My work requires that I spend much of my time alone.
Henry Rollins
What prompts a sane inoffensive man to write? What vast yeasty eructation of egoism drives a man to address simultaneously a mass of people he has never met and who may resent being pestered with his ‘thoughts’?
Myles na Gopaleen
“The Love Fish?” Coakes guffawed, thinking it a bulls vagina, a filthy fisherman’s ruse.
“Indeed the Mediterranean Love Fish. Chef will cook it as his caprice takes him. As do all who cook the Love Fish and hope to retain its flavour”.
Coakes merely nodded, numbed by the obvious tripe. The waiter walked a few steps then looked round.
“Mr Iago, you must know that whoever eats the Love Fish will fall in love, forever, within a year.” But then he smiled, clapped Coakes on the back, and wandered off into the kitchen yelling in Greek. Coakes was shaken by the blow to his ever-vulnerable shoulder blades, and almost without realising it, lifted the poesy from the table and sniffed deeply at the scent which had earlier filled him with panic and nausea.
The fish arrived with the dying of the day. Over it was drizzled butter with fresh smashed garlic. Lemon segments forming a guard of honour, a pithy little 300. The fish looked unremarkable. The waiter returned with a pair of heavily carved wooden skewers. He slid them desperately slowly under the fish, then flipped it over, spraying butter and white garlic onto the table. The underside of the fish looked stained, blue black to purple and orange and green, slick like spilt crude oil. Just as slowly, just as carefully, the waiter pulled a knife from a sheath at his side and slid the pale blade under the skin, peeling it back. White flesh shocked under the dark scales. Halfway along, the waiter paused.
He stood back a little and breathed deep. As Coakes reached a fork to the aquine flesh, the waiter stopped him. Said, “All is not yet clear”, and smiled again. He slipped the knife back between flesh and skin and began to peel once more. With a sudden jerk it was all gone, a black pile in one corner of the plate. In the centre of the white flesh was a bright tiny piece of flesh in the shape of a strawberry, or perhaps a heart of the old comic book style. Coakes laughed out loud, delighted, clapping his flippers together.
The meal tasted of nothing, the heart also, but with a tougher texture. Coakes ate slowly and stared out to sea. The last rays of the sun played gently on the tops of the mountains behind. The sounds of the town faded. The sea grew louder. Somewhere a seagull squalled, diving into the foam. A fishing boat putt-putted into the harbour, the men laughing and shouting on board. A truck barked into life as they finished loading the catch, trundled up the hill towards one of the fish yards.
When Coakes had put down his fork and wiped the remnants of the butter and garlic with the sour bread, the waiter came down with a bottle. It was clear glass, with no markings and a fat cork holding back the amber liquid. In his other hand he held a pair of fine crystal goblets, with a thin border of gold, horrible chinzy things for dull brained tourists. He filled the glasses, then took his seat next to Coakes. The waiter lifted his glass in salute to the sea and sipped a little. Coakes did likewise, self-consciously copying. The liquor was think and tasted almost like some childhood medicine. Fumes swelled in his nose and burnt the back of his throat, stripping the lining. Coakes wanted to cough, but instead stared out to sea. They sat like that for the longest time, neither looking at the other, sipping and watching the water, with tiny movements coming closer together. Coakes lit an Ambassador Menthol, his after dinner smoke, and offered the pack to the waiter, who gave so sign of noticing the gesture. Coakes returned to watching the ocean, staring at its hugeness, as if all the good and horror of the world were way at the other side, and perhaps here, on this veranda, they were safe.
Coakes felt a hand rest on his thigh. He stared at it, the dark hairy claw, then looked to the waiter, in a deliberate motion. The waiter smiled at his defensiveness.
“Iago, we should do something.”
“What?”, he could hardly breathe.
“Tomorrow, the café is closed, we will take my brothers boat. I will show you the cave of St. Felix.”
Coakes stared back out to sea and let out a long breath. He longed to fart, he had a capital quake building, but feared it might ruin the moment, in the same way it would improve so many others, and for the same reasons. A heart, someone’s, lumped against Coakes’ rigid chest, thick blood trundling like rail carts in his ears, drowning the sea.
“Oh, no, no, thanks. I mean honestly you’ve been really kind but…”
The waiter shook his head kindly, the great moustache cooling Coakes face with the breeze of its passage.
“No. It’s no problem. It’s my pleasure. I come bring you early.”
“No, no, really. I mean, I don’t think I should because…”
“You afraid. You afraid that I wan’ make fuck with you.”
“What?” Coakes gulped and looked at the waiter, admiring the way the evening light caught that great native chin. He was afraid. Afraid to hope.
“Of course I wan’ make fuck with you, you are beautiful Coakes. Man would be crazy not want to make fuck with you. But I don’t ask you to fuck. I ask you to come on brothers boat. Different thing. Boat is boat. Fuck is fuck. So I come tomorrow morning nine o’clock? I bring food, I bring wine, and we go. Tomorrow, I just make you happy? No need to be sad. And no need to be afraid, I give word of honour. I don’t try to make fuck with you. Okay?”
Coakes was silent for a long moment. “Okay. See you in the morning.”
After a moment, the waiter stood and walked back to the kitchen carrying the plates. Coakes left a stack of monopoly money on the table and walked slowly up the hill. Christ, he wished there were a taxi. He was out of breath before he started.
The cliffs were high and at the very top nestled a ruined and overgrown temple of Zeus. White-faced birds with bulbous black bodies that seemed to defy logic flitted in and out of the cave. White stains and tiny stacks of twigs punctuated the black volcanic rock of the cliffs. For a while a Greek saint, St Felix, had lived in the cave, escaping the Turkish heathens. He’s subsisted on rain water and the seaweed stinking meat of the birds, until the day a fisherman had spotted the glow of a fire in the cave at dusk, and Felix had become St Felix. The waves had washed against the cliff face for long enough to have made a little beach of grey sand, famous for stranding people – only approachable on foot during the lowest tide. Perhaps one day someone would die here.
A long blue fishing boat motored into the cove. On deck were two men. One wore a dark shirt, blue jeans and a cap. He had the complexion of bark and a bore great moustache. The other was a thin, bemuscled man in a yellow shell suit, with shoulder length yellow hair. He stood at the prow, staring up at the cliffs. He called something over his shoulder to the one in blue, who joined him, wresting a hand on his lower back, then broke off and walked to the small wheel at the back, cutting the engine. He moved to the side and threw the anchor over. The slack was soon taken up and the boat stopped, turning gradually so that its prow faced the incoming tide. The dark man never heard the other come up behind him, walking on the balls of his feet. He moved suddenly, pushing the dark man hard so fell over the side. The one on deck doubled up laughing at the splashing and swearing. He bent, offerd a hand to help the other back onto the boat. The dark man took the proffered hand, yanked. Splutters and splashes as the blonde man joined his comrade in the water, all laughs and horseplay. Wet sex happened, a hard-core montage.
Coakes sat on the wooden bench on the veranda of the cottage. A cushion nestled under his fleshy arse. He had not dared put on his white writers suit today, in the same way a woman will not wear white when expecting menstruation. He sipped the icy lemonade and gin and placed it back on the table. A large map of America was spread out in front of him and his laptop lay untouched. He couldn’t write today, he didn’t want to think at all.
He stood, in need of a piss, and the pain of straightening caught his breath. He ducked into the cottage and walked slowly to the bathroom. As he urinated the long and deep yellow of dehydration, he read his face in the mirror. He hadn’t looked at himself since the Waiter had traced the scars and stretch marks of his belly with his tongue, ‘A map of your beauty’.
Coakes eyes were deep set, seeming to have fled into his skull. Black rings languished under them. The cheeks beneath were callow and though the skin was tanned, appeared pale and bloodless. His lips were a violent red, as if painted. He looked closer, leaning toward the mirror. They were painted, with lipstick. That rat bastard Greek must have done it, as he lay sleeping and sun-burning on deck. But he remembered the truth too, lying there, his head resting on the waiters lap. The man fingering his locks, calling him a pretty girl, remembered running below, eager to please, grabbing a lipstick from the sideboard where it lay, expectant, spreading it on roughly. He’d wrapped himself in a towel, emerged coyly from the bowls of the ship, done everything asked of him, leaving bright red smears on that Hellenic oaken trowel.
Coakes snapped back. He stood still at the john, staring at his lips, his dick hard. He looked down at the penile organ. There was a hard, but with none of the usual complications. His hand felt for his anus – no faecal matter clung there.
“By Christ, I’ve won!”
But alas, dear reader, as our hero revelled in his liberation, the illness welled up. Images of hacksaws and showers, meat, piss, sand thick in his mouth, hands fat and strong, a swan thin neck, Gore’s face laughing, the smell of the fire. Coakes’ knees buckled and he fell, head-butting the ceramic toilet bowl, vomit flummoxing in great chunks down his front, into his drooping fringe.
“Are you OK?” A twanged midwestern accent. Coakes jerked his head round, tummy juice smeared on his chin and shirt. A fat girl sat in a wheel chair, Brittany Spears t-shirt stretched to monstrous proportions on her frame. Her legs ended in unceremonious stumps just below the knees. She was plump and young and Coakes couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before.
“Get the fuck out.” He stumbled to his feet and wiped his face with a paper towel, meant for smearing shit away, leaving little white balls of the stuff on his chin. Coakes splashed a little tap water around his chops, then wiped clean with a towel, smearing the red lipstick across it. He laboured to make sure it was all gone. He put his dick away and tried to get the sick out of his hair, lost patience and slicked it back behind his ears.
Who the hell was the fuck was the girl? Coakes couldn’t be sure, but felt that he’d remember if his own daughter was a cripple, so that counted out Melody. She didn’t look like his usual paid company. Bile rose up again. Coakes collected himself and marched boldly into the sitting room, long bouncy steps, unconsciously mocking her disability with his very gait.
The girl was waiting on the veranda, a little in the shade. She was tracing a plump digit across the various interstate highways that crisscrossed America, smiling beatifically. In the sunlight Iago could see that she was not American, or at least not a true American. Her skin was a cold coffee brown, hair a shock of black, barely controlled by elasticated ties and reaching nearly to her waist. A fine downy fluff hovered just above her top lip and her eyebrows embraced in the middle of her forehead.
“The fuck are you?”
She looked up, “Mr Coakes?”
“Yeah”, he let out a real bleater. The illness had passed and was nearly forgotten.
“I’m Maria,” she smiled as if he gave a fuck. The girl caught his dead eyed gaze, added “The housekeeper? My dad set it up? I’ve come all the way from Rhodes…”
Coakes continued to stare. She looked as if she might cry, ran a chubby palm through her hair, pushing errant strands back. His eyes rested on her stumps for a few seconds then took in her surprisingly flat chest. Usually girls that size had breasts you could flop over their shoulders. Coakes scratched his balls, killing a sweat itch. He recalled some conversation weeks ago, with a Greek back at the airport.
“Yeah, sure, sure, sure.” He let out another long flappy fart, reverting immediately to the vicious arrogance he employed with menials. “Right, I want you to tidy this shit hole up, and then fuck off down to the village and get some groceries, I’ll make a list.” He snapped out orders automatically, with none of the half hearted flirtation he employed with even the ugliest women. Domestics didn’t really count as people, fucking them was like a less energetic wank, and almost pointless.
“Sir, might I ask, how am I to get the groceries up here. Its a steep hill, and I find it hard on my own.”
Coakes guffawed good naturedly. “Listen, I’m an equal opportunities employer. You’ll do same as anyone else. It’ll do you good, you chubby bitch, now fuck off inside and set to work. I have a novel to finish.”
Later, sipping his iced coffee, Coakes attacked his novel. Christ he was good. This latest chapter would set the cock amongst the virgins. He’d show them. Hemmingway, Hemmingwho? Hemmingfuck.