Ali Eskandarian
Golden Years 3 (a serialized novel)
Predynastic Egypt, cuneiform script, Achaemenid commoners, Josephine dancing on a platform in front of a large crowd like Esmeralda. She sees me standing amongst the mob. We lock eyes. She stops dancing and looks frightened. She starts screaming but her voice is inaudible. She reaches out to me, arms fully extended with palms out. In a flash she is holding a newborn infant; the umbilical chord is still attached to it and to her as well, it’s a blood soaked mess. The baby is not breathing. It is dead.
My cell phone alarm awakens me. I reach over and silence it. Mana is fast asleep. After washing my face over the bathroom sink I study it in the mirror for a moment with a sly appreciation. “Not bad, not bad.” I say aloud, mimicking Dustin Hoffman as Ratzo Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. “Beautiful Baby… you’re beautiful. Can’t you try and love yourself? Can’t you do that for me?” I continue. “You should have stayed in LA and really gone after it, you fool. You could’ve been a star, a star I tell ya… na… fuck LA.”
I don’t wake Mana up to say goodbye but stand there for a minute and look over her slumbering body. Whatever dreams she’s wrapped up in will not be remembered when she awakens for when she takes her repose she is dormant and oblivious. Not once did she recall a dream of hers to me in the six years we were together. She expires and yields to that distant finality, vanishes from the sphere of consciousness altogether, departs this world and the other one too. Good for her, I say. For me dreams are a part of my memories and accompany me in my waking life. We are married, united, confederated, allied, my dreams and I. Chromatic dreams they are, mostly sordid little episodes, sometimes melodious but often discordant, full of tonal modulations, and demonic visions, fiendish and guilt-ridden.
I walk out the door and brace myself against the brutal cold. What a winter we’ve had. All snowfall records were broken this year. I quicken my pace and recall my dream from earlier. I wonder what Josephine is up to. She must be thinking about me. That’s the third time this week she has visited me in a dream. Is she here in New York? I wonder if she married that rich Arab from the Emirates. Did he give her that Avenue Montaigne apartment in Paris or did he take her back to Dubai?
I tried to forget Josephine and concentrate on my gastric needs. First thing’s first. Coffee, but not the expensive kind I love so much. No, stick to the cheap stuff. Why hadn’t I asked Mana to lend me some money? I was definitely broke again. How was I going to get through the month? First thing’s first, coffee then go home and see about getting stoned, then call Carter and beg for your old job back. Go back to the graveyard shift if you have to. Go rot in that glossy office building through the night.
The first sip of coffee put a smile on my face, and then a few women checked me out on the subway platform and that made a positive impression on me as well. What the hell, I thought. What’s wrong about it all? Nothing, that’s what. Have you starved? Do you have an incurable illness? It’s all dollars and cents. Problems? What problems? One foot in front of the other, Ali, step, step, step. One, two, three, four, two, two, three, four. What you need now is a hot shower and a big fat joint. A few hours of music playing and it’ll be night before you know it.
#
While making my way on foot down to the Williamsburg Bridge I get a phone call from Michael. I met him a few weeks ago at some lame party full of yuppie screw-heads. It was one of those parties I go to when an old friend begs me to spend some time with them knowing there will be an endless supply of free booze to keep me happy. My friend Lexi had invited me to it. She is an old friend from the Dallas theater days, a real fine gall, nice dimples, shapely thighs, a late bloomer. There were all kinds of dull conversations echoing off the walls.
Michael introduced himself to me and said he was a painter, just back from a solo show in Berlin, a rich boy from the little bit I could gather, summers in the South of France, winters in the Swiss Alps and what have you. He took a liking to me, maybe because of my bad attitude. Sometimes my drunken sulking, sourpuss, rude manner is amusing to people, especially hot shots who get their asses kissed all day long. Anyway he said he’d heard of me from Lexi, said he heard I was an incredible singer and stuff like that. I think he’s bi-sexual which is fine by me as long as he doesn’t think he can stick it in my backside. He’s rich and I need a meal. What a stroke of good luck.
I tell the doorman whom I’m seeing and take the elevator up to Michael’s apartment. It’s in one of those brand new high rises by the Hudson. These places make me want to puke. If someone gave me one for free I’d sell it immediately. The door opens and I’m greeted by a tall impeccably dressed woman talking on her cell phone.
“The last thing anybody wants is another disaster like that. It’s about un-popular this time dear… why would he? That’s no kind of reason… Well I’d say pull on anybody’s… just make sure he’s guaranteed the right amount upfront… and… and… that the PR is up to standards. We’re not responsible if…” she’s saying.
I follow the woman around the spacious apartment decorated in an ultra hip fashion with lots of modern art hanging on the walls. In the living room Michael is taking photos of two young women who are barely wearing any clothes. It’s some kind of Grecian summer’s eve scene or it could be the children of Ophir delivering Solomon’s gold, I can’t tell. The girls are very attractive, model types, statuesque beauties wearing Tyrian purple dyed capes. Michael stops taking photos for a moment to greet me.
“Hello old friend, how are you? Did you meet Barbara?” He says motioning towards the phone talker.
“Hello, no I didn’t. Hi Barbara.” I say but Barbara is busy with her conversation.
“Well, what do you think? Nice ha?” He says motioning towards the girls with his head, hands holding his camera.
“Yeah… hello,” I say to the girls but they don’t break character. They’re no slouches these two, look like they have careers in modeling.
“Well, make yourself at home, grab a drink, a beer whatever, I know you like to drink, so just grab anything you like, do anything you like. We should be done here in a little bit then we can do lunch.”
“Okay, thanks, I will.” I walk around to the kitchen and open the fridge, it’s full of the best a man can buy, and choose a nice Czech beer.
A little while later we’re all sitting around a table with food and drinks. Michael’s telling a story about meeting Warhol. I don’t care if he’s bullshitting or not, I don’t care what he says.
“No, I didn’t know him, I was just a kid. It was like a little bit before he died, I don’t ever talk about it… guess I hadn’t been home every other time he’d come over or something, I don’t know. Whatever, so I just said, Mommy, what’s wrong with that man’s hair, I really like it, and she just laughed it off you know.”
“What did he say?” one of the models wants to know.
“He said something like, gee, Elaine, your boy’s a real pain in the neck, but he’s got a marvelous face or something like that. Anyway, that’s my story,” Michael says, his voice becoming more and more effeminate with every sip of his drink.
We spend a good two or three hours at the restaurant and everybody is tipsy if not day drunk. Michael pays for the whole thing but makes sure everybody understands that nobody is leaving until he’s finished with us.
Back at his apartment, he turns the music up real loud, I recognize it after a few bars, it’s Ravel’s Bolero of all things. He starts chasing one of the girls around. They disappear into another room and after a few minutes return carrying a big trunk, open it, and start trying on different kinds of costumes. Barbara is still on the phone and completely oblivious to the whole scene. I’m sitting on a couch drinking with the other model talking to me in a rapid fire way. We’ve gotten into the coke that Michael put on the coffee table in front of us.
“She had herself a real good time in Milan, up for a couple of days straight. Hey! Watch it you two, this is my favorite dress. God they make a nice pair don’t they? Wait till she gets her whips and chains out on the poor bastard. She likes to really hurt and be hurt, you know what I’m talking about? Do you? She’s gotten me into it too recently, taught me a few tricks, minor things. You know you can make a pretty good living whipping rich men. Not that we do that or anything. What I don’t get is the ball stomp thing? What is the joy in that? I mean a good hard spanking or whipping fine but high heels on testies?”
She’s going on and on like that and I’m trying for the life of me to remember her name. She has a soft creamy complexion, reminds me of a young Gene Tierney, her voice is sardonically barren and monotone, her vermilion soul is giving me the creeps. I don’t want to stay here all night and watch these fools act out their ideational lives in front of me.
The model keeps talking and I turn my eye into a camera focusing on different parts of her body. She is beautiful if nothing else. My camera focuses on her lips, moves down her neck, past her small shapely breasts, follows the contours of her leg, from her thigh down to her foot, toe cleavage and all, then back up and under her skirt undressing her and throwing a silent fuck into her. Suddenly her bare mid section flashes on the screen, she is holding a lit cigarette, the smoke is curling up, her dark hair falls down to her back, her blinking wasteland eyes stare blankly ahead, she walks towards a wall slowly raising her arms and places both palms on the wall, her head turns, her lips blow a kiss. My film runs out and the camera stops.
I find myself in the bathroom splashing water on my face with the plan of getting the hell out of there as soon as I can. When I get out of the bathroom wasteland eyes is waiting for me, grabs my hand and takes me into one of the rooms, walks me to the middle, lets go of my hand, walks to the door, closes it, turns and walks towards me slowly. She stands before me and without a word grabs my hand and guides it up her leg and under her skirt to her engorged center. She’s not wearing anything under there and hot enough to burn my skin off. I move my fingers around slowly, she grabs my bicep and clinches digging her crimson colored nails into me. The pain makes me angry, I plunge a finger deep into her. She lets out a devilish moan, grabs my crotch and squeezes a hard grunt out of me.
“What’s the matter? Can’t take it?” She says with a diabolical smile forming upon her dead face. I don’t say a word, if this is the shot then so be it. If the scene requires a rough fuck with a stranger on a strange night then what choice do I have, right? But something about this doesn’t seem right to me and my mind starts to drift. She notices this and gives me a hard slap on the face. That takes me out of the game in an instant. Violence is not my game. I disengage and walk to the door.
“What?” She says short of breath with mouth in mid contortion. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing this.”
“What? You were doing it!” She says angrily.
“I was and now I’m not.”
“Is this a fucking joke? Are you crazy? Do you know how many men would kill to be doing what you’re doing right now asshole?”
“Yes, I do. Quite a few. Most probably. I’m sorry, I can’t go through with it.”
“You stupid fuck! Fuck you!” She screams.
I leave the room as quickly as possible, trot through the apartment, out the door, down the stairs, and into the street. I don’t plan on seeing any of those people ever again and with some luck won’t ever have to. Not my crowd.
I have a long walk since I plan on going over the Williamsburg Bridge on foot. One has to have some kind of discipline after all, she was beautiful but beauty can be deceiving no? “Entice him and see where his mighty strength lies.” Those were Delilah’s orders and we all know how that story ended. Not me and not tonight!
The streets are humming with anterior electric potential that can produce an arc at any moment. I’m walking in a vector field of people and seeing everything in shades of nickel antimony titanium yellow. A part of the degenerate human race eternal I am, no better and no worse than anybody else, with a full belly and a full mind walking down this differentiable manifold called New York City. Not the first wretched fool or the last, of that we can all be sure.
The important things to remember are the simple stuff, the little things, the here and now things, the small words, slight differences in tone and altitude, pressure changes, pitch changes, what the eyes say, what the mouth doesn’t say. Collections of memories to transport to the next day and next life, ciphers from your past self’s to your future self’s, the present self will have to be the one hunting, farming, collecting, bending, scooping, begging, pleading, fighting, pissing people off, et cetera, ad infinitum.
From: Golden Years (uncorrected text)
Ali Eskandarian is a musician and author of the novel Golden Years, which will be serialized on his medium page. Eskandarian’s transnational upbringing makes him a prescient voice for our era. The Iranian-American troubadour draws upon influences as discrete as American folk, rock and traditional Persian music to craft songs about love, travel, politics and loneliness. The results have earned him comparisons to greats like Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley. Ali was born in Pensacola, FL, on September 11, 1978. Growing up in Tehran, during the Iranian Revolution, Ali found strength in music and the arts. The family left Iran and was granted political asylum in Germany before relocating to Dallas, Texas, where Ali experienced an arts-filled adolescence. Ali has been living in New York since 2003. His debut album, Nothing to Say, was released on Judy Collins’ Wildflower Records, he has toured the States several times including as opener for Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) and with fellow Iranians The Yellow Dogs. Golden Years is his first novel, and describes the lives of young (artistic) Iranians in Brooklyn, New York.
