Beautiful Losers. Leonard Cohen
dying! The trails smell! They are pouring roads over the trails, it doesn’t help. Save the Indians! Serve them the hearts of Jesuits! I caught the Plague in my butterfly net. I merely wanted to fuck a saint, as F. advised. I don’t know why it seemed like such a good idea. I barely understand it but it seemed like the only thing left to me. Here I am courting with research, the only juggling I can do, waiting for the statues to move-and what happens? I’ve poisoned the air, I’ve lost my erection. Is it because I’ve stumbled on the truth about Canada? I don’t want to stumble on the truth about Canada. Have the Jews paid for the destruction of Jericho? Will the French learn how to hunt? Are wigwam souvenirs enough? City Fathers, kill me, for I have talked too much about the Plague. I thought the Indians died of bullet wounds and broken treaties. More roads! The forest stinks! Catherine Tekakwitha, is there something sinister in your escape from the Plague? Do I have to love a mutant? Look at me, Catherine Tekakwitha, a man with a stack of contagious papers, limp in the groin. Look at you, Catherine Tekakwitha, your face half eaten, unable to go outside in the sun because of the damage to your eyes. Shouldn’t I be chasing someone earlier than you? Discipline, as F. said. This must not be easy. And if I knew where my research led, where would the danger be? I confess that I don’t know the point of anything. Take one step to the side and it’s all absurd. What is this fucking of a dead saint? It’s impossible. We all know that. I’ll publish a paper on Catherine Tekakwitha, that’s all. I’ll get married again. The National Museum needs me. I’ve been through a lot, I’ll make a marvelous lecturer. I’ll pass off F.’s sayings as my own, become a wit, a mystic wit. He owes me that much. I’ll give away his soap collection to female students, a bar at a time, lemon cunts, pine cunts, I’ll be a master of mixed juices. I’ll run for Parliament, just like F. I’ll get the Eskimo accent. I’ll have the wives of other men. Edith! Her lovely body comes stalking back, the balanced walk, the selfish eyes (or are they?). Oh, she does not stink of the Plague. Please don’t make me think about your parts. Her belly button was a tiny swirl, almost hidden. If all the breeze it took to ruffle a tea rose suddenly became flesh, it would be like her belly button. On different occasions she covered it with oil, semen, thirty-five dollars’ worth of perfume, a burr, rice, urine, the parings of a man’s fingernails, another man’s tears, spit, a thimbleful of rain water. I’ve got to recall the occasions.
OIL: Countless times. She kept a bottle of olive oil beside the bed. I always thought flies would come.
SEMEN: F.’S too? I couldn’t bear that. She made me deposit it there myself. She wanted to see me masturbate for the last time. How could I tell her that it was the most intense climax of my life?
RICE: Raw rice. She kept one grain in there for a week, claiming that she could cook it.
URINE: Don’t be ashamed, she said.
FINGERNAILS: She said that Orthodox Jews buried their fingernail parings. I’m uneasy as I remember this. It’s just the kind of observation that F. would make. Did she get the idea from him?
MAN’S TEARS: A curious incident. We were sunbathing on the beach at Old Orchard, Maine. A complete stranger in a blue bathing suit threw himself on her stomach, weeping. I grabbed his hair to pull him away. She struck my hand sharply. I looked around; nobody had noticed so I felt a little better about it. I timed the man: he cried for five minutes. There were thousands stretched on the beach. Why did he have to pick us? I smiled stupidly at people passing, as if this loony were my bereaved brother-in-law. Nobody seemed to notice. He had on one of those cheap wool bathing suits that do nothing for the balls. He cried quietly, Edith’s right hand on the nape of his neck. This isn’t happening, I tried to think, Edith’s not a sandy whore. Abruptly and clumsily, he rose on one knee, stood up, ran away. Edith looked after him for a while, then turned to comfort me. He was an A——, she whispered. Impossible! I shouted furiously. I’ve documented every living A——! You’re lying, Edith! You loved him slobbering on your navel. Admit it! Perhaps you’re right, she said, perhaps he wasn’t an A——. That was a chance I couldn’t take. I spent the rest of the day patroling miles of beach, but he’d gone somewhere with his snotty nose.
SPIT: I don’t know why. In fact, I can’t remember when exactly. Have I imagined this one?
RAIN WATER: She got the idea it was raining at two in the morning. We couldn’t tell because of the window situation. I took a thimble and went upstairs.
She appreciated the favor.
There is no doubt that she believed her belly button to be a sensory organ, better than that, a purse which guaranteed possession in her personal voodoo system. Many times she held me hard and soft against her there, telling stories through the night. Why was I never quite comfortable? Why did I listen to the fan and the elevator?
Days without work. Why did that list depress me? I should never have made the list. I’ve done something bad to your belly, Edith. I tried to use it. I tried to use your belly against the Plague. I tried to be a man in a padded locker room telling a beautiful smutty story to eternity. I tried to be an emcee in tuxedo arousing a lodge of honeymooners, my bed full of golf widows. I forgot that I was desperate. I forgot that I began this research in desperation. My briefcase fooled me. My tidy notes led me astray. I thought I was doing a job. The old books on Catherine Tekakwitha by P. Cholenec, the manuscripts of M. Remy, Miracles faits en sa paroisse par l’intercession de la B. Cath. Tekakwith, 1696, from the archives of Collège Sainte-Marie-the evidence tricked me into mastery. I started making plans like a graduating class. I forgot who I was. I forgot that I never learned to play the harmonica. I forgot that I gave up the guitar because F chord made my fingers bleed. I forgot about the socks I’ve stiffened with semen. I tried to sail past the Plague in a gondola, young tenor about to be discovered by talent-scout tourist. I forgot about jars Edith handed me that I couldn’t open. I forgot the way Edith died, the way F. died, wiping his ass with a curtain. I forgot that I only have one more chance. I thought Edith would rest in a catalogue. I thought I was a citizen, private, user of public facilities. I forgot about constipation! Constipation didn’t let me forget. Constipation ever since I compiled the list. Five days ruined in their first half-hours. Why me?-the great complaint of the constipated. Why doesn’t the world work for me? The lonely sitting man in the porcelain machine. What did I do wrong yesterday? What unassailable bank in my psyche needs shit? How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me? The hater of history crouched over the immaculate bowl. How can I prove the body is on my side? Is my stomach an enemy? The chronic loser at morning roulette plans his suicide: a leap into the St. Lawrence weighted with a sealed bowel. What good are movies? I am too heavy for music. I am invisible if I leave no daily evidence. Old food is poison, and the sacks leak. Unlock me! Exhausted Houdini! Lost ordinary magic! The squatting man bargains with God, submitting list after list of New Year’s Resolutions. I will eat only lettuce. Give me diarrhea if I’ve got to have something. Let me help the flowers and dung beetles. Let me into the world club. I am not enjoying sunsets, then for whom do they burn? I’ll miss my train. My portion of the world’s work will not be done, I warn you. If sphincter must be coin let it be Chinese coin. Why me? I’ll use science against you. I’ll drop in pills like depth charges. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t make it tighter. Nothing helps, is that what you want me to learn? The straining man perched on a circle prepares to abandon all systems. Take hope, take cathedrals, take the radio, take my research. These are hard to give up, but a load of shit is harder still. Yes, yes, I abandon even the system of renunciation. In the tiled dawn courtroom a folded man tries a thousand oaths. Let me testify! Let me prove Order! Let me cast a shadow! Please make me empty, if I’m empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I’m not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness. I don’t want to be a star, merely dying. Please let me be hungry, then I am not the dead center, then I can single out the trees in their particular lives, then I can be curious about the names of rivers, the altitude of mountains, the different spellings of Tekakwitha, Tegahouita, Tegahkouita, Tehgakwita, Tekakouita, oh, I want to be fascinated by phenomena! I don’t want to live inside! Renew my life. How can I exist as the vessel