Untitled 32, or: French 75

“The only wisdom is that wisdom is bullshit.”

“Got that right.”

“Who said that, do you think? – cuz’m pretty sure I’d heard that somewhere.”

“Maybe you just made it up. Or you’re paraphrasing.”

It had snowed all morning and into the afternoon. I was still at the station waiting for the 1:45 and it was already quarter past two. Snow fucks everything up, in the best way possible – I’d been puffing my second to last smoke down to the filter when I see this guy slipping out this door a’ the other end a the station– I assume it’s the room from where they make announcements over the P.A. – he takes a few steps, turns back – jiggles the knob and goes back in. When he comes out John Cale’s playing over the P.A. The place is almost empty this afternoon in early February and no personel come to cut the music. He hustles over to the bench and plops down next to me before anyone sees him. So now we’re here, edging a train platform on a day when you can see your breath in plumes. We shoot the shit and John Cale makes our shit that much loftier.

“Maybe I am paraphrasing, but I got it from somewhere.”

“Maybe you’re pulling an Ayn Rand?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“You’re the first person to get that. I mean you’re the very first person I’ve talked to that hasn’t asked me what I mean by that.”

“Well it was from that Tom Snyder interview, that what you mean?”

-He nods enthusiastically-

“-When she’d told him: ‘I will not die: it is the world that will end’, and attributed it to some Greek something-or-other whom she couldn’t remember.”

“Tha’s the one. I searched all over for the origin, but it really does seem she made it up and thought it was someone else’s quote.”

I hadn’t noticed him light his own cig now that mine’s out. I pat myself to make sure my last loosie is still in its pocket. Not that I’d suspect him of anything. And yes, it’s still there. He frowns for a sec and I think I went red in the face thinkin’ that maybe he picked up on what I was thinkin’. But he continues to drown out the silence like nothing happened.

“What I did find though… uh, oh – nevermind. I’m confusing something.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Here, I think the John Cale will be over in a few minutes.”

He winks at me and crosses back to the door at the other end of the station.

David Berman takes the place of Cale.

When he’s rejoined me, he starts in again:

“You know, in the grand tradition of suicide note/farewell albums – you know, like ‘Closer’? ‘Purple Mountains’ will one day get all the credit it deserves.”

“As a lyrical suicide note?”

“I just said that, di’n’t I? Or just that whole-”

-Waves his hand trying to pluck an idea out the air-

“Cannon of farewell album where they knew they were done for.

“A swan song?”

“Hm? Probably. Yeah, like ‘You Want It Darker’ or ‘Blackstar’.”

I nod, like yeah, sure-

“Not everyone gets a shot at the last perfect record, like ‘Pearl’ or ‘Grace’.”

I pause after he sez that;

“But ‘Grace’ wasn’ Buckley’s last album – he had a posthumous one-”

“Yeah I know, but he wasn’t done with it when he croaked, so it was released more or less incomplete. Speaking of, ‘Pearl’ wasn’t supposed to be the name, originally. You know tha’?”

I nod:

“When she recorded it, Janis di’n’ have a name goin’ for it, so they named it after she OD’d.”  

We say damn near the same thing almost at once.

We pause, stunned; then have a good yuck, even if slightly forced cuz of how uncanny it all is.

I’m over here now thinkin’: This single-serving friend might be good for a few shots. If we should meet again.

It’s the inanities that draw people together-

“Like this High Fidelity bullshit.”

I gawk. That time he really did read my mind.

He patted a crushed carton poking out his breast pocket. “Don’ worry, I always brin’ my own.”

Now I really did turn red. In silences between, when his motormouth stalled and I had fuck all to say, I vibed to “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” when that came up in the tracklist, and the last song I was aware of was “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger.” Now Berman had stopped singing a while ago, I guess, but I’d only just noticed. The reason I noticed was that this bloke a few feet away starts whistling “We’re Going to Be Friends”, and there’s nothing like a Jack White song to make you thankful for silence. I fumble my phone out my pocket to check the time and drop it like a jackass. My stagnant Sputnik cuts his tune to quip “I don’ think the trains are comin’ today.” Only now do I realize I’ve been here all afternoon in a near-empty station. I look up and he twirls his index in a circle motion then jabs it at me. A notification noise a split-second later and I look down. I got a News alert on my phone that the 1:45 derailed. I stare at the page. 1 dead, 3 in critical condition (2 later stabilized. The other bit it.) A handful of injuries.

He huffs his breath over the frosted tracks and snickers. “Ya ever see that movie The Sweet Hereafter? I just thought a it for some reason.”

“Oh God, this isn’t some M. Night bullshit where I’ve actually been a Casper all along-”

“Stick out your pointer and middle, hold it up to your carotid. Feel that? Does it feel like you’re a Banshee who’s hung like a Silverback?”

I was about to ask him how he knew of my extra small people-pleaser but, sensing a pulse, I drop it.

“No, I’m not an Omen, and this isn’t a way station. This is a regular train stop on a forgettable afternoon in early February. Since our tickets are going to waste this fine day, let’s go get hammered. There’s a watering hole across the road.”

The joint was a notch above a dive, but lower than reputable and was called The Irishman’s Liquor Cabinet. We each knock back an Irish Car Bomb and I poke my fingers into the glass trying to pry out the cream-and-whisky covered tumbler. I tip it out and tongue the last few drops of cream and whiskey and grab a bar napkin to wipe away a few drops of stout on the counter.

“Another round?”

“I don’ even like’em.”

“Neither do I. I thought you did?”

We both snort and he tries to order an Aqua Velva.

I din’t think the joint would be class enough, but two minutes later, he gets a big blue glass.

“Place may look like that public stall from Trainspotting but Ogre here can mix you anything you put to him. Though not necessarily to your liking.”

The barman really does look that mongoloid from Revenge of the Nerds. To needle him, I order a French 75 – not exactly rocket science, but not the sorta thing the clientele here look like they order every day. 

Gin.

Champaign.

Lemon Juice.

Sugar.

Mixed like shit. I don’t understand how you mix it like shit, but mixed like shit it was. I order another. 

“This is how Churchill and Stalin thawed to each other. They meet. They size each other up. Each one’s thinkin’ “this guy…” Then they get hammered all night tryin’ to drink each other under the table and the next morning, hung over, each one’s now: this guy’s alright. Roosevelt, however, was a third wheel.”

“Then what happens?”

“One must assume they were BFF’s until Stalin croaked.”

Given how many empty glasses we left littering the bar in front of us, now wet with residual lemon juice and gin, I figure me and my newfound shadow had Stalin and Churchill licked.