Here am I standing in a tin can, far below the ground…planet earth is red – everyone is dead.
Now originally, the Cafe Potemkin would have been in Brooklyn and they would meet M. Tristan there while sharing a bottle of Grand Cru Bordeaux… offering the old man in the corner a glass because he is old and alone and they are young and feeling the buzz of earlier beer and new love and lust and M. Tristan accepts their offer and asks them, “How long have you been married.”
“We just met,” says she.
“No,” says M. Tristan.
“Yes,” Says Pat.
“No,” Tristan repeats.
“Not but a few hours ago.”
“Well you must marry,” says M. Tristan. “I can see it is your fate.”
And with that, Tristan takes charge of their life, they being drunk and impressed by the Rolls Royce and the King Leer jet and Switzerland, let him. He lives in Chateau called Egg.
But wherever the cafe is in time and space, I like to think that a John Lennnon song is heard drifting by from a car radio, or boom box, or whatever and they drift into a conversation about the Tragedy of John.
“Does it strike anyone as odd,” asks M. Tristan, in a pedagogical mode. “That Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7th A Day That Shall Live In Infamy and Lennnon was Shot on December 8th? Now didn’t Mark David Chapman live in Hawaii? Didn’t Lennon live with the most famous Japanese in the history of the world? Are these things accidents do you suppose?”
“I don’t know,” Patty said. “I’m Korean.”
“Of course you are,” M. Tristan said. “Of course you are, but that’s not the question.”
“What is the question?” Pat says.
“It’s just something no one ever mentions and it seems significant.”
“Sean thinks his father was assasinated,” Patty says.
“He’s nuts,”Pat scoffs.
“Is he?” M. Tristan asked.
“Isn’t he?” Pat says.
“I don’t know.” M. Tristan answers. “You are the Americans. You have the Mr. Burning Bush. What is possible do you suppose?”
“It’s possible to raise a toast to John Lennon,” says Patty.
“To the crew of U.S.S. Arizona,” says Pat.
“To Yoko,” says M. Tristan.
They drink … let’s say a 1944 Chateau Margaux (I know it’s pushing it, but Imagine….)
The Elephant’s Memory image above is a collab finished by Bellah from a Brian Raszka start. The rest are my starts – all for The Library Project.
