The Sleepworker Read online

  So then, you want to do the whole poet thing, the guy declares.

  My goodness, um, poet, I, you know.

  Listen, I have some news to give you. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m the Oracle of the evening. Ten years of experience serving living poets.

  Which means . . .

  Rest assured, my services are entirely free. Oracle, it’s more than a job, it’s a passion for serving living poetry.

  In that case, go ahead, we’re listening.

  The Oracle: Poet, in your adolescent bedroom you wrote a poem intended for some sort of pagan god. You did not imagine readers of poetry in any human form, only spirits were able to read you – poetry was, for you, the expression of a crisis that was resolved through the sacrifice of your oeuvre recorded in small spiral notebooks. During a ceremony personally directed by the author you tore up, burned, threw away the entirety of your poetic creations – farewell, literature. Poet, you are now an adult, your studies have led you to unemployment, you spent two whole years writing cover letters, and for as many letters you submitted, you received just as many negative responses. You’ve had unpaid internships, drawing on your experience you alternate six-month long contracts with periods of job seeking. Poet, seeing as you lack any prospect besides that of a life of sad and shitty jobs, you look for a solution to make life better – and you begin to write. Poet, while flipping through your city’s cultural calendar, you learn that there are poetry readings, performance readings, performed readings, and in fact after more ample information it appears that a large number of today’s poets read their texts in public. Poet, because readings are free, you go to them, alone for that matter, because not one of your friends is tempted by such an experience, and thus for the first time you see living poets. Poet, you attend as many readings as possible, you go see everything, you aren’t picky, then again how could you be, you who know so few living poets. Poet, by reading your contemporaries at libraries and bookstores, by ­attending two or three readings every week, you are beginning to get a more precise idea of today’s poetic practices. Poet, you discover an organized poetic environment, composed of active poets, publishing houses, journals, performance places and the promotion of living poetry, and you exclaim, So that’s what I wanted to do. Poet, you get to know living poets, you are interested in the way they live poetry in an era that ignores it, you entertain the idea of devoting as much time as possible to making poetry, as little as possible to your boring and underpaid job. Poet, literature takes over your thoughts, you create texts while walking, you create texts on public transportation, you create texts while behind the wheel of your car, you create texts at work so as to mentally extract yourself from the computer-assisted production for which they pay you. Poet, when evening comes, you create texts in front of a muted television, in your bed you continue to write in your head, then it’s bedtime, and if you don’t want to feel tired at work tomorrow you should sleep but do you really care about not feeling tired at work tomorrow? Poet, you produce texts that you call ‘my texts,’ you work in a language you call ‘my language,’ you try to shape a literature you call ‘literature,’ you read out loud what is stuck in your head then you copy it on paper by hand before formatting and making corrections on a computer. Poet, you give the poets with whom you’re acquainted texts to read and they tell you that what you write isn’t bad, and in case you weren’t aware it’s called poetry so consequently you’re one of them. Poet, you send your first manuscript to some publishers who publish poetry, meaning publishers who don’t publish only novels. Poet, you await an answer with a mix of pride and anxiety quite characteristic of your psychology. You create different scenarios in your head, you fantasize about everyone celebrating your glory – yes let’s be honest, your text is incredibly strong, there’s practically nothing else to say, the book comes out and needless to say it’s a success. Poet, your manuscript is returned with a letter signed by the editor that says you wrote a truly refined text that unfortunately does not live up to its potential, after the first forty pages you cease to invent, you dwell, what a pity, however dear sir you must keep at it, I sense a talented author in you, cordially, initialed, your manuscript will be returned to you under separate cover. Poet, this letter depresses you because it categorically refuses to publish your text as it is and you don’t possess the critical tools that would allow you to make progress on it, you still don’t know how to read like a writer must be able to. Poet, your disappointment is terrible, you say it’s too hard, that you’ll never get there, you try to summon the pagan god who during your adolescence followed your work attentively but he is henceforth unreachable. Poet, you lament your fate, you are very unhappy, your poetry friends console you by giving you the names of journals to which you could send your texts, they offer to put them in the proper hands, and there you go, after six months of waiting you receive your first positive responses. Poet, your poet name appears in journals’ tables of contents, your bibliography is budding, yet you still complain that it doesn’t contain the least little book, not even a booklet, you would like to see your name written on the cover of a work with a good publisher. Poet, you continue to write like a madman. Poet, for a long time now you’ve been writing unfinished manuscripts, but one day you feel like you have the perfect text, some people who’ve read it have said it’s a good manuscript, a publishable manuscript, and after months consisting of highs and lows, half-assed promises, hopes slow to materialize, you find someone at a publishing house who takes on the publication of your first book. Poet and editor, you work the text thoroughly, discuss the cover mockup, choose a font, write up the back cover, print several sets of proofs on which you mark essential corrections, during this phase of the work you don’t neglect any detail, and in the meantime you’ve signed a contract for three books. Poet, you sign for a package containing copies of this book which is your first, you invite your friends over and shell out for a party, the first book party – come empty-handed, everyone, tonight the poet is treating. Poet, your book hits the stores, and over the course of your visits to the bookstores in your city you lament that it can’t be found anywhere, which is a slight exaggeration, even if it is true that very few bookstores carry it. Poet, after all the time it took you to write it and the difficulties you had to face before publishing it, you now have the impression that no one gives a shit, no one’s reading it, no one’s talking about it, no one’s critiquing it, you can’t fucking believe it, you’re beating your head against the wall, but once again you’re exaggerating. Poet, we regret to inform you that the only potential readers are other poets, being a few dozen people who, rather than purchase your book, ask you for comp copies. Poet, you calm down, you think it through coldly and you finally tell yourself that if no one knows living poets exist, how could their books sell? Poet, thanks to the support of this publisher that you like to call ‘my publisher,’ you publish other books that are the subject of critical reviews signed by top-level poets, poets who themselves have been the subject of numerous critical studies in their own country or abroad, and this time you can stop hiding, you are joyful, poetry is joy. Poet, there’s a magazine that’s going to feature you but it falls through at the last moment, there’s a dissertation being written about you or more exactly a master’s thesis, but overnight the student keen on poetry stops calling, and in the meantime, your name circulates around institutions, they invite you to contribute to literary events, you regularly have the opportunity to read your poems in public, you get a fee, your trip and lodgings are covered, you are paid and fed to be poet for a night. The readings allow you to meet poets, you make plenty of new friends and almost as many enemies, which you don’t care about, you tell yourself that poetry is done between friends, you don’t care about those assholes. Poet, interdisciplinary festivals give you the opportunity to come across dancers, actors, musicians, directors, plus a whole string of performers with whom you devise collaborative projects, some of which will even see the light of day. Poet, you no longer need introd
uction, poet, performer, you work on writing, sound, image, you make books and records, you play in groups, you appear in little video productions, you are physical, visual, acoustic, you produce poems in the form of lithographs, you make painted poems and drawn poems, you print poems on chocolate bars, tobacco pouches, curtains, sheets, lighters, pens, boxes of cookies, bottles of salad dressing, pillowcases, you publish poems in the form of small newspaper ads, you get hired as a demonstrator in a supermarket and you read your poems while giving out samples of mini sausages. You pirate ­advertisement inserts, you immerse yourself in written poetry, recorded poetry, exhibited poetry, you publish and you do live poetry, you double your collaborations with artists, you are in a large number of anthologies, they consecrate you with a second paperback printing, you become a hero in your field. Poet, another success in the bookstores and you’ll be an accomplished writer. Poet, in agreement with your publisher, you decide to add the inscription ‘novel’ on the cover of your new book that’s scheduled to be published at the start of the new literary season. Poet, if you think about it carefully, the line between poetry and novel is arbitrary, what it is you’re working on is literature. Poet, the booksellers are not fooled by your ‘novel’ and shelve it in the ‘art/poetry’ section and as a result your ‘novel’ doesn’t sell better than any of your previous books – don’t worry, we won’t reveal any numbers. Poet, it’s too late to change your label, in literature you are a poet and nothing else. Poet, even for the hero that you are, you only have as many readers as an off-peak bus contains passengers, they say, He’s known, for a poet – or rather, For a poet, he’s known. Poet, these are the first nice days of the season, you’re seated at a table on the patio of a café in the company of ten or so people, an improvised outing in a cultural place has put you in touch with people – about whom you know almost nothing – but you find them to be nice, and the feeling seems to be mutual, which is why you decided to get a few drinks together. Poet, you’re caught in a round table, and when it’s your turn to say what it is you do in life, you say, Hello, I’m John, I’m a poet. Poet, all around you people are laughing, I’m a poet, so you say, that’s a really funny joke.

  John: Bravo, I say!

  Andy: Bravo!

  The Oracle: Thank you! Glad you’ve enjoyed my performance. It’s my big thing, every year I come play the Oracle for unpublished poets. The guys from the Centre don’t support it, but they can’t stop me. It’s between performing the Oracle or the Biting Dog. I wanted to do a book to begin with, something along the lines of: A Warning to Young Living Poets about the Misadventures of Today’s Poets and Other Future Embarrassments Given Current Realities. But seeing as no one wants to publish a text with such a long title, I perform it. Pretty good name, huh? Well, excuse me, I’ll let you go now, I have to do the Oracle for some of the other Unpublished Poets.

  John drinks and talks with Andy. John drinks more and faster than anyone else. He refrains from picking at the paper plates holding the kinds of foods that are edible in one bite. Eating is cheating. John devotes himself to the drink. According to his logic, one glass is immediately followed by another. At this pace, there’s a tendency to not see time go by. John doesn’t see time go by. In this kind of situation, people leave without anyone seeing them go. You realize they were right there with you the moment they’re already gone. When they’re no longer there and it’s your turn to leave. The evening goes by as if time is passing more quickly for John than it is for the others. The exception being Andy.

  John, he repeats, you’re a poet now.

  A window is open. Not all the way open – ajar. One pane is open halfway, an undeniable sign of a commitment to openness. On one side, the window looks out on a courtyard that’s narrow and dark – dark because it’s narrow – on the other side is a room that’s bigger but just as poorly and shabbily lit.

  Despite the darkness, it’s still possible to read the 60 x 90 cm printed poem posted on the wall: TOO MUCH IS NOT ENOUGH. The room’s furniture is limited to a mattress on the floor, a stack of books with a lamp on top, bottles that are empty or on their way there, a shelf holding clean laundry at the foot of which rests the dirty laundry from the day before.

  The nightstand serves as a bookshelf. A bookshelf that has the characteristic of being upright and acting as a small nightstand topped with a lamp. The nightstand owes its existence to its proximity to a bed. Without the presence of this bed, there would be no talk of a nightstand, only of a small pile of books stacked on the floor. It’s possible to sleep in this room. Thus, this room is a bedroom, for at least a few hours a day. Tonight, the bedroom is occupied. Someone is sleeping in the bed.

  The sleeping man is named John.

  As soon as he entered the room, he fell onto the bed, this single mattress tossed on the floor intended for resting. John curled up. He closed his eyes. He lost consciousness. He fell asleep.

  John is sleeping in his day clothes. He’s wearing a jacket, pants, shoes. He’s dressed like he’s getting ready to go out. He hasn’t taken the trouble to undress, take off his clothes from the day and put on his sleepwear. He hasn’t bothered to slip under the covers. That would have required too much effort. Too much time awake when the call of sleep was so pressing.

  It’s urgent to sleep like before it was urgent to drink. John drank a lot. In this immense metropolis, you have to run on something, whether it’s alcohol or drugs. That’s how it is in New York New York, a new drug every day, you have to have something that’ll fuck you up and take your mind off everything. Like the time John saw himself going down the wild rapids of a river in five minutes flat. He wasn’t really going down them. He was hallucinating. Five minutes of ecstatic rafting. It’s not just something to talk about.

  Andy is on amphetamines and as a result he’s become a raging insomniac. His ashy-grey complexion and the bags under his eyes are proof that Andy’s keeping up with this druggy bandwagon and, my god, is he keeping up.

  Tonight the roles are broken down like this: John is sleeping, Andy is awake.

  This is the first night that John and Andy are together, young lovers occupying the same bed. For once, Andy would have gladly done more, but now isn’t the time – what a bummer. If there is a time for touching, a time to sleep together rather than go to sleep, that time has passed. You don’t fuck a man who’s sleeping. You follow in Andy’s footsteps and go limp. Unless. Let’s murmur with him:

  John?

  John?

  Jooooohn?

  No response.

  John is deaf to the sound of his name.

  Because not only is he sleeping, the bastard is also ­snoring.

  It’s pointless to keep trying, realizes Andy while getting up from the double bed. Andy crosses the bedroom. He opens the window with an upward thrust from bottom to top, giving the handle a delicate push for an added personal touch. The bedroom window is open.

  It’s a window that opens onto a square courtyard, a dark hole that is home to a mess of bottles and cans, discarded objects thrown from windows, cigarette butts, cardboard boxes and wrappers. The popping of a detonation echoes. The whistling of a tracer bullet. Second detonation. Exchange of live ammunition. Gunfire. Yells. Shouts. Abruptly interrupted by the sweet music of a commercial break. The viewer mutes the sound. The return of automobile noises wafting up from nearby streets. They coalesce into one continuous vibration. Andy lights his cigarette, smokes it down to the filter and tosses the butt into the courtyard.

  No two ways about it, Andy isn’t sleepy.

  Andy lights another cigarette. Smokes it down to the butt. A butt whose destiny is to be thrown into the courtyard. Andy closes the window. Andy walks around in socks on the wooden floor, to the extent that he ends up joining John in bed.

  Okay.

  And now, let’s move on to the next sentence, which is: John plus Andy equals love.

  John loves Andy because he’s Andy. Andy loves John because he’s John. John finds Andy very ugly. Andy finds John very h
andsome.

  There’s a problem: Andy hates to be touched. During orgies, Andy has always preferred to watch rather than participate. That bothers some people. John, on the other hand, likes to do. He does it well. He gives a lot of himself. He acts like one should in such circumstances: forward, energetic, generous, insatiable.

  Yet all it takes is for John to decide to take his cock out for some fresh air and for Andy to grab it, take it in his mouth and start sucking. Then John closes his eyes and waits for what’s coming. In these instances, John’s face: a) tenses up, b) relaxes. An incontestable sign that: c) he’s coming, d) he came. When all is said and done, Andy swallows and sucks again, John puts it away, the two friends move into the living room, take out a few bottles, arrange some bowls of chips and peanuts on the coffee table and talk about something else.

  In day-to-day life, John and Andy don’t hide that they love each other. Why should they? What about this love story is there to hide? Does anyone have an objection to it? If they wanted to kiss in public, they would kiss in public. Except Andy doesn’t want to. If they wanted to hold hands in public, they would hold hands and walk side by side. Except Andy doesn’t want to. They could perform all the public displays of affection, but Andy doesn’t feel the need. Neither does John, for that matter.

  In the meantime, some juicy gossip is going around at the openings. It’s about John and Andy. Andy whom they no longer call ‘Andy,’ but ‘Thing.’ A nickname soon replaced by ‘Wig.’ Well, anyway, there’s some crap going around. Supposedly, both of them. Like that, both of them? Where is the beginning of this sentence going? And what are their friends from the group saying?

  Ah, the friends – well, well, let’s talk about them. Let’s talk about Bob’s snickering, William’s mocking. They feed on gossip, the traitors. You call them friends? It’s true that, in the past, William tried to bang Andy. But William, despite his brilliance, his intellectual qualities and everything, is difficult to like. No thank you, Andy said. And William took this rejection poorly, despite it being done so politely. The day will come when he will make Andy pay. As for Bob, who’s interested in John, he feels like he’s losing him to Andy. No, Bob doesn’t truly understand what John sees in Andy. He’ll also find a way to get revenge.