CHAPTER THREE (13)

Regardless of the futility of the color, he looked professional and commandeering. As he stood close to the hostess stand in front of the entrance, the lavender light of the setting sun peeped in with every shift of the mahogany front doors. It saturated the wonderful floors and turned them a sinister black with shadow. This is the violet hour, thought Carlos to himself as he continued to show his perfectly white, broad teeth. This is the hour in which I make my sales. The drone of the machine dining room was muted in Carlos’ mind. His eyelids produced a thin slit in order to focus on all of his customers dining on all of their favorite foods. This is how it should be in the violet hour.

            As if in a tunnel, he rounded the dining room in a thorough donut shape and made his way back to the hostess stand. He walked with the ease of a manager, the ease of a proprietor with a functioning, lucrative business; his hands perched folded on his lower back and his nose slightly elevated. With an intense whoosh the racket of the room came back to his ears with extra verve and someone tapped him on the back and asked, “Carlos… I fucked up. Can you come void this chicken parm for me? Lady says she ordered a veal parm – I dunno. I swear to god I heard her say ‘chicken parmesean.’”

            It was Devin. One of his best servers, but he had bad nights, he got too busy, just like all of them. He, with an almost inorganic hand, waved his swipe card in the slot beneath the computer screen and voided the chicken parmesean. His response? “Don’t let it happen again.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            He saw Ray – his manager – expediently work at the exhibition kitchen: a perfect sight of spotless stainless steel and millinered in white kitchen staff – hiding their pomodoro stains. Meals flew out onto the expedition area, a quick dust of green parsley to put off the overpowering red of the eggplant parmesean, and out it went, to table twenty-three, to table sixty-five, to table one-oh-one. Then the quick wipe down of the perfectly manicured steel, and the next order ensued. Yes, this is my restaurant.

            This was when the bartenders were most busy. Orders came through little black sachets, connected into the entire computer system. Their noises were endless: the err err err of the printer, and then a low-pitched beep, and then the heavy no-slip shoes of a bartender scampering over to fullfil his duty. One of the bartenders, dressed in all black, mixed the cocktail, poured the wine, blended the specialty drink in a nuance of oranges, pinks, whites, and yellows and carefully pushed the drink out into the well. A server braced it and carried it away, it contents to be enjoyed by a patron. Like a beautiful machine at my disposal, mused Carlos. But it was when they were this busy that Carlos might take a check – written by whom, no one knows – slip into th bar area and cash it out without the greedy little eyes of the bartenders. A tiny clink of the coin drawer as he opened the bill drawer with it would be the only sign of any foul play. 

CHAPTER THREE (12)

“I’ll talk to my guy at the hospital.”

            Carlos pulled the cigarette from his mouth and walked over to the green trees that stood before him. He took the cigarette from his quivering lips, savoring the last drag and put it out in one of the black plastic pots. It sizzled and instantly went out. Gato peered from the kitchen counter and felt uneasy about his greens being contaminated with wretched tobacco ash.

            “You can lead yourself out,” said Gato, now filled with scorn. The two eyed each other again. Carlos invaded Gato’s chestnut Mexican eyes and tried to delve into them. He felt as if leagues and leagues might pass before Carlos could decipher the code behind those eyes. The wrinkles beneath them seemed to drip off his face like searing wax, and Gato didn’t have to grimace for Carlos to see the pain within. Mexican blood seemed to run only green these days, Carlos thought, thank god I’m Peruvian.

            “Of course.”

_______________

 

            Customers began pouring in right around dinner-time in the little shopping center. Servers clad in white pressed uniforms and colorful ties stood at the entrance next to the tin man with the dog, endlessly reaching for a noodle – the ONLY noodle, and beckoned the hungry customers into their world. Unbenounced to the guests, an animal house ensued behind the closed white kitchen doors. Carrots, tomatoes, garlic – especially garlic – fennel, peperoncini, bay leaves, butter, heavy crème, everything moved in theatrical motion in the back of the house. Mexicans here and there called out slang terms; Vamos pendejo, vamos vamos vamos! The “rush” in the back smeared the walls with extra extra virgin olive oil and garlic paste, while little brown men in plastered, food encrusted uniforms flew about the red tile in a whir of commotion. Some stood in front of heavy stainless steel stoves watching syrupy liquids bubble and splatter in enormous pots above a ménage of blue an orange flames. Others garnished with parsley, rosemary, lemon peel, kale, basil, and capers. Their stubby fingers raw from chopping, their eyes watery from the constant abuse of onions, and their arm hair unfailingly burned off from the in-and-out of bread, meatballs, sausages, lasagne, manicotti, from the oven.

            But outside of those tightly closed flapping doors, the dining room was a flood with a different context. Customers in business suits and women doused in pearls and severe eu d’ toilette were coaxed to a fro from table to table as if cattle. A purr inundated the room, reverberations bounced off the picture-adorned walls with the low murmur that always accompanies a dining room. Orders were taken, and the men and women in tightly pressed white uniforms ran to their computer stations to input the next order, to input the next overpriced meal or costly glass of wine. The motto was: Charge ‘em 200% plus a dollar of wholesale.

            Carlos revolved this maxim in his mind as he stood next to the front entrance, smiling a wide smile between two-freshly shaven cheeks. He was wearing a pastel mauve tonight, maybe close to salmon.  

Interruption 2: Art 203 Sketches

Literary Theory and Modern Art: Decadence Then and Now

 

Postmodern literature, in terms of how it relates to modern art, illustrates and advances a theory created in the late 19^th century known as “decadence.” Initially roused by Rousseau’s Discours de Dijons (an offspring of the Enlightenment Period)2, writers began to seriously consider the West’s elaborate culture as a “degeneracy, rather than the pinnacle of human achievement.” Industrialization and harsh capitalistic ideals which ultimately lead to consumerism in Europe forced many to believe that instead of civil advance, humanity was beginning to experience its antithesis. In other words, institutions created by man were actually helping to deteriorate humanity instead of improve it. This idea spanned a wide range of cultural aspects, including art in many forms. Yet, as thought provoking as this theory was, it began to dwindle, as modernism began to invade the literary world.

Basically on the back burner, the idea of decadence simmered until after WWII, in which the Western world began to realize the absurdity of technology (due to compassionless warfare that objectified humans as chattel rather than animate beings), religion, and for the sake of this essay, art. Post modernism, in lieu of the earlier theory of Decadence, offered a reason why civilization was behaving the way it was. In concurrence with the Pop Art phenomenon – art as “being used to defend the lively man-made environment” [1], literary theorists and authors alike commented on what they thought was art’s role in their work. Briefly, they posited that urban existence is a machine that destroys men through its capitalist emphasis on commodity exchange2 and the advertising as its catalyst. Artists showed these commodities, such as Andy Warhol’s famous reproduction of a Campbell’s soup can, with an ironic milieu.

Theorists then began to speculate the idea of entropy involved with Decadence. The idea that the world, and indeed the universe, had only so many building blocks and that everything created was a recreation or a rearrangement of those blocks, was applied particularly to the art world. It gave reason to the Pop Art phenomenon on a cultural level: because there were only so many ways in which to rearrange an allotted amount of energy, artists were simply running out of ways to arrange them in original ways. In other words, the institution of art had been closed because no new ideas were pouring in.

For instance, Thomas Pynchon asserts in his novel V.3that humankind has no more “energy” (or original ideas) to supplement the closed system of art, and therefore art is in decline rather than progressing. Since all art is in decline, we have no alternative but to arrange and rearrange the same combination until artifice is no longer about the physical art or it’s meaning. Instead, it is technique for the sake of technique, where technique is just a different way of creating the same art: Decadence. Pynchon explains this point perfectly:

A few like Slab actually did what they professed; turned out a tangible product. But again, what? Cheese Danishes. Or this technique for the sake of technique – Catatonic Expressionism. Or parodies on what someone else had already done (324).

In this same way, Pop artists such as Warhol made works that mimicked commodities created and advanced by capitalism, but was also a product of the decline of the art world4. Warhol created many, many other works (such as Shoes located at the Contessa Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio which is a sketch of a brand name pair of shoes; Mineola Motorcycle at the Acuavella Gallery in New York City which states “we ship worldwide, credit cards” and portrays an advertisement for a motorcycle5) that not only recreate a product/someone else’s invention, but recreate a product of capitalism itself.

Decadence accepted in Capitalism is just one institution in which makes the Man the same as his civilization, rather than an individual possessing passion (the ability to create original ideas) or love. And so, artists like Warhol (because of the work of entropy in our civilization in general) could not possibly create anything completely and perfectly original, but rather parodies what his world is consumed in4: capitalism that treats man as an object; a consumer.*

---

 

[1] Alloway, Lawrence. Topics of American Art. “POP ART: The Words.” W.W. Norton and company, Inc.: New York, 1975, pp. 121. University Readers.

2 Mandal, Anthony. The Literary Encyclopedia. “Decadence (1870-1914).” Litencyc.com. 9 Feb 2001. 15 Sep 2009.   <http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=256>

 

3 Pynchon, Thomas. V.. Harper Perennial Inc.: New York, 2005. (Specifically page 324 as cited).

4 Not a personal assertion, but one assertion created some members of the literary world.

5 Andy Warhol: 1928-1987. “Artworks.” Artnet.com. 15 Sep 2009.  <http://www.artnet.com/ag/fulltextsearch.asp?searchstring=warhol&currentCategory=Artwork&page=2>

* In the interest of saving paper, I decided to single space this essay since it was on the longer side for this particular assignment and because of footnote citation. Please don’t mark me off for it!

 

I did this as a first draft, I dunno exactly if I want it the way it is. But it was good to post it, and then look back on it without it being a mere word document. I see some changed that have to be made...

Interruption: Some art 203 sketches

Brian Stauffer: Subtly Timeless Concepts

As I walked into the stuffy University of Arizona Museum of Art, I thought to myself, I read books for a living… I don’t look at art and pretend it makes sense. As an English major, I looked at my surroundings with War and Peace in hand: a silent hall shadowy except for the glass doors behind me. As I made my way toward my destination – the “Hard Eyes” exhibit – my footsteps were booming upon impact with the freshly mopped floor, their resonance lasting forever, ricocheting off the walls and making my heart beat quickly. I was out of place. I turned in haste toward the glass doors, my vehicle to freedom, when my eye caught a piece of art that wasn’t a picture of water lilies, that wasn’t a ridiculous Campbell’s soup can, and that certainly was the farthest thing from an empty white canvas save a thick black line.  I was instantly immersed in a grotesque realm, a bony skeletal hand in black and white poured into my pupils. Atop the hand perched a dove and in its mouth a twig.

            Of course, having read the Bible, having noted that every major author since the beginning of time has alluded in one way or another to the Bible, I was taken back. Everything in the hall faded instantly into shadow, and only the piece and I remained. I took note of the simplistic style; the subtle shading and the black and white definitive lines. But on a closer look, I realized that this was no sketch, rather, it was digitally created. The image seemed verging on cartoonish but still retaining some kind of traditional craftsmanship. The room, along with its other pieces, came back with a silent woosh into my peripheral vision and I stood there in tacit awe. This piece had stimulated me. It was my White Whale, the Minister’s Black Veil, the heart beating beneath the floorboards. Suddenly, this man named Brian Stuaffer (as noted on the placard below) was equated in my mind with Dickens, Faulkner and Poe. Stauffer had roused in me the same grotesquity as they did, and what’s more, with the same intensity.

            I melted into his concept, and flooded into the rest of his pieces. Here, a woman was encased in a suitcase handled by man clad in a tux. There, exuberant colors excited my senses in a flurry of references to nuclear bombs, weddings, death, drugs… and the list goes on, all with heavy political implications. I could not only see Stauffer’s concept, but could feel it. Why? His concepts dealt largely with situations I deal with everyday. Each of his pieces, most of them generally colorful with high contrast, played into my sphere of society and the political nuance that most readily affected me. Though some dealt with more distant concepts (such as the violence in Darfour), I still related to them on a personal level because of his style. Indeed, he bordered the Pop Art threshold, but what differentiated his art from the Pop Art of the 60s and 70s was that these topics were inherently modern, but also timeless. Though Darfour is a conflict born out of modernity, its raison d’être remains the same of war throughout the history of Africa. His concept of drugs, again, is a concept dealt with from water-to-wine days of Christ to the trainspotting days of Kurt Cobain and beyond. Just as Thomas Pynchon writes so well the post-modern human condition (whose basis is also formed on such timeless grotesquities of man) so did my new favorite artist, so did Brian Stuaffer in his exhibit, “Hard Eyes: Images in Empathy.”

CHAPTER THREE (11)

“Corporate is too worried about expanding – they don’t have to know where.”

            “And border patrol?”

            “Leave that to me.”

            “Right. And do you have people lined up en México who will do the driving?”

            “Yeah. Two guys. Family members of the guy who does the salads five times a week at the restaurant. I offered them a social security number and a job, as well as one of my trailers – 5C. You know, the one right down the next row.”

            “Did they take it?”

            “They took the offer. Who could refuse a relatively safe trip to the states?”

            “Does 5C have air conditioning?” Gato wiped his brow and drifted his eyes to the air conditioning unit located in one of the two windows in the trailer on its southern side. He’d ended up buying it himself.

            “I’ll see to it.”

            “Any English?”

            “Enough.”

            “More than me?”

            “No.”

            “See to that, too.”

            “And where are you gonna hold up all the marijuana? Just leave it in the truck?”

            “Well I was thinking that we could put most of it in my vacant trailers, and get the rest of it off into the streets the day it arrives. What do you think?”

            “Damnit Carlos! Do you see this place?” Gato violently brushed his hands toward the coveted trees that took up most of the space of the triple-wide, “We can’t keep stocking up here. The police are becoming weary.”

            He went to the fridge and whipped out another Tecate. Droplets of sweat that had subtly formed on his head felt icy as he stuck the top half of his body in. Nothing but Tecate. Some limes in the corner. Tequila might be better right now, Gato thought to himself, and refrained from grabbing another can. Instead he slammed the fridge shut, but not too forcefully – things could go awry in minute with this man, Carlos – and popped his eyes to the top of the machine. A bottle of Patron silver in a solid, clear, glass bottle shown like heaven as it perched. He took it down and produced two tumblers and two pieces of ice.

            It was smooth as the liquid went down, even though it burned Carlos’ stomach. He only slightly winced. He pulled his slender lips, European lips, back against his teeth and smirked. The alcohol put him somewhat at ease, but the tension was still obvious. Both of them took out mini black cigars and lit them.

            “Police? They can be bought.”

            “Not anymore, Carlos. They are getting smart.”

            “Fine. But this could be the last time. When will your corporate logos be done so we can end this dry spell?”

            “Next week, this time.”

            “And your drivers.”

            “The same.”

            “So you can have the city sopping wet with green blood by next Thursday?”

            “That is the plan.”

            Gato poured another four ounces into each of the tumblers. They both streamed the fire down their gullets. This time, nobody winced.

            “One thing,” resumed Carlos. His Spanish was slurring slightly because of the liquor. “I need IDs before any of this can begin.”

            “For who? The two men?”

            “Yeah.”

            “You got pictures for me, my friend?”

            Carlos handed over two pictures, photographs that had been photo-shopped to look like they’d come directly from the printer of a corner drug-store.

            “These official quality?”

            “Yeah,” Carlos replied, “I got them re-done at a Wal-Greens. Like always.”

CHAPTER THREE (10)

 

            Gato opened the door after finishing his second Tecate. A man flew in with a menacing look on his face making his salt and pepper hair wisp around his head. Carlos Cuadros’ dark skin, but not as dark as Gato’s, seemed slippery because of the heat of the corrugated steel jungle euphemistically named “Los Cerros Frios Trailer Park.” The heat crept inside with ominous desert tentacles, and Carlos instantly shut the door with a flimsy bang behind him. The plastic window rattled. And this is one of my better rentals, he thought. The two men eyed each other, not threatening glances, but a look of surprise. Having sized each other up, they proceeded to speak in the Sonoran Spanish dialect, mingling some English terms with Spanish slang; an incoherent form of communication that, at times, even native Sonorans had difficulty with.

            “Gato, this shortage we’ve been having – how long til its over?” Carlos began.

            “Our boys in Nogales have been on the run. We need another way to transport. I can’t be selling this tiny amount of mota out of my trailer alone. This can’t keep us going forever.” Though Gato could barely grasp English, he was first and foremost an intellectual businessman; a rhetorician highly erudite in the art of persuading a fellow Spanish speaker.

            “Well – what do you want me to do?”

            “You have done enough, Señor Cuadros. You keep our men working for pennies, pocket change really, at that Corrotto’s,” his sentiment changed to patronizing, “and yet you still charge them six-hundred a month to live in this repellant septic tank of a trailer park. For God sakes, man, you pay them and take what little you give them right back.”

            “Damnit, Gato! I didn’t come here to speak about my ethics. I came here to talk about weed, and you give me the fucking guilt trip.”

            “I talked to our man at the hospital.” Gato goaded him to respond, pausing for a few seconds.

            “And?”

            “And he says that the FBI has been showing up frequently now. I dunno how long our guy can get a hold of those birth certificates. He says it getting sticky.”

            “Dios mio…”

            “He says it isn’t worth it to keep the death certificates under wraps until he can bump them off. But that’s another story, my friend. Now – you have come to me about the shortage?”

            “About the different transport. I-“           

            “Sh, sh, sh.” Gato put his index finger to his lips, exposing that dastardly stump of a pinky finger. He squinted his deep coffee eyes and stuck his other hand between the mini-blinds. Looking askance, he strained his pupils through thick black eyelashes, was relieved, and gestured for Carlos to continue.

            “About the transport. I bough a semi – “

            “Is it here!?”

            “No.”

            “Good. Go on.”

            “It used to be a local high school’s, they used it for transporting football supplies for away games. I figured I could strip the sides, slap on some official corporate logos, and maybe do a little campaigning for Corrotto’s in the name of a border store.”

            “Sounds sketchy to me.”

 

CHAPTER THREE (9)

The ride to the bank was quiet. No one spoke a word, but Squirley could feel Devin’s fear. The baby-faced twenty-one-year old clung to the leather passenger handle in his own car, his knees turned awkwardly towards the door in case of Ryan possibly turning on him. Ryan, however, was much at ease and continued to smoke the slowly burning joint as he drove. Every thirty seconds or so he might take a vast drag from the thickly rolled joint he’d prepared late last night with Toddy, hold it in for as long as he could muster, then let the syrupy smoke glide like rolling hills out of his nostrils. He prided himself on his mastery of inhalation, and exaggerated his skills for Devin’s benefit. But Devin was more worried about what may or may not happen to him after he gave Ryan the money, than how well he could suck up some pot.

The little Nissan rolled into the bank parking lot and Squirley parked the car in the back row. A security guard sitting on a stool next to the thick glass doors of the bank removed his head from behind a copy of the daily newspaper, seemed to sniff for suspicion, squinted his eyes, and resumed his focus on the paper.

“Go get my money,” Squirley commanded.

Devin was immediately out of the car and walking spritely towards the officer. He had slammed that door a little too hard on his way out, thought Squirley. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all. One more slip-up like that at Devin might get his ass beaten to a pulp. Squirley watched him as he opened the glass doors and looked back towards the Nissan. His eyes smoldered and twitched, his blonde hair rustled a little in the wind, and his perfect skin seemed altogether tainted. Next to the doors, the security guard was unaware of the events occurring; a blessing to Squirley.

About four minutes later, Devin was back in the Nissan, squirming. He dreaded the call from his father: “A hundred and thirty dollars? For what? I am damned sure you need to learn the value of a dollar, son! Your monthly allowance is hereby cancelled for next month! Maybe next time you might learn… I thought you had a job? Maybe I shouldn’t give you any money…”

The tires screeched and Squirley got out of the car without a word. He threw the keys at Devin’s face and proceeded to turn his back and walk away. Devin stood there in complete dismay while he watched Squirley walk away with his father’s money. He was sweating and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. Squirley had parked a good thirty- minute walk from his next class, which started in about five minutes.

“Damnit,” Devin said to himself as he checked his watch and turned his back on the car and an ever-diminishing image of Ryan as he faded into the heat ripples emanating from against the asphalt.