July 18 Codex VII: A Simple, Stupid, Magnificent Yes
A Joycean intermezzo from July 18. A familiar, cynical character is transformed by a walk through the city, finding a new faith in the world-building power of a simple, foolish "yes."
After a series of intense, plot-driven fragments, I wanted to share something different for the last one in the series. This is a stylistic interlude from the novel, a change of pace and perspective. It's the story of a man's soul re-awakening, a testament to the ripple effect of faith, and a nod to one of the masters who came before.
Yes. A triumph. The word still buzzing in his teeth. Taste of cheap lobby wine, acidic but honest enough for a Thursday. June. First of June. A day for new things. The end of an old season perhaps or the beginning of a new one. The boy and the girl. Standing there in the electric quiet after the storm, a whole world in the space between them. Saw it in his eyes, the boy’s eyes, a different man from the raging bull at the party. Sober now. Clear. Saw the silver in his hand a key not a weapon and her face a story, a whole history a book cracked open after years on a dusty shelf. Love they call it. The word is too small. A parallax of souls, each seeing the other from a different, wounded angle, the space between them the only truth. He walked a fine walk, the boy did. Down into his own labyrinth not with a sword but with a question. And found not a monster but himself waiting. And now the girl the thread. Always the thread.
He pushed through the side door and out into the warm, humid air of a Hell’s Kitchen night. The city a symphony of sirens and shouts and the distant rumble of the subway a low, steady heartbeat under the pavement. A good night for a walk. A long one. All the way downtown. Yes. The play was good the words sharp the allegory clever. But that. That quiet little scene in the backstage clutter. That was the real art. The secret third act. A story as old as the stones. A man a woman a broken thing a mending. It will mend. Of course it will. The universe bends toward a yes if you let it. A simple, stupid, magnificent yes. As she said yes my mountain flower. And first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. That yes. The one that builds worlds.
Tenth Avenue a river of light and possibility, the smell of roasting peanuts from a street cart a sudden, glorious assault. A prayer. The hiss of a bus’s air brakes a mechanical sigh. He walked, no longer a recluse in a gilded cage but a pilgrim on a pavement sea. A man in search of the city he had forgotten. The city he had once loved. Each step a discovery. The face of a woman laughing in a doorway, a flash of perfect, temporary beauty. The intricate, swirling patterns of an oil slick in a puddle under a streetlight, a miniature, accidental galaxy. The profound, heartbreaking optimism of a single, stubborn weed growing from a crack in the sidewalk. All of it a sermon. All of it a sign. The Minotaur in the play, trapped in his maze, so clever, so witty. That was me. Trapped in the labyrinth of my own magnificent cynicism. Believing I had seen all the world had to offer and found it wanting. A fool. A comfortable, well-read, and utterly blind fool. The boy, Oliver, he has the right of it. To believe in something so completely, so foolishly, that you are willing to get your face bloodied for it. Bitcoin. That is a kind of faith I had forgotten. To see the world not as it is, but as it could be. And then to walk toward it. Yes. That is the only walk worth taking. The Gorgonzola can wait. Tonight, the walk is the thing. The city a book and every block a new tick-tock, a new page and the story is beautiful and terrible and true and I am finally, finally reading it again. Yes.
July 18 Codex I: The Phantom Limb of Meaning
July 18 Codex II: The Cage Around Your Sovereign Mind
July 18 Codex III: A Tree Whose Shade You Will Never Sit In
July 18 Codex IV: A New Circle of Hell