a seat at the table

I HAD A SEAT at the table, but what a table! It was a long, wooden table with smooth surfaces that were almost soft to the touch, unvarnished, the kind of table you might see as the centerpiece in a spread in the Country Living magazine. It was also unusually tall, standing two or three storeys high, at the least. The legs of our chairs also reached down the height of the table, so that if I looked to my side, I could see tiny pedestrians going about their affairs, women walking dogs, boys on bikes, delivery cars arriving. Was that Manhattan down there?

At this table in the sky, there was a kind of supernatural service. A server set down a drink in front of Kerouac. He examined its contents, taking a moment to admire the way the light split and dissolved into it and then breathing in its sumptuous and potent vapors, as if it was a medicinal or even spiritual elixir. Kerouac was wearing a blue suit, which seemed unusual for him, and he had a few white hairs climbing up his sideburns. His brown greasy hair was combed up at the top, and he looked a bit worn, a bit frayed. Kerouac beheld his chosen spirit again and then in an instant, drank the first third of it from the glass. “Ah,” he said. “Ah ah ah.”

To his left sat Riken, the lanky Japanese mountaineer, in full hiking gear. He held some papers in his hand, A7 layout, with neat rows of black printed text, Times New Roman. The title at the top of one of these pages read, “The Adventure of the Snake.” He said, “I’m not sure what I think of it. I’d give it maybe a 3 out of 10. Or maybe a 3.5 on a good day. Three point three? Somewhere in the low threes.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you what I think of it,” Kerouac grumbled. “I think it’s total crap.” “But I was inspired by you, Jack,” I protested. “I’m trying to emulate you.” Kerouac drank down the second third of the drink with a gulp. “Well, kid,” he said. “You could do a better job. You’re not really devoted to your writing. Allen,” he addressed a third man, who was lying across the table on his back, staring up at the sunlight. “What do you think? Allen?”

“What?” Ginsberg turned over on his side, and it was young Ginsberg, with the hair and the oversized glasses that made his eyes look two sizes larger than they really were. “I’m sorry, I was just talking to William Blake,” he said. “Allen, what did you think of his stories?” Kerouac said. “Oh, I loved them, they were fantastic!” “Thank you,” I told Ginsberg. “Actually, I think I was more inspired by you when I was writing them. Surely you can see echoes of Howl in my writing. ‘I saw the best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness.'” “Starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,” Ginsberg went on. “See, Jack, the kid was inspired by me and not by you, by me, not you!” “Your messianic robes don’t suit me,” he said. “What do you say, tomodachi?” Kerouac asked of Riken. His arms were crossed now in deliberation. His craggy, weather-beaten face bore a pensive expression. “I still say 3.3,” he said. Kerouac turned back to me. “See,” he said with a grin and a shrug. “See! Listen to the man.” Then he lifted his glass and drank the final third.

mca’s 61st birthday

THE SCENE, an industrial area, a dump, maybe both. Rory Lapp, the acclaimed Estonian writer and poet drives in first, then I follow him, our automobiles follow a set course. It’s almost like we’re rally racing. Yet there are no competitive drivers, just rusting manufacturing waste that brings to mind a mineral processing plant. At some point, Rory leaves his vehicle with a sort of industrial plant valet and I do the same. Then we head into an old building, vast and obviously post-war, with a peeling façade. It’s an auditorium. Light wooden floors. Burgundy curtains.

Inside, everything has been renovated. I can see that we’re in something like a basketball court set up for a party. This is one of those multipurpose halls. There are long tables on both sides, and on stage, an unfamiliar hip hop trio is performing. They are pacing with microphones, trading rhymes, and a DJ spins records in the corner, cutting back and forth. At the head of the tables, I see a familiar-looking man, clean shaven, with a full head of wavy hair. He wears a red button down shirt, open at the top, and looks somehow lost in thought or just unimpressed.

“Who is that?” I ask from one of the partygoers, who is loading his plate from a bowl of potato salad. “He looks just like …” “That’s MCA,” the partygoer responds. “Today is his 61st birthday. Weren’t you invited?” “I guess so,” I say. Now I can see that MCA, also known as Adam Yauch, also known as Nathaniel Hornblower, is at the gifts table, and guests are hovering around him as he unties every last big package. I look down and see I have a gift bag in hand too. It’s full of my own books. “Yauch loved Minu Viljandi,” somebody says. “He’s a great fan of your work.” “He is?” I answer. “I have to say, he looks great for 61,” someone says. “Sixty-one?” another answers. “And I thought he was dead!” “Isn’t he though?” I ask them. But nobody answers.

Slowly I make my way to the busy gift table. MCA is seated there. He still looks like he’s part alien or something. Did the Beastie Boys really smoke so much dope back in the day? Or was it all that Tibetan Buddhism that did that to him? MCA is functioning on some other plane of consciousness. He’s floating around in the Third Bardo. I am afraid to even say hi to him. He’s a big superstar, one of the greatest emcees ever. I’m just … But how did MCA even find out about me? MCA looks up as I hand over my gift. He nods in his good-natured, all knowing way. Kind, sympathetic, brotherly. The man looks as if he’s about to speak. MCA looks up and says …

linnéa sur rivage

LINNEA WAS CAROUSING with another man. He looked and dressed like a young PIcasso and called himself “Dan.” I encountered them in an ice cream or gelato joint down on the beach. Linnéa wore a crisp white blouse and her head was an abundant tangle of sun gold beach hair. She was happy and Dan was happy. They were happy together until they saw me. “Oh,” was all Linnéa said, as if she had just been informed of a terrible accident. “Oh.” Dan lifted his cap to her and, before kissing her once on the hand and whispering some passionate phrases, left. Linnéa continued on, “It’s you. But what are you doing here? How is your new book coming along?”

I said nothing and sulked off. Later, Linnéa followed me into my bungalow. She crept up to my bed in the dark and then lied on top of me. Her back was to my front, her hair draped down across my face and breath. “Please write your book,” she said both to the ceiling and to me. “Please keep writing it.” “I don’t feel like writing any more books,” I grumbled. “I think I’m just about done with writing.” “No, no, no,” she whispered to the room. “Don’t let this,” she trailed off and the line lay limp, lifeless, sad, and incomplete. There was nothing to say about it.

Later we walked into town. We came down the promenade. I was still in an awful funk after The Dan Surprise. All of the gloom and jealousy in the world couldn’t make a woman love you, enjoy your company, truly, joyfully, effortlessly. The seaside was gray, hushed. Down a street, the police were breaking up a party that went out of bounds. The official reason was that the music was too loud. A few dark, unhappy partygoers complained to me about this injustice.

“We just wanted to listen to ‘Dancing on the Ceiling,'” one lamented. “Like in the ’80s.” They had strange, purple, almost alien faces.

“It didn’t used to be this way,” I said to Linnéa. “In the old days, you could listen to Lionel Ritchie as much you wanted, as loud as you wanted, and nobody would make you turn it down.” Linnéa was silent. She knew I was talking rubbish. “Again, again, again,” she said. “You again with your silly drama.” Dusk, night, fog, and twilight. Morning beachside melancholy.

the spirit of a sad woman

I NEVER DID FEEL comfortable walking by that room. It was on the second floor of the house and faced the rising sun. I suppose the house was here in Estonia, but it could have been anywhere. I knew, in a way, that it was haunted or occupied. It had such a terrible feeling to it. Some might say it was possessed. Some might say it was a poltergeist. Whatever spirit, entity, or otherworldly presence or being was rooted within those walls, I never knew of it or saw it. Until one day, when I walked by the room and saw that the door, usually shut tight, was ajar.

“There are two kinds of people in this world,” I whispered to myself. “Those who dare and those who don’t.” It was time to confront the darkest aspects of my subconscious. I opened the door and went in. To my surprise, this off-limits, evil-feeling room was in proper order. It was furnished with Art Deco pieces, a few velvet chairs and one long green sofa. At first, I thought there was no one in the room. On the wall, I saw there were a few paintings, also from the interwar period, except of boy band stars. Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake leered out.

Who knew they had both had careers and been so popular a century ago?

Then, when I turned, I noticed the ghost woman. She was not quite transparent and floating by the window. She had shoulder-length brown or reddish brown hair and a white dress. Her back was turned to me. The spirit of a sad woman. Was she the embodiment or origin of the awful feeling coming from this room? Her hair was cut in the old style. I couldn’t make out any of her features. “Hey,” I said, reaching out. “Who are you? What are you doing in my home?”

My hands went right through her and she faded.

Puzzled, I looked around the room again, and noticed there was another room attached, with the door slightly ajar. The sad, horrible feeling was stronger there, I felt. I needed to go and look in that room too. At the door, I peered in. This room was dismal and purpleblue. The walls were painted the same, and the furniture was also from the 1920s. There were clothes tossed everywhere, the drawers to the cabinets and dressers were half open. This must have been the woman’s room. What was strange about it is that it was rendered in a different kind of spectrum. It was if Matisse had dabbed his brush over all. The room was soaked in colors.

So that was that. I stood there looking around the messy Henri Matisse room and then went back into the hall. But I had seen her, I had at last seen her. I didn’t know who she was, but she did exist. The source of the dread, the source of the unease, floating transparently in a corner with her back turned, fading into light. What would I do the next time our paths crossed?

the drones

OUR PLANE had to be diverted to a regional Scandinavian airport on account of sightings of drones or other unidentified flying objects. I was traveling with what I suspected was the legation from the Danish foreign ministry on its way back from the United Nations meeting in New York. I clearly heard one call the other “Jens,” which seemed to settle it for me. They all wore matching navy-colored outfits, perhaps the attire of the diplomatic corps. The plane passed through the clouds in the moonlight. We landed wherever it was we happened to be.

The airline put us up in a hotel that had been built, based on the architecture, in the 1960s or 1970s, or at least designed to look that way, with its angular roofs and big glass windows. It looked like the setting for an ABBA video. As the rest of the hotel was already full, I was given the penthouse suite, which included a loft. The loft had a bathtub directly below a skylight and a sleeping area, while the lower floor had a couch, television and entertainment center, and a kitchenette opening out onto a balcony, from which a series of steps led down to a parking lot.

I was there on the main floor changing into a t-shirt to sleep in when there came a knock at the door. Outside it was dark and misty, and I couldn’t see who was behind the glass. I went over and opened the door, only to be visited by a strange woman in a red cape with the hood up. She slowly pulled back her cloak to reveal her face and her long golden hair. It was Linnéa! “You,” I said, stepping back. “What are you doing here?” Linnéa came into the room, shutting the door behind her. She rushed in like a gust of autumn wind. She said, “We need to talk.”

I looked at her standing there in her red cape. We were all alone in some hotel in Denmark or Norway. Or was it Sweden? This was an ideal moment to finally consummate the relationship. However the night would end, there was no doubt in mind that sex was on the agenda. How could it not be? Sex had always been in the plans, hot, karmic, transcendent sex. Linnéa’s eyes lit up for a brief second as if reading my mind, but otherwise she gave no hint that she was interested in sleeping with me. Instead she asked, “Do you have a place where I can clean up?”

I showed her the ladder to the loft and its big white bathtub. Linnéa climbed the ladder and began to run the water. Soon the steam from the tub was wafting down to the lower level. The steam fogged the windows. I looked up and could see Linnéa standing there in the nude beside the tub, each one of her breasts as pert and round as a cinnamon roll. It occurred to me that I had never seen Linnéa naked before. That was her, in the flesh. “You know,” I yelled up the ladder. “I could use a bath too! Our plane was diverted because of drones.” But Linnéa pretended not to hear me, or maybe she really didn’t hear me. Either way, I left her alone.

At last, thoroughly bathed and refreshed, she descended the same ladder in her red cloak. She went to a bag and pulled out a magazine. I forget the name of the magazine but it was also red and had something to do with the Tallinn arts scene. She ran her fingertips across the glossy magazine cover in an adoring, reverent way. Linnéa had beautiful fingers. She said, “We need someone to help with this new magazine and you’re just the one to help out. You’re such a great writer. I don’t think there’s a better writer in Estonia. Would you please write for us?”

Linnéa was talking but I was leaning in, centimeter by centimeter, more and more, until I was within kissing distance. But Linnéa pushed me away. She only wanted to talk business. There was no time for love. How long would I have to wait then? How long would I have to wait until Linnéa was here beside me? Something about it depressed me. All of these women, they just wanted to work and to do great things. They were so busy doing great things that it seemed that the simple pleasures of life had been forgotten all together. Food was there to fill an empty belly, drink to quench a dry throat. Sex was just sex, you know. But work was important.

“So, what do you think?” Linnéa asked. “Will you help with the magazine?” At that moment, there was another knock at the door and I went to get it. Into the suite poured the rest of the Danish legation from the plane. There were maybe 10 Danes standing around in their matching uniforms from the foreign ministry with bags and suitcases. The one named Jens stepped forward. He said, “I’m so sorry, but we all have to spend the night.” My heart sank. There would be no intimacy. Another opportunity lost. Of course, I agreed to help with the magazine. I’d write a hundred articles for Linnéa’s magazine if that would keep that woman in my orbit. Somehow, some way.

henry miller waves the flag

THE GIRL AT THE SHOP Gunna is still waiting for me. She’s waiting for me there in her white apron, dealing with her clients, patiently, with excellent posture. When she isn’t helping her customers to fresh pies, she has at least one half of an eye open for me. She’s waiting for me to pop in. Maybe I will bring her some chocolates or flowers. Some conversation, jokes, idle chit chat. She wants something else from me. She even said so. Gunna said, “I want very badly for you to make love to me.” I was intrigued by her forthcomingness and straightforwardness and the whole idea. I sized her up in every way. “I just want to know what it feels like,” she said.

I felt a kind of deep shudder pass through me at that moment, one that was hard to describe or put into precise words. It was like a cool breath had passed into me, set inside me, and I was breathing it in and out. There was a mix of excitement and horror, a fear and a wonder. From her toes to her hips. From her lips to her hefty breasts and golden bangs. Gunna was waiting, waiting for me to finally come to her. All I had to do was say yes. Just yes. But I was unsure. “Maybe we should take it slow,” I told her at the register. “Then move on to other things.” Gunna nodded. “We can do other things.” she said. “I’d like to do all sorts of things with you.”

The feeling did haunt me. I imagined how I would arrive one afternoon and she would close up the shop. Then she would spread out a blanket. We would make love between the pies. I suppose I would have to give in. My little war with women had to come to an end one way or another. I couldn’t drag it out indefinitely. I would have to surrender. I’d have to give up. What better place than in the arms of a baker between her sweet-smelling, freshly baked pastries?

Unfortunately, I got involved in a spy ring after that. I had to deliver a document to a drop spot in the Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. I did as I was told, leaving the white envelope beside an office for the police. As I was walking away, I looked up, only to see Henry Miller the writer in his flannel shirt and flat cap, waving down at me from the top of a glinting escalator, as if to say, “You’ve done good, son!” There was a box of flags next to the police office in Penn Station. One was the American flag and the other was the flag of New York, which features its coat of arms against a navy blue background. The blue of this station flag was faded though, so that it was almost a pastel, Caribbean blue. I picked up the New York flag and began to wave it. From the the top of the escalator Henry Miller also brandished a flag and began to wave it, chanting so that all the commuters could hear, “Excelsior! E pluribus unum!” This is the state motto.

Henry Miller came down the escalator with the flag in his hands next and strode over to me. He patted me on the shoulder. I said, “Henry Miller? You were the spy chief all along? The organizer of La Résistance?” Henry Miller said, “Indeed, my friend. You know it. What do you think, I was just wasting my time in Paris all those years consorting with floozies? Of course, I’m involved in international espionage!” “I see,” I said, looking him over. He smelled of good times, good books, pipe smoke. “But now you’ve got to go back to Europe,” Henry Miller said. “Gunna is waiting for you. I’d go to her, if I was you. She’s about to close up soon. D’accord?”