow by blow account of the evening. There had been rumours in the New York literary scene that it had pushed Coakes into the realms of the potential Nobel laureate.
Now as he sat on the blue stained material of the armchair, staring at the bad painting of a sad little fishing boat in a bad painting, on the other side of the world, he had forgotten that the girl had been there at all. Instead his mind watched in real time, the minutiae of each Shopping Channel special item. The juice maker that processed fruit rinds into a delicious paste. The knife and fork set with a built in MP3 player in every handle. The combination toothbrush and pube comb. On and on.
Coakes sat for hours rewatching the television in his mind, until the chorus of crickets that herald dusk as one, roused him from his funk. He wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. He was soaked with the stuff and decided to have a shower before dinner.
Afterward, he dressed in light cotton trousers, a white T and a cashmere jumper. He stepped out of the low wooden front door and into the balmy evening. Off towards the horizon you could see clouds, black against the deep blue night, The crickets clicked along like clockwork. Coakes smiled down at the twinkling lights below and set off down the hill, his worries forgotten as he hummed the theme to the Tonight Show with J Leno.
The smell of grilled fish and the warm scent of olives and lemon trees filled the dusty square. Young couples, arm in arm, walked towards the promenade of shops facing the sea. High above the town, the citadel sat, bathed in the low orange glow of many bulbs. The sea lapped against the pier and the sound of its murmur filled the gaps left by the sudden stops in conversation. A soccer match beamed from the mainland played in the rowdy backroom of the taverna, but no one was watching it, till a foul brought universal shouts of “Proktós!”
Iago walked past all this, his heart a flutter, hardly noticing the parochial scene. His eyes strained, searching for his restaurant, then he saw it, plastic tables and scattered white plastic chairs, the mustard seed tree reaching above it, like a whales tail. Small fairy lights stretched across the front of the cafe, twinkling when the wind moved them. A few tables were occupied by chartering islanders, gesturing and stuffing olives into their mouths like punctuation at the end of each sentence. The table he’d occupied previously lay empty, but for a small poesy of wild flowers in a clear straight glass. No other table had one. Coakes couldn’t see the waiter, though. Perhaps it was his night off. His breath, he realized, was ragged with disappointment.
He sat in one of the plastic chairs at the table and looked at the flowers. He let out a sigh, a mouth fart, given his breath. The plastic laminated menu listed the foods in Greek, then English, then French and German. Coakes momentarily considered ordering in Greek. It would make the taste more genuine, he thought. He read the menu twice but was confused by the repetition and weird mistranslations. His head swam with hunger and disappointment, the words on the page were meaningless, the earlier wine and dehydration from the walk had taken their toll. He sat away from the table, the scent of the wildflowers overpowering, and the fish, the sea and the lemons, filling his head, as if his eyes might fall out. He tried to breathe, but the noise of those bastard Greeks was stuffing up his nose and flooding his lungs. He panted hard shallow breaths. His eyes suffused with blood. Dark spots appeared on the edge of his vision and he was sure he would collapse. Then, two strong clasped his shoulders…
Shoulder Massage Instructions
Place your firm Hellenic hands light on his shoulders, as you each take several breaths.
Beginning at his neck, squeeze the muscle running from the root of the skull to the shoulder, gently. Do this many times, each more firmly than the last.
Take your rough hands, testament to generations of field work, but soft too, from olive oil and poetry and use strong thumbs to draw tiny circles on each side of his tired old backbone.
Move up his neck till you reach the ragged fragrant neckline, tickle this, effortlessly with your big fingers, make him wonder what else you carry is as large.
Hold his great dome still, as you rub a palm vigorously across his sweaty tusselled scalp. Run your figertips through his hair, and whisper something, inaudible but delicious, into his ear. Watch as he perks like a frightened rabbit.
Take a soft towel from your pocket, and wipe his brow, intimate as a lover. Release him gently.
Coakes felt the tension slip from his shoulders and leave his back. He stretched his head back, all the way, until he could see the face of the waiter. A deep caring smile nestled under that bushy black moustache. Dark eyes seemed to sparkle.
“Are you ready to order, sir?”
Coakes could have wept at the gentleness and humanity in that question, in the simple staccato poetry of his eyes. He swallowed the lump in his throat, said, “Ah, ha, good evening, are there any specials tonight?”
“Other than yourself? Ahahaha,” ha ha-ed the man.
Coakes swallowed once more, and took a drink of water to cover his blush. He felt like a school girl in the front row at a Ralph Fiennes play.
The waiter continued, “Tonight, sir, my brother has brought me the best of his catch”.
He took a breath, “You may enjoy, The Mediterranean Lovefish”.
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