The Ballayou is the dark, glittering star of the north, the place where love prevails across the barrier of oceans and the petty divide of culture. It is the opener of eyes and of uptight, reluctant, austere asses. Legend has it that every woman will be invited for a dance or two, and no woman will ever leave alone at the end of the night. The ladies will have the chance to parade their heels on tables surrounded by dark men, with blinking eyes and lips and tongues stretched to scoop every drip of liquid nectar that falls from above. Dogs are women’s best friends, and these stray dogs, who have navigated north in the direction of the tail of the Big Bear of the Milky Way, are thirsty African jackals, desert Arabs, stomping gypsies, and seasoned Latinos howling with anticipation for the luscious, the plump, the healthy, the bumptious, the tubby, the generous. These dogs wait with the smiles of the hungry and the jingling hips of dancing warriors, the burned lips of sweet-talkers with empty, vacant pockets. They gather at the Ballayou like belugas during a feeding frenzy in the Arctic. They come with the charm of the poor and a love for the curvaceous. They come in defiance of the closure of orifices and in celebration of the openness of mouths and ears, and of radiant pot-bellies under the suns of luminous phalluses. These immigrants are fast, young, handsome dancers by night and slaughterhouse workers, construction workers, dishwashers, and taxi drivers by day. They are fishers who grew up in countries of godlike beaches and generous suns. They know the drill. As kids they watched their cousins and older brothers courting northern women, sweeping them off on their small Vespas as soon as the air-conditioned tourist buses landed on the surface of the southern moon. One small step for the northern kind, one large step for the hungry dogs. A woman, these men will tell you, all she needs is a bit of attention, a lovable smile, and the dance of a lifetime. Inside the Ballayou, one strolls beneath plastic coconut trees, beside stools covered in tiger skin, tables laid with Moroccan tin trays, and a tall lady bartender by the name of Jinna B., with a big afro and a magnificent bust. And men, gracious men, who will sweep up a lady’s hand in no time and lead her to a dance.
Listen, Number 53 will tell you, with animated hands. It is like you being the passenger and the beautiful lady being the night driver. If you’re a good night driver, when you see someone hailing a taxi late at night, you never stop right next to the client. You park a few metres away and let the client come to you. This gives you time to check out his walk, his clothes, even the matter of his breath. No one wants to take drunks in his cab; they will just puke and you will have to spend hours cleaning the car and lose your whole night’s earnings. A drunk passenger will pass out on you and you might have to guess where he lives by fumbling in his jacket for a wallet, slapping him in the face to revive him, shaking him by his tie for a confession.
The same thing with the ladies, gentlemen. You have to give them time to observe you, assess your walk . . . and do not forget to shine a smile on your face . . . choose a lady, lock your eyes with hers, show your friendly teeth, walk straight, never wobble, never hesitate, and when you are there, slowly and gently pull her by the hand towards the dance floor. Move your hips slowly, hold her waist and then let go, hold her hand and brush her waist again. Be attentive, dance with her in mind. Be as suave as a quiet wave. Do not forget your own hips: shake them sideways and never back and forth. Shine your shoes, clean your ears, always have a nice ironed suit on and no hat, it will cast a shadow on your own beautiful eyes.
THE STAGE
AFTER I’D EATEN
I left the Bolero and went back to the streets.
Customers came in and out of my car. Some were silent, some were polite, a few were busy talking to each other about the Carnival and work and life. I encountered the usual old lady with groceries, the lost tourist, the businessman.
Then two guys, a couple, I assumed, got in, softly bickering with each other. It is hard not to listen to others’ quarrels. A quarrel imposes itself on your hearing. A quarrel is made of little ultrasonic waves that can be heard and felt through earplugs, dreams of distraction, and even, one might say, the low, ever-present humming of reverberating erections.
In this case, it was a quarrel about money. The older, bald guy seemed to be supporting the younger one, who, from what I gathered, was an opera singer.
You insult me all the time lately, the young man said.
No, you are sensitive, very sensitive lately.
I am poor and my career is going nowhere. Who wants to be an opera singer in these times except crazy romantics like me? So I have a right to be sensitive. I am sensitive.
You are constantly irritated. You have the right to be sensitive in your art, but not with your lover.
My keeper, more like it.
No one is asking you to stay, though I would be sad if you left.
No, you wouldn’t, you would just keep some other young man.
I am not keeping you in any way.
Well, you know I will be on the street if I leave you. And you know I have nowhere to go in this city. You are keeping me.
You are keeping yourself.
Well. Then, if I have a choice, I should just take it and make do. Taxi, stop here, please, the young man said.
Taxi driver, go on, do not stop, the older man said.
Stop, please, the younger man said.
Driver, carry on, the older man said.
Stop, please! the young man shouted.
Carry on, I am paying your fare, driver, said the older man firmly.
I have to stop when a passenger asks me to, I said, it is the law. I wasn’t actually sure that it was, but I make my own laws to encourage people to flee their confinements and chains. I stopped at the next corner.
Don’t go, the older one said, as he held the young man’s hand.
The young man started to cry. You know I left everything for you, he said. You made me come here. And live with you. You promised to support me until I got on a roll. You know how important it is for me to sing onstage. And I have the sense that you’ve lost patience. You want me to leave.
All I want is to make you fly, my love.
Don’t call me that. Not now.
My love.
You’re making me cry.
My love, my love, my love.
See, now my whole face is full of tears. I hate tears. But you like tears and you never shed any.
The older man started to look for his handkerchief. I turned and offered them my box of Kleenex.
Thank you, driver, the young man said, and they both giggled and then laughed and held each other in the back seat of my car.
The older man paid. And then he took some more money, a large tip, and handed it to me.
This is for your trouble, he said, and I watched them both leave under a full moon and over the wet streets.
TARGET
THE TIP BROUGHT
my night’s total to about fifty dollars. I had given myself a target: once I reached a hundred, I would call it a night and go back home, check in with the spider on the wall, call Mary, and then read a book and masturbate.
I possess an arsenal of books, a stack of which can be found on the lowest shelf, next to my carpet, within reach to incite my tendencies to sin and to awake my fist into motion. That particular shelf contains a respectable and varied literature that once belonged to the bearded lady. Books such as
L’immoraliste
,
L’histoire de l’oeil
,
and
La chatte
, all of them serving me well in times of escape and need
.
There are also some that I inherited from a professor who left me his vast library. Thus I am able to reach for such studies as
An Unhurried View of Erotica,
by Ralph Ginzburg
, The Housewife’s Handbook on Selective Promiscuity
, by Rey Anthony, and
Restif de La Bretonne’s
Pleasures and Follies of a Good-natured Libertine.
And for a less highbrow selection of work, which I assure you is as effective and as pleasing at times, I help myself to any of the following:
The Adventures of
a Nurse Called Lily
,
The Maid with the Golden Whip
,
or
A Stroll on Red Boulevard
.
Or, to move to a selection of
religious and ascetic pleasures,
The Private Diary of a Crusader’s Wife
and
The Holy Howl
. But my favourite, as yet, in this area of studies is exemplified by
The Flogging Trilogy
, which can also be found on this most accessible shelf. The trilogy exists in three impeccable first editions:
The Art of Flagellation for the Perverse
,
The Art of Flagellation for the Perverse and Pious
,
and, finally,
The Art of Transcendental Flagellation,
which in my opinion would be a masterpiece were it not for the long and unnecessary treatise on how to acquire an oxtail and shape it into a whip.
But before I had the chance to ignite my engine and drive home towards my flamboyant collection and lie down on my father’s carpet and “read,” a man entered my car. He smelled of expensive cologne and he wore a high white collar, a silk suit, and an eccentric-looking hat that blocked my view of the rear window. What is this, it must be a theatre night, I thought to myself as I drove my car through high and low streets, as I crossed under sporadic city lights and the open, inviting curtains of bedroom windows.
Driver, the man said, in what sounded like a fake British accent, or was it a South African accent, or maybe an Australian accent, who knows and who cares about these subtleties anyway, they are all the product of the same boats and empire — have you ever been in an accident?
Yes indeed, I said. Many, as a matter of fact.
Do tell, driver.
Well, I said, once I was waiting at a red light right next to another taxi. Across the intersection, halfway down the block, there was this lady in a long fur coat and a fur hat. She was in high heels and was waving at us. And when she waved, all her jewels shone and sent us ultraviolet signals. You see, she didn’t specify which taxi she wanted. Obviously she didn’t care. She would get into the first cab that reached her. She was like evolution: she had no preference besides speed, performance, and availability. I glanced at the taxi driver beside me, and he gave me the finger. Now, the other driver had an advantage: he was on the sidewalk side of the street. But I told myself that I’d rather die than let this fucker, excuse my language, get the fare.
Foul language is fine with me. Just go ahead and
fuck
all you want, the man said.
Indeed, I replied. So when the light turned green, I stepped on the gas. I was ahead but, like I said, he had the advantage, so I swung my car to the side to block my adversary’s way. He braked, but he still hit me on the back door, on the side where you are sitting now, in fact. We stopped and got out of our cars. He took a swing at me. It was unexpected. I went back to my car and got a certain feathered stick I carry with me in case of emergencies, but he had already pulled a knife and was coming at me. I swung the stick and hit his shoulder but he was close enough to slice me right here, on my hand; you can’t see the scar because of my horse tattoo. I swung my stick and I bashed the shit out of him, sir. You should have seen him drop his knife and start begging. I looked for the lady, but she was hurrying into another car. So I drove straight to the house of a friend of mine who is a nurse. He cleaned the wound and stitched me without anesthesia.
Did that hurt? the man asked.
Yes, it did.
So let me ask you, driver, how do you feel about pain?
You mean, in general?
Let’s say in the philosophical sense.
I say the winner gets to see the loser suffer.
Is the suffering of others enjoyable to watch?
It could be, I said.
What do you think of people who get entertained, even excited, by watching others’ pain? Do you know what I am getting at?
Like chains, kissing boots, bondage, and so on?
Yes indeed. A very perceptive driver you are.
It is a fact that many cultures turn pain into a legitimate spectacle, I said.
How about voluntary subjugation, he asked. Is that legitimate?
I guess, when you think about it, this is where the so-called sexual liberation movement and the religious self-floggers intersect. The ancient Christians walked happily towards the lions’ smiles, and some flogged themselves. And so do some Muslim sects to this day. I am not sure what benefits might come to the man who willingly consents to pain, sir. But there must be some convictions and pleasures involved.
So we shall respect those convictions, driver, are you saying? Let me ask you this. If you were a Roman, would you have attended any of those spectacles?
I would think so, sir. They would have seemed perfectly legitimate to me. We are all the products and the victims of our own upbringing, until we reflect, refuse, and rebel.
Would you attend any similar event in the present, as we speak?
I pulled over and turned to face the man. I smiled and said: If I can leave the meter on and charge for it, yes indeed. And who knows, I might also be rewarded with a large, generous tip.
Why not? Why not, indeed. Smarter than I ever thought, my dear chap. Seek and you shall find.
We drove down to the port. Below the quay there was what looked like a wooden castle, or maybe a mill, or a monster. It was getting late in the morning and I was tired, and when I get tired, I imagine the most spectacular things.
I kept my meter running, shut off the engine, and followed the man.
There was a small window beside the door. The man whispered what must have been a password and, seconds later, a giant in leather opened the door and ushered us in.
It was dark inside, but at the entrance there was a large cage with a few men, half-naked, with collars around their necks. They were all behaving like dogs. One of them was on his knees, sniffing the others and whimpering, one was in the corner howling, another was barking and showing his teeth. They each had long leashes and leather straps crossing their chests.