How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired (10 page)

“Do you like Cohen?”

Since no one ever mentions Cohen without saying something about Dylan in the next breath, I follow the pattern.

“I prefer him to Dylan. His early songs, at least.”

Miz Snob almost spilled my daiquiri. She likes Cohen, but Dylan is king.

That wry guitar always creates a special mood. Sinking into a hassock, listening to Cohen, drinking Shanghai tea.

Miz Snob searches for Rampal among her records. She kneels down. I assure you she is wearing a tiny white satin undergarment. Her body is white, untouched, smooth, almost shiny.

“Are you hungry?” she asks me out of nowhere.

“A little.”

“I'm going to make an omelet.”

I follow her into the clean, well-lighted kitchen. Handsome pale wood, big farmhouse table and a collection of spice bottles (thyme, dried nutmeg, curry, paprika, sage, mustard, chives, parsley) above an Arcimboldo poster of a man's head with a collage of fruits of the sea and land. On a shelf in a corner: a collection of
Time-Life
recipe books.

Miz Snob attends to her omelet. She breaks the eggs with a sharp tap against the edge of the pan. I watch her shoulderblades moving under her tight white blouse. Muscles. Not an ounce of fat. A Scarsdale girl. But her breasts, that should be smaller, are big enough to stand out on both sides. I'm standing behind her. Of its own accord, my hand pops from my pocket, where it lay in repose like an extinct volcano, and sweeps around her waist that conjures up Jane Birkin's curves. I bend over and kiss her pointy ear. That wasn't the thing to do. She didn't slap me, nothing like that. It was worse. She and I—really, it was she—decided we weren't going to be great lovers.

MIZ SNOB
sprinkles cocaine on the omelet. She puts some in everything she eats. She's crazy about coke.

Coke and I are not the best of friends.

We talk about Hölderlin, that old madman, with Rampal providing the background. Très snob, man.

“Have you read Burroughs?”

“Yes. But when it comes to the Beats, I prefer Corso.”

Excellent Colombian stock. Too bad it's wasted on me.

“Did you like
Junkie?
”

Name-dropping 101: Miz Snob's favorite subject.

“It was all right. I liked
Naked Lunch
better.”

“I thought it was too obvious. It can't stand up next to De Quincey's
Journal.
”

Rampal, when it comes down to it, is a lot of crap. You can keep him. But Miz Snob has a good pusher.

Hats off, Colombia. White satin. Black pain.

Miz Mystic Flying
back from Tibet

AS I
climb the stairway I hear old Mingus playing. Charles Mingus, if you please. The door is slightly ajar. I push it and walk in. Miz Suicide is sitting at Bouba's feet in the lotus position. Black Buddha is devouring an enormous pizza. Miz Suicide is with a girl who just came back from Tibet. Miz Mystic. Miz Mystic is a carbon copy of an iguana. Bouba's bestiary. Eyes unfocused, body redundant, Miz Mystic is in a constant state of flotation. To keep from surrendering my vital energies to these monsters, I leap upon the last piece of pizza. Fortune has saved me a few dregs of wine in the bottle. As usual, Miz Suicide is busy boiling water for tea. I sit down on my work chair, turn my back on the typewriter and gaze stupidly on that lousy cross that haunts my window. Miz Suicide serves tea. Miz Mystic floats. Bouba reads suras to jazz rhythm. Miz Mystic is unapproachable.

“What's Tibet like?”

“It's okay.”

“Just okay? That's all? I thought a trip to Tibet would be something special.”

She ignores me.

“Do they levitate mountains over there?”

A frigid look.

“I didn't see any of that.”

“I don't know, I figure some incredible things must go on in those frozen caves.”

“Not especially.”

Miz Mystic sits with her back against the Japanese screen. Her eyes are like those of a lama contemplating an edelweiss. Miz Suicide is working on her third tea. Mingus launches into a capricious piece that makes a crazy contrast with this mystico-depressing scene. Bouba is lying on the couch like the Dalai Lama of the Carré St. Louis. The fatigue of two sleepless nights is beginning to hit me. This planet is not going well at all. (“Dhul-Qarnain,” they said, “Gog and Magog are ravaging this land. Build us a rampart against them and we will pay you tribute.”) I formulate this vow, then fall into a cotton-wool sleep, diagonally across the bed. As Mingus plays “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”

I WAKE
up with a start to see Miz Mystic psychotically pounding the bed. Then she makes a dash for the window and tries to jump out. Bouba grabs her by the waist. Miz Suicide has a hold on her foot. The insensitive needle scratches at the record. Miz Mystic is foaming with held-back rage. Her desire to throw herself out the window is so strong it seems legitimate to me. In cases of great conviction, we should make an exception. Let her do it. Someone wants to kill himself. So be it. (“Say: Nothing will your flight avail you. If you escaped from death and slaughter you would enjoy this world only for a little while.”) Miz Mystic has her torso out the window. Her skirt is pushed up to her waist. Dry, bare legs. Miz Suicide pulls her back desperately. Miz Mystic is making good headway toward the void as the indifferent cross looks on.

When it occurs to me what is going on, I get up. Bouba and Miz Suicide help me pull Miz Mystic back inside.

MIZ MYSTIC
is sleeping now on the couch. A crescent moon like a hat beyond the cross. The Remington glows in the dark. Solemnly, Charles Mingus attacks “The Pithecanthropus Erectus” (1956). By the pizza box, in the middle of the room, one of Miz Mystic's shoes. I can see the filigree of scrapes and scratches on the heel. Suddenly, I'm depressed. This room is the headquarters for every marginal character in town. The urban mafia of crazies instinctively turns to 3670 rue St-Denis, off the Carré St. Louis, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, America, Earth. My house. Will this honest, conscientious black cruise artist never find his paradise? I want Carole Laure! I demand Carole Laure! Bring me Carole Laure!

The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering
an Old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect

IT'S HORRIBLY HOT
. The Carré St. Louis is full of bare-chested drunkards. The sticky air stinks of beer. Upstairs in the room we're roasting. It's hell, I'm telling you. Reason enough to go downstairs. Only Beelzebub could fuck in this heat. His moaning bugs me. Fire must be shooting out of his mouth up there.

The Carré St. Louis is not your average place. That mossy ground. All the filthy brats you could ask for. A girl photographing Pauline Julien's house.

A bum comes up for a hand-out.

“Got any spare change?”

“No.”

“That's all right, I'll tell you anyway.”

He takes a tiny scrap of paper out of his pocket.

“Look. What do you see?”

“A map of Africa cut out from
Time
magazine.”

He looks me in the eye.

“You're right,” he says. “How did you know?”

“It says so under the map.”

“Oh, you're an intellectual!”

“I know how to read. And how to use my fists too.”

He raises his left hand to show he doesn't want trouble.

“All right, all right. Show me your country on the map.”

“Ivory Coast. Right there.”

I point to the first country I can make out.

“Ivory Coast! Is that where you're from? I worked in the Ivory Coast. I know your president.”

All bums know all the African presidents. Why doesn't he introduce me to the Canadian prime minister? I haven't even been introduced to the local crime lord!

I SIT DOWN
on a park bench with the book I started last night. Written by a certain Limonov. A Russian dissident. The “different dissident” approach. Instead of wasting his time playing the prophet of doom, Limonov gets off with the blacks in Harlem. His book is called
The Russian Poet Prefers Big Blacks.
It begs a rebuttal:
The Black Poet Dreams of Buggering
an old Stalinist on the Nevsky Prospect.
New Frontiers Publications.

The Iron Curtain seen as a giant chastity belt.

BOUBA CAME
back from the
SAVI
, a kind of emergency center for migrants and immigrants. You practically have to provide a complete
C.V
. and a certificate of good conduct and safe morals before they'll slip you twenty dollars. The working class has had its troubles since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Bouba sold himself today; tomorrow will be my turn. He came back and bought food at Pellatt's. The usual fare: potatoes, rice and chicken (the neck only).

The Black Penis and the
Demoralization of the Western World

PLACE DES ARTS
subway. The 80 bus, north. Get off at Laurier and Park. Bar Isaza. Steep stairway. Smoky landscape. Waves of black gold moving across the dance floor. Starched dashikis. Negroes in rut. A few dozen white mice come to play in the lair of the Black Cat.

“There they are.”

“Where?”

“At the back, to the right.”

“Okay, Bouba. I'm going to have a piss first.”

Men's john. Two jet-black Negroes.

NEGRO ONE
: You have to be quick with these girls, brother, or they'll slip through your fingers.

NEGRO TWO
: That's the way it is!

NEGRO ONE
: They came here to see black. We've got to show them black.

NEGRO TWO
: What's this black business?

NEGRO ONE
: Listen, brother, cut the innocence.

You're here to fuck, right? You're here to fuck a white woman, right? That's how it works.

NEGRO TWO
: But a woman can be . . .

NEGRO ONE
: There's no women here. There's black and white—that's all!

STREAMING BODIES.
Eighteen-carat ebony. Ivory teeth. Reggae music. Combustion. Black fusion. A white/black couple practically copulating on the dance floor. Atomic shockwaves.

BOUBA INTRODUCES
me.

“My brother. We live together.”

The girls smile.

“What do you do?” one of them asks me.

“I write. I'm a writer.”

“Really? What do you write?”

“Fantasies.”

“What kind?”

“Mine.”

“Are they good?”

“We'll see.”

The girl gazes sadly at the dance floor, then asks me what I think about it.

“Nothing—except that black and white are accomplices.”

“Accomplices! Where's the murder?”

“The murder of the white man. Sexually, the white man is dead. Completely demoralized. Look at them dancing. Do you know any white man who could keep up with that madness?”

Hard-core cruise. Savage thrust. A few white guys gesticulating in the corner. Everything else is a black tide, washing over the dance floor, filling the room. Here and there a woman is trapped like a seagull with its feet caught in heavy oil. Brazilian music: slow, insinuating, languorous. The air is sticky. Opaque sensuality.

“Want to dance?”

It's like moving into Amazon humidity. Bodies running with sweat. You need a machete to cut through this jungle of arms, legs, sexes and mingling smells. Spicy sensuality. She presses against me. No talking. The samba flows into our bodies. Sweat pouring down. Everything flowing. Effortlessly. We've got all eternity.

We go back to the table.

“Your business about sexuality,” she declares, “is a load of crap.”

“If you say so.”

“You're just reworking the Myth of the Black Stud. I don't believe in it.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Black and white are the same to me.”

“We're talking sexuality, not arithmetic.”

“Sure. But . . .”

“Since you've challenged me, I'm going to tell you exactly what I think. Black and white are equal when it comes to death and sexuality. Eros and Thanatos. And I think that when you mix black man and white woman you get blood red. With his own woman the black man might not be worth the paper he's printed on, but with a white woman, the chances of something happening are good. Why? Because sexuality is based on fantasy and the black man/white woman fantasy is one of the most explosive ones around.”

“Emotions are black—isn't that myth a little worn out?”

“It might be. But you can't have whites winning coming and going. They say they're better than blacks in everything, then turn around and want to be our equals in one area: sexuality.”

“What about whites who don't think they're superior to blacks?”

“Those whites, obviously, don't have sexual hang-ups.”

A MERINGUE.

“Let's give it a try.”

Koko, the Senegalese musician I met at the Clochards Célèstes, has a hot tip for me.

“This girl at my table is suffering an attack of the mystical heebie-jeebies over you.”

“Why would that be, brother?”

“She insists you're the reincarnation of the Great God Ra.”

“As if I needed that.”

“If you want you can stop by my table.”

I let a couple minutes go by, then go over to where Koko is sitting.

“Hi, Koko.”

“Hi, brother. Sit down.”

The girl is as cool and composed as a pressure cooker.

“How are you doing?”

“Not bad.”

The
DJ
is playing reggae.

“You want to dance?”

“Okay.”

Brazilian music comes on.

“Should we stay?”

“Fine with me.”

It's that easy when it's working. Smooth as silk.