PART I: Lolita
My friend, my friend,
I am very very sick.
I don’t know where this evil comes from.
If it’s the wind that hisses
on the empty and deserted field,
or if it’s the alcohol that upsets the brain,
like a grove in September.
...
My head no longer has strength
to rock on the neck.
A boogie man,
Boogie, boogie,
a boogie man
sits on my bed,
a boogie man
he doesn’t make me sleep all night.
A boogie man
moves a finger on the abominable book
and, with a nasal voice above me,
like a monk over a dead man,
he reads me the life
of a certain rascal,
chasing anguish and fear into the soul.
...
Listen, listen, -
He mumbles, -
there are multiple plans in the book
and beautiful thoughts.
There was a man who lived in the district
of the most terrible
bandits and charlatans.
In December in that district
the snow is pure to the devil
…
That man was an adventurer,
but of the best species
The highest.
He was elegant,
and also a poet
...
-“Happiness,” he said,
is dexterity of mind and hands.
All clumsy souls
are known for their unhappiness.
It does not matter,
if many torments
are fruit of ambiguous
and liars' gestures.
Between storms and torments
in the cold of everyday life,
in severe losses
and in sadness
–always appearing smiling and simple -
is the supreme art of the world”.
Boogie man!
Don’t dare this!
Who cares about the life
of a scandalous poet.
Please, to someone else
read and tell”.
The boogie man
stares at me.
And his eyes are colored
of a blue vomit,
almost wanting to tell me,
that I am a thug and a thief,
that in a shameless way
has robbed someone.
...
Night of frost...
Peace at the crossroads is silent
I’m alone at the window,
I don’t look for a friend nor a guest
the whole plain is covered
of a friable and soft lime,
and the trees, like knights,
are gathering in our garden.
Somewhere he cries
an evil night bird.
…
And the boogie man still
taking off his cylinder
throws the coat carelessly,
he comes to sit in my armchair...
Listen, listen! –-
he says with an unpleasant voice,
looking me in the face,
even closer
even closer I bow. -
I have never seen
Never a rascal
suffer from such stupid and vain insomnia.
Ah, maybe I was wrong!
Tonight is the moon!
What needs
this little drunk and lazy world?
Maybe with her big thighs
“She” will come in secret,
and you will read her
your languid exhausted lyric?
…
Boogie man!
You are a very bad guest.
This fame
has been around you for a long time.
I am furious,
and I throw my stick
right against his face,
at the root of his nose.
The moon is dead,
dawn dawns at the window.
Oh, night!
Why so much trouble?
I’m standing here with my top hat.
There is no one with me.
I am alone
With a shattered mirror...
-from The Boogie Man, by Sergej Esenin, 1925.
<<Do you know who I am>>, I ask him.
Nothing.
<<Do you know me?>>.
He doesn’t look up.
<<Are you sure you don’t recognize me?>>.
He slowly raises his large cold black pupils. And he hasn’t done anything else.
DUBLIN, IRELAND - 2016
There he was, sitting on one of the bunk beds of the LOLITA. The dormitory housed twenty-four people, of all kinds, and it was cheap, of course; a bit dirty and noisy but somehow it was fine. It was dark, and he stood there, with that insignificant expression on his face, ruffling his mustache, crooked and weak like those of a wild animal. He contemplated a smeared yellowish mush of mucus on the green carpet next to his orange suitcase - a small purple light radiated from under the door. He hadn’t taken a shower - poor thing - for almost three weeks. He hadn’t changed clothes for almost two months. He would have, if he had had them. He is not a dirty boy. The last time he washed, he had done it in the spray of a drinking fountain in a park in Dublin, I don’t remember where, under the eyes of the tourists and golden children who, interrupted the games, looked at him with curiosity.
He got up, opened the door; the light, now strong, now soft, almost ghostly, illuminated the narrow corridor which connected the hostel's dormitory to the bathroom and common area. He went to the bathroom and sat down uncomfortably. He began defecating an excruciating painful shit. After washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror. A small and squared mirror. The inconsistent neon light gave his presence something inhuman. Not at all how he remembered himself, - in any case - one of the many stragglers and petty thieves who walk the streets in the evening. And to think that when he was little he felt so special.. He went to the common area, - in the common area there was always someone - seated on untidy stools there was the usual group of Spanish boys and a crazy Pole. He talked with them a little, smoked some grass; the Pole, with a smudged, drunk accent, spoke of World War II. (Nobody knew why). He hated the Russians. When he spoke the word Russians, his small and rowdy eyes burned, like those of a horny fawn.
Nick went back to the bathroom - who knows why - he stared at himself again in that sort of mirror. He rinsed his face, crumbled, and began to laugh; without reason, as children do, he looked at the mirror and laughed; a nervous laugh, almost metallic. A strong cough, a teardrop, then he returned to the dorm. From the backpack he kept near the bed he pulled out a blue pen (he had stolen it in a Pakistani deli); he went to the reception. He asked for a sheet of paper. They gave him a purple sheet and he returned to the common area. Everyone was gone. ‘Luckily’, he told himself, and sitting on one of the stools, I don’t know how, he leaned and began to write:
I do not speak of ravine,
nor of well,
let alone death.
When symbols are missing.
When instinct fails.
Things that were,
Are not anymore.
When screams do not pronounce.
Noise, noise.
Noise that in any case,
disturbs a peace, which does not deserve to rest.
All this symphony,
this harmony,
disastrous,
finally condenses,
until crashing.
-I don’t know if this is a good story; maybe a little sad, sometimes funny; vulgar for some, I guess. There is suffering, egotism, probably, even a good dose of victimhood. Maybe the boy made bad choices. Perhaps he should have used his reason a little more, although some say he thought too much. And then when he’s there, alone, with his dark and curly hair in between his forearms, or simply there looking at things, standing, smoking distant from the crowd, perhaps it makes sense that he only followed a path already outlined for him, having had no choice, but to laugh, or maybe smile.
For those born in the Bronx it’s difficult to get out unscathed, in any case. It’s a matter of skin, of colors; like the wind, ruffling the hair of anguished mothers on Orchard Beach. They shout in unknown languages to their children to go out from the ocean. Perhaps from the ocean, sooner or later you’ll get out; mom scolds you; you feel bad, she smacks you, and you all go home. Before going to bed, you’ll take a shower. Maybe you’ll cry under the jet. Maybe you’ll think about it, instead of laughing like an idiot, or like a child. But for those born in the Bronx, child or not, the real challenge is to get out of the Bronx itself, not from the ocean. It’s like some kind of condemnation, a big reddish wish on the neck that you will never be able to scrape off you; it gets stuck, like the tattooed name of a woman who doesn’t love you anymore, or who maybe hates you. Never mind that you are black, white, Puerto Rican, Chinese, a Martian, in the Bronx it doesn’t matter; it’s an extended family, an environment that protects and poisons all its members, like a jealous or wicked mother.
When one is part of the Bronx you can tell from the eyeballs and the fingers - you can’t go wrong. Turbulent and aggressive motions, like a genetic change, or a failed experiment. I’m talking about the people. I’m talking about buildings and streets. I’m talking about children struggling under a fire pipe spray. I’m talking about old people sitting on broken chairs in the middle of the sidewalk, cussing out everyone. I’m talking about a black man telling another black man in the hood that smoking is a white man's drug. I speak of the Dominicans, when on Sunday they organize squash tournaments. I’m talking about Mexicans playing soccer in the fields, twenty against twenty, with no goals. I’m talking about beautiful girls, so beautiful that it took the DNA of the whole world to make them come out like that... I’m talking about this. And in the jungle you can only lose yourself once. Nick lived in the Bronx for eight years, the first eight years of his life.
