Joey Cloudy online

chapter 25

TRAMP: Katariina Sapir Mueller – 2000 

“I feel stupid and contagious / Here we are now, entertain us” 

—Nirvana 

Katariina Sapir Mueller, the unofficial punk matriarch of Deep Ellum street poets, looked up from the chapbook of her old poems she was reading as her bespectacled coworker, Bryant, tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and, with a sardonic gaze, directed her eyes to the bookstore’s front plate glass window. 

Outside on the sidewalk in front of the store stood Aaron Rainer Moore, staring at a familiar book bound in worn brown leather sitting in the center of the display with dozens of other used books for sale. He read the note they had adhered to the cover: 

“Leather-bound Book of handwritten Poetry (some of it’s pretty good) – author unknown.” $99.99. 

They watched the expression on his face as he realized it was his lost date runner, filled with the first poems he wrote nearly two years ago, when he first began to write poetry with Mona, Trevor, and Brandon. They, after much impassioned debate, christened their fledgling literary salon the Knighthawks Poetry Society. 

Katariina and Bryant both laughed and waved to Aaron through the window as he stood outside with a snaggletooth grin waving back at them. She saw the look of relief on his face at finding his lost book of poems. They read the book after finding it on the floor of the philosophy section, where it had fallen unnoticed from his backpack while he was here last week. There was no name, so they began to quickly read through it, hoping to deduce the owner by deciphering the jagged scrawling’s for clues to the author. 

Eventually, Katariina X concluded that it was Aaron’s poetry. She also realized that Aaron, through his poetry, had gotten into her head. She had taken his book home each night this week and read and reread its contents over and over. Katariina laughed, she wept, she raged, and she orgasmed as she read his words. 

The next morning, she decided she would get him his first feature reading. She headed upstairs to the second floor of the beige, two-story brick office building with the used bookstore on the first floor, to the offices of The Gallows Mia Churchill’s Literary Magazine and 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. 

Kat pressed the buzzer, and when the door opened she was greeted by a bubbly little peroxide-blonde university park 19-year-old girl interning at the offices of The Gallows Magazine. 

The girl buzzed her in, then called Mia in her private office to let her know she had an unscheduled visitor. The girl, acting as Mia’s secretary, was a student of Mack Jackson, professor of English literature at SMU, the first poet-laureate of the state of Texas, and Mia Churchill’s husband. The intern led her into Mia’s office. Mia’s slender red-headed form sat behind a large antique oak desk that looked as if it belonged in an Ivy League dean’s office in the 1950s. She hung up the white cordless telephone in the cradle, leaned back in her swivel chair, and smiled as she greeted her guest. 

“Good morning, Katariina.” 

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” she queried, studying her old classmate. The buxom brunette standing in front of her desk brushed her silver-streaked, long dark hair from her fiery green eyes. 

“When can we get Aaron Moore a solo feature reading?” 

“The soonest I can get him a reading is in six—no, wait, hmmm, even better, four months,” she looked at her calendar. “Does March 19th sound good to you? I can get the funding and push the paperwork through my non-profit organization, but he cannot have a solo bill.” 

Katariina fumbled with the notebook in her hands, fighting back her anger. 

“Look, Mia,” her husky voice, normally melodious, now near menacing, “normally on someone this new and completely unknown, I would agree with you, but I read some of his work and I think it is…extraordinary. We need to get this,” she said, holding up the date runner full of poems, “to a publisher.” 

“I can publish him in the next issue of my magazine if you like.” 

“No, Mia, you cannot publish this. His work is too obscene for the delicate sensibilities of your readers. This is not for school children.” 

“I’m certain we can find something of his to include in the magazine. And I want your review ready when we publish an excerpt of the poem in the same issue.” 

Katariina tried her damnedest to get Mia to change her mind, but she remained adamant in her position. 

“He will have to share the bill with a white, preferably female poet. It will help to showcase our cultural diversity. Is he still dating that little goth girl I see with him here? Mona can take the other slot since they are already a couple; this is perfect synergy.” 

Katariina, growing frustrated, exhaled loudly before opening the notebook and flipping through the pages, angrily searching for a specific passage. 

“I don’t think they were ever officially a couple; she’s engaged to someone with a trust fund, and they both date a lot of different people. As far as I know, Mona does not have enough material for a book. If we were talking about a punk band, what she does with and for Aaron’s poetry would be more analogous to a manager or PR agent than a creative artist or performer. Aaron’s talent, and she is the one clearing the path for him to the stage. Ah! Read this.” 

She set the book, open to the pages that contained the passage she wanted her to read, on Mia’s desk. Mia put on her large black plastic-framed bifocal glasses and read the passage. As she read the last lines, she removed her glasses and wiped the tears from her eyes. 

“I agree, based solely on what little I’ve seen of his poetry, that this is obviously a small piece of a major work. This is indeed a phenomenal magnum opus. Worthy of a solo feature reading. And every bit of literary praise it is destined to garner in the future. However, our budgetary constraints this fiscal year simply will not allow it.” 

The athletically built red-headed woman put her glasses back on, resumed her composure, and returned Aaron’s notebook to Katariina. She understood the math and the politics of Mia’s decision. Unable to defeat the bean-counter logic of her argument, Katariina grudgingly relented. 

“You know that after he reads this, no one is going to remember whoever else you put on the bill with him anyway.” 

Mia smiled. “I know.” 

Aaron arrived with his entire new faction in tow. The ever-growing entourage comprised the usual literary groupies: neo-beats, Gothic urchins, suicide chicks with tragic hair, punks, and goths he met dancing at the Church. Most were in college or had recently graduated. Some were just street kids who hung out at Insomnia. Older poets, many in their 40s and 50s, were from the other readings he hosted at the Cosmic Cafe. He had left the reading here in Mona’s capable hands after all; she started this one with him, too. This wasn’t them taking over an existing reading like Deep Ellum, where they already had a reading and just needed a new host. 

The reading here at Paperbacks Plus was theirs; they started the Knighthawks poetry reading and workshop from nothing. It was Mona who called bookstores, coffee shops, bars, and record stores searching for venues. It was Mona on the phone calling newspapers, magazines. It was Mona calling classical, community, and public radio stations to get their readings advertised. It was Mona that most of the guys who came to the reading initially wanted to see. Aaron, being able to charm the audience that came to listen, as well as make the performers feel welcome, was her avatar. The only person she was closer to was her identical twin sister Nina. This was their baby. Of all the venues they attended, theirs and others, this was always his favorite for Aaron. This bookstore was a temple, a holy place. 

Every Sunday since they’d gone their separate ways, he thought of nothing all day except the reading here. But by and by, he came less and less, and by winter, it had been months since he had attended the reading. 

Most here tonight to read their poetry were already upstairs in the conference room used for most readings and workshops in this building. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and old furniture circled the room: old sofas, love seats, mint green leather chairs that had once been in some office waiting room, even a sofa sleeper and a high-end futon. All manner of outdated office chairs and a few dining room chairs. 

“The natural state is overrated as far as we are concerned. If I were in my natural state, then I would be naked, huddling in a cave half-starved. It is raining, and soon it will be at or below freezing out. Are you not delighted to be who we are here? Where we are, warm and dry here; inside, free to enjoy the music, the food, the drink, and our flesh.” 

“Listen, I just think there is more to life than pleasure.” 

“For example?” 

“Relieving suffering, being compassionate and generous to your fellow human beings.” 

Aaron had a romanticist radiance in his eyes, but he was no foolish schoolboy or idol dreamer; he was serious as the apocalypse. Katariina noticed a new face, a tiny spiky blonde-haired, top-heavy little girl with huge blue anime eyes. She had just started working with Aaron at the Preston Royal gallery. She was telling Aaron that she had framed the flyer—a flyer—that he had given her when they first met, inviting her to a poetry reading. It hung on the wall in the living room of her otherwise tastefully decorated apartment. 

“You’ll see Friday. I already stopped by Blockbuster and rented Almost Famous.” 

Aaron grinned at his tiny blonde coworker as he replied: 

“Don’t start the movie before I get there.” 

“Here.” he said as he dug through his pack and handed her a copy of Galway Kinnell’s Book of Nightmares. 

“Thank you. No one’s ever given me a book of poetry before.” 

Katariina watched Aaron as he walked through the aisles of the bookstore, chatting easily with his newfound friends. Strange that with the cacophony of sentiment that surrounded him at this moment, he behaved not oblivious to the world, but as if it had always been like this for him, as if this were his due; she envied him this. As if he were in control of his fate, his being so comfortable being himself. No small feat for a self-taught writer from the Southside of Dallas. 

There was a bit of the old-school pool hall philosopher in his banter. He had played Tunk and enough hands of Spades; counting spots didn’t really interest him, but he could still play a halfway decent hand of dominoes with the old cats that hung out on the streets in front of the Southside’s rec center and pool halls, where the majority of his family on his father’s side lived. 

These days, he hosts three literary events a week and had been doing so for almost two years. Occasionally, a customer still came to the counter to inform the staff that there was a tramp in the poetry section. Of course, they always informed the uptight Lakewood resident that it was not a hobo but just a poet. Bryant would always wait until the customer was leaving to say too loudly: 

“Snitches get stitches, bitches!” 

And every time, Katariina would laugh maniacally. Aaron lived in the stacks reading magazines, journals, letters, and biographies of any poet or poem that captured his attention. She always made sure she rang him up when he was buying books, and she always gave him her employee discount. He was always grateful; they both knew he often spent too much on books. 

He was one of those rare persons whose poetry often made people realize just how powerful words were when wielded masterfully. What were the possibilities of language? Poetry that was more concerned with the juxtaposition of ideas rather than the counting of syllables? How corny is that, even if it is true, to play with language and see what a provocative and effective weapon language can be in the hands of an idiot savant? No, he’s not an idiot. 

The more she thought about it, the more she came to realize that you could live a hundred years and never meet anyone like him. She had been a groupie long enough. Now she was old enough to recognize the signs when you were in the presence of an artist flowering as they came into their own. 

“But he wasn’t blossoming, he was ripening as he took in all the darkness and pain that is living.” 

For most of the time that she had known him, he had been living in hotel rooms with Indian managers, surrounded by junkies and whores while supporting himself on his meager salary as a picture framer. Now, he lived in a loft in a remodeled old wood-framed house with Jeffersonian lines off Lower Greenville, just a block or two off the main drag. She had noticed him immediately when he first started hanging out at the store last year. Always dressed head to toe in black with his familiar ALICE pack. 

She flirted with him casually when she saw him without the mute waif that was always so close to him; she was never sure who was following whom, and neither did they. She gave him her discount on the books of poetry and philosophy that he purchased, along with the occasional classic novel. She even gave him the title of her next book she stole from her old friend Ginsberg. Nevertheless, he was oblivious, and she was horny and growing impatient. He finally asked her out after Bryant told him that she had been waiting for weeks. 

She was twelve years older than he, a well-preserved woman in her forties, looked fantastic in a hardcore first-wave aging punk sort of way. She had been a twelve-stepper for a year and had reinvented herself several times in her life. She was transitioning from first-wave punk rock heroin chic groupie to literary and poetry guru and yoga Nazi. But before she made the move from queen of the underground literati, she would work with him. 

She had never seen him before the day he wandered up to the counter with a handful of poetry books, everything from the Harlem Renaissance to the Beats. He was full of that intense energy of a man who had suddenly found his calling. She found him exquisite—the boyish smile, the golden-brown skin; her heart raced whenever he was near. She invited him to her place for vegetarian tacos and chili Saturday. 

Unfortunately, he did something that surprised her. He turned her down for sex because she had slept with a mutual acquaintance, Enrique, the “Ricky Martin of the local poetry scene.” They sat on pillows on the living room floor after dinner. While they smoked and talked, he naively asked her if she was seeing anybody. It was more innocent than that; he asked her if she had a boyfriend, and something about the way he said it made her blush a little. Christ, when was the last time a guy asked her if she had a boyfriend? 

“No, I do not have a boyfriend. But somewhere in the evening’s conversation, I casually mentioned that I’d had dinner with Enrique last night. My answer surprised him. However, I am not going to start lying; we are both too old to play games.” 

“Look, you asked if I have a boyfriend, and the answer is no, but if what you really want to know is whether I had sex with Enrique last night, the answer is yes.” 

He tried to be cool, and she might have been able to seduce him still. She could see that he visibly icked at the name when she said that she had slept with Enrique. Apparently, he did not think much of him as a human being, and she was now repellent to him. That momentary look of disgust flashed across his face, for less than a second, when she told him. She realized she had blown it. He couldn’t believe she would sleep with Enrique the night before she had planned on sleeping with him. It was her own fault. 

She was horny, and it just sort of happened. She wasn’t interested in Enrique as a writer. Enrique was jealous, even though he was secretly engaged to a girl from his family’s hometown in Mexico. His fiancée in Guadalajara knew absolutely nothing concerning all things literary or his bisexuality. 

Aaron’s rebuffing her advances hurt. In addition, Enrique never believed her when she told him that she had wanted to sleep with Aaron but that he would not. He stared at her incredulously, unable to believe that any man would turn down the amorous advances of a woman such as she. Inconceivable! (That’s a Princess Bride joke.) 

When he asked why, she told him; his ego crushed. Like her, he was also attracted to Aaron, but he had no idea that he found him so contemptible. 

Enrique knew that he had no future with Katariina; she was nearly twenty years older, and he still wanted children. Granted, she was an amazing woman, and her connections could advance his career. He knew he was a good writer, but he needed her status to open doors he could not enter otherwise. Enrique needed all the help he could get; he was not delusional, he was merely a good Latino writer, but greatness eluded him. He recognized Duende, although he possessed none. Unlike that mayate, he had not been touched by the Gods. 

“One day, you will find yourself still, beneath the naked sky, standing on a bridge, looking down into the impenetrable indigo water below. You will know that the end of all suffering hides somewhere beneath the useless surface. You will whiten the winter air with your joyless laughter for the last time as you free-fall, before you sink into the reverie that is the end of being. It will take all of your courage to walk to the other side and embrace our human agony. It is nothing to be ashamed of; everyone finds themselves here, at that moment; it does not matter where you came from or where you think you are. You will stop for a moment, looking through the beautiful lie, into the ugly truth.” 

Aaron woke up from the nightmare that is the American dream, punch drunk and screaming into the darkness of an empty room. 

“As I realized that there is no escape from this misery, we call living. It was not the fact that my life made no sense, but that no one’s life seemed to make any sense. The ridiculous jobs, the empty romances, the rise of the mediocre, the fall of the heroic, the lies of the lover, the desperation of the lonely, the tediousness of the intellectual, the insipidness of the moralist, the empty rhetoric of the philosophers, the relentless idiocy of the subservient masses. What do you do when you realize that you are surrounded by the absurdity of the living? The weak are crushed into despair. I write to redeem myself from myself. It is the only place left for me to tell the truth, free from the perpetual hatred of the empty dreamers and the petty rationality of the hollow man. In the middle of it, life, one finally comes to an understanding that we could not seek answers to our problems as human beings without first understanding that we are biological machines, carbon-based life forms, a complex arrangement of proteins, DNA, chains of amino acids, water skins, super monkeys.” 

—about the author:

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.