Wakefield (20 page)

where it sank under the waves

joining Greek triremes and Roman warships

and Turkish galleons and Venetian galley ships

and that was the signal for the revolution

and the end of the dictator

and this we have from Teleskou now dead

who loved the stories of his country

and the miracles of love born of those stories

not often enough, alas!”

Wakefield can't hold this ground much longer without an accent, a man born in security on a rich and hopeful continent. Time to retreat home.

“In America

we watch history floating by

and sinking under the waves of the present!

Here architectures ruin one another

almost as quickly as they rise.

Our country has grown up

free of Father Disaster

but in America all buildings are temporary

even the post offices and the churches

and the museums where artifacts barely recovered

from the shock of being moved across oceans

have to move again to a newer building!

Please look closely on these artworks, comrades!

Tomorrow they may move to a new building.”

Laughter. They don't even mind being called comrades now. The speaker has moved on to something they all agree on: in America they are misunderstood because America has no history; it eats its own tail like a hyperactive serpent.

“In America a child can no longer

visit the place where she was born

a shopping mall

stands there instead.

In America a grown-up can no longer see the school

where she learned the art of growing sad

a freeway goes through there now an overpass

her memories of brick turn to glass

the suburb goes from white to black

and time speeds up so much she has

to stay young forever and reset the clock

every five minutes just to know where is there

and
there
is everywhere

because she lives in time and not in any space!

In our country here

the future is in ruins before it is built

a fact recognized by postmodern architecture

that grins at us shyly or demonically as it quotes

ruins from other times and places!

There are no buildings in America only passageways

that connect migratory floods

the most permanent architecture being

precisely that which moves these floods

from one future ruin to another

that is to say freeways and skyways

and the car is our only shelter

the architecture of desire reduced to the womb

a womb in transit from one nowhere to another!”

Saddened by his own vision, and sensing smugness in the audience, Wakefield is revolted by his desire to please the foreigners. He coughs. He is betraying his own country now for the sake of … what? Applause? There isn't any. He veers down another path.

“The miracle of America is of motion not regret

in New Mexico the face of Jesus jumped on a tortilla

in Plaquemine a Virgin appeared in a tree

in Santuario de Chimayo the dirt turned healer

a guy in Texas crashed into a wall when God said

Let me take the wheel!

And others hear voices all the time

telling them to sit under a tree or jump from a cliff

or take large baskets of eggs into Blockbuster

to throw at the videos

the voices of God are everywhere heard loud

and clear under the hum of the tickertape

and all these miracles and speaking gods

are the mysteries left homeless by the Architecture

of speed and moving forward onward and ahead!”

Wakefield throws his hands into the air as if to sprinkle fairy dust on the room; he is evoking the richness of a place always ready for miracles.

“Which is not to say that I prefer to wait

for others to turn my house into a ruin

I would rather do it myself the American way

with a second mortgage and a wrecking crew

that way I can say that I am the author of my own ruin

that's the American way

we don't whine or complain

well some of us do”

The Devil can't stand, being lectured to, not since he was made to stand in front of the heavenly throne before being hurled flaming through space. His ears turn red, the pointed tips glow with anger, and he feels an urge to cause the speaker to have a mishap. He's made lecturers choke on a sip of water, have a heart attack on stage, or be hit inexplicably by a falling prop. So he's only half listening to Wakefield, enjoying his client's evident discomfort and self-disgust. He really loves it when people wrestle with themselves over self-created problems. You dig your own pit, he sometimes tells them, then you come to me for a solution. Or worse, you address your sleeping God and end up killing your neighbor. As long as Wakefield is caught in contradiction and self-doubt he's safely in the Devil's hands, no need to worry that a purer, angelic creature—an innocent Wakefield—will suddenly burst to the surface. He takes a nap and turns his attention to the increasing number of dream figures that are crowding the dream fields. In his opinion, this sudden surge of dream figures has something to do with the unsettling of tribal boundaries; as people become angrier they release demons safely bound until then in layers of storytelling, bound with ropes of narrative. The Devil sees these ropes snapping and the layers flying off, leaving exposed malignant medieval creatures that even he shudders to gaze on.

Wakefield is fully aware that he's digging himself into a hole. He decides to change the rhythm—he's a performer, after all. He's going to chant the mantra of self-reliance, which these foreigners can use, that's for sure. In America we value self-reliance as well as cooperation, and this is what we say: “If you do it for me, I'll do it for you.” He chants in a singsong voice:

“If you do it for me, I'll do it for you!

Now everybody say it:

If you do it for me, I'll do it for you!”

A few multiaccented voices repeat: “I'LLDOITFORYOU!” More voices: “YOUDOITFORME!” Laughter, applause. Milena shouts: “DOITTOMEBABY!” and Tiffany: “SOCKITOMESOCKITTOME!” Others are just calling: “GETONWITHIT!” Self-reliance has taken on a not unpleasant erotic twist. Pleased, Wakefield begins again his poem.

“Each home houses

an inner demolition dictator

a household god chomping on

his cigar of cash and impatience

who is not content

until everyone is in a car

driving from Nowheresville to Nowheresville

in search of therapy and desire!”

One strong, chilling female voice emerges from the darkness. “Wakefield, your therapy is just beginning!” Heads turn, looking for the source of this challenge, and a small, neatly dressed woman stands up. “You made a ruin of my desire!” Wakefield realizes that the woman is his ex-wife, making good on her threat. Marianna, who when she got her first look at New York City from the window of a taxicab, cried out, “This is what I always desire!” Wakefield takes a sip of water and forges ahead.

“Which brings me to you, Marianna,

my wife from the land of Teleskou.”

A whisper: “That's his ex-wife!” Some laughter here and there. The crowd seems to lean forward to better hear what will happen next.

“My America-loving wife

born in an old-world city

the Little Paris of prewar Europe

a country you once denied.”

Marianna is silent. What the hell, he might as well tell everybody everything while she ponders her next outburst.

“Then we lived in a city without a plan

a place even the gods

of demolition had left out of boredom

a city like many that spreads everywhere

complacently sprawling

and you loved it.

Wasn't that the place where

at least in the beginning

the architectures of nature

ruins and imagination met?”

“You owe me a better explanation than that, Wakefield!” Angry male voice chides: “Be quiet lady! Work it out after the show!” but others call out: “Let her speak! This is America!” In the wings the bodyguards begin to react. They step out onto the stage and one of them speaks into his lapel sotto voce. There's a commotion in the dark, and Marianna is hustled away from her seat. “He is the father of my child. Asshole! Let go!” Wakefield leans forward over the lectern, trying to see what's going on. “Whoever you are,” he shouts, “leave her alone! That is the mother of my child!” Someone shines a flashlight on the scene. Wakefield sees Marianna being pulled down the aisle by uniformed cops; there are angry shouts from the audience, and several men rise from their seats, as if to defend her. “This is crazy!” Wakefield shouts. “Stop now!” and like divinity intervening, Doris appears on stage and says calmly: “Security! Release Mrs. Wakefield. Friends, return to your seats!” The policemen obey, and Marianna straightens her blouse, smooths her hair, and spreading her arms wide, says, “This is how America treats the foreign-born!” There is a rumble of argument in the crowd, and Wakefield appeals to Marianna, “Can't we talk later, my tigress?” There's laughter at that, and Marianna takes her seat. The crowd applauds.

“Which brings me to
this
city

of immigrants and turbulence

of ruins and imagination!

Once, in other lands

artists under the watch of policemen

wielded paintbrushes and chisels

to speak their rage and laugh their way

out of the prison-gray mind of terror

and while they did this

unbeknownst to them

they tickled American commuters traveling on freeways

unaware not just of these artists but unable

even to locate those countries on the map

and these commuters without knowing why

were seized by a desire to masturbate.”

Marianna shouts: “Wakefield, you're a jackoff!” The audience roars with laughter, and Wakefield laughs, too, relieved by their sudden good will.

Wakefield has made a connection so startling that even the Devil is taken aback. He rouses from his nap and bangs his horns against the jagged roof of his cave, breaking off a stalactite. The idea that the suffering of artists in one region of the world can cause unconscious sexual arousal in regular people in a completely different part of it is brilliant. He has actively made such connections himself, by means of epidemics and viruses, but never by means of brushes and chisels! The Devil feels something like
admiration
, a sentiment so alien to him, he has to pause for a moment to figure out what it is. Yes, of course, he'd admired Christopher Marlowe once, but that had been such a long time ago!

“For years one stretch of freeway

from our house to the mall

was our favorite, Marianna,

and driving among the work-drab drones

we laughed and you cried out

‘Ah, now I understand!'

and I enjoyed those life-enhancing words

and saw my own country for the first time

its drama unfolding in three acts:

first, the act of revising architecture

through loving alien eyes

understanding that in the country of freeways

freeways are history.

Second, making love inside our car

we sensed the commuter-tickling power

of artists breaking their chains

in countries far away, including yours, my ex.

We married the heroic to the ludic.

And thirdly, the project of remaking the world

along the love lines of the year 1968

seemed quite feasible even decades later.

And thus, as from a placid lake

itself a kind of natural proof

even as rents go through the roof

a Nessie can lift her head and thrill two lovers.

That was when visions of the magic world

came to us as easily as laughter

not hate and history and old quarrels.”

Wakefield leaves the stage before the audience realizes he's finished his bittersweet love song. Behind him he hears a thundering sound, whether applause or jeers he can't quite tell. He's cut his talk short, but the unexpected psychodrama has more than made up for it. Backstage, Doris slips him his honorarium check. He puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket. The security detail moves in front and behind and he's back in the green room, sweating, exhausted, and dreading his meeting with Marianna. He drinks a Coke and waits for the inevitable scuffle outside the door. When he hears his ex-wife's voice in argument with the security guards, he flings the door open, and there she is, her agitated breath pushing her breasts rapidly against the Romanian peasant blouse with embroidered red and blue flowers. She's nothing like the old fashion-crazed Marianna: she's wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses that make her look like a schoolteacher. And sensible shoes! He offers her a seat on the couch, but Marianna grabs a chair instead, turns it around, and sits on it staring at Wakefield.

“We should talk about Margot, I suppose,” Wakefield says uncertainly.

After a dolorous silence, Marianna speaks: “Yes, about her and about the thousands of little Margots that lie crying in their own filth in stinking cribs.”

What thousands of little Margots? Isn't one enough, considering that she'd run away from home at sixteen, lived in a ghetto with a musician, and not contacted either of them until she had gone to college all on her own? When she finally called her mother, she was a waitress in a steak house and had some other mysterious job she didn't want to discuss. However, after that first call things started looking up. Margot finished college, went on to graduate school in library science and called both of them every Christmas. She even stayed with Marianna for a month, though Wakefield hasn't yet been graced with a visit. But as far as he's concerned, Margot is mostly okay, and he's about to say this to Marianna, all this, when she says, “Thousands of little
pre
-Margots, I should say, little Margots who'll never have the opportunities our Margot had. I'm talking about
orphans
, Wakefield. The Romanian orphans.”