(Rackstein is talking, which he does fluently, with madness)
No, see, it’s the math of the thing, see, the symmetry of the upper leg (Rackstein said, furiously, drunk or sober), the symmetry of the upper leg, of soft hold hue, you know, peeking under the window dressing of a St. Michael’s skirt, yes, the hypotenuse. It is, always was, the golden rule, and you and I, old friend, we’re men who appreciate the math of the thing, are we not, if we ever were anything.
(Nod, damn you, do it right.)
It may never have mattered, but I’ve had my gospel twenty five years, it’s never done a man harm to buy another drinks, has it, if it makes him broke he never had worth scratching anyway and you and I, we’re not broke are we? Not for years. You can tell. I haven’t been laid in months.
Look, there’s the roof. Majestic, fretted with golden fire, he said, it is, right you tilt the glass. The math of the thing. Why are you looking me like that? If you didn’t like me, you wouldn’t keep coming out here, unless it is hatred of yourself ring you in which case you are, are you not, getting exactly what you want?
(Grandpa and grandma stumble into the bar, grandurchin in tow. Grandpa’s had a few. Grandma, trying to make it through another day. The little urchin steals my hat. A windy, cold day in Dublin. God’s honest truth, it’s shocking, is it not. Ireland of saints and sinners and overcast, wet skies).
Sing me the song of the pint, o muse, twisted one, the mind of the man who comes and goes, the only one the gods won’t kill, he’s too much fun, Odysseus. The believer in the belly.
“The belly?”
And Achilles said, look you, let the men fast for Patroclus. In the morning we fight. But that wily man, Odysseus knew, men who fast and fight lack strength, if they are not the son of peerless Thetis. Not all gods can be gotten over, you know, and he said to the man-god, “look, strength, it flows from the belly. The spirit is brave, it is God’s own powder, but when the belly cries against it, all ghosts to their attics. Blame not the man that he must feast, blame his belly.” And I—slamming my glass down—have only ever tried to blame the belly for all the shite I’ve gotten into. Odysseus, me. Could I only believe it, mmm?
“But?”
But in the mornings it’s easier than nights, yes, and my days average, and now here I am, talking the ear off of a man so eloquent on paper he put his whole tongue there and has none left for his friend Rackstein, and no belly to speak of, and maybe he doesn’t appreciate the belly at all—and should we just give the thing up? No. No. There’s no one else. A pint of the black stuff. Two, I can afford it. I’m not getting laid at all. I’m a man you can trust.
(He turns to me).
To the white lady.
I raise my glass.