Untamed

Nearly three quarters of the bottled red wine have passed and still this chair is warmed by the ass of my body as it remains in the one spot. Still no food has been ordered and still my mind nags at me to ask for something; I feel starved, light headed but my stomach is consumed, filled with copious amount of tantalising grape. “Eat or you will regret it,” says my mind to which my stomach interrupts and prompts it to hush, like a conductor of an orchestra ushering an audience into silence. Reluctantly my mind gives in to the battle, just as a crowd of rich snobs are obediently quiet when the conductor taps. Mind obeys, audience obeys.

“Can I get you anything more, my lady?” the same waiter asks again as he notices I have almost consumed 1850. It wasn’t the wine that I tasted, it was the year. Not red wine that I consumed, but 1850. There was nothing more he could get me, there is nothing more that would be of desire to me, except another napkin, please. While you’re opening a new packet of lovely white napkins, would you be as kind as to slip me a few francs? I know I ask every night, yet you always oblige every night, too. He quickly shuffles away, knowing what must be done to meet demands that seem reasonable enough to me, before I have even made them.

This stack of at least twelve napkins has become quite impressive and I wonder how silly it must look to see a writer sauntering down the road in a drunken state. Every word which spilled poorly from my mouth would fill the nostrils of others with the scent of 1850; no, not Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre, but 1850. Subconsciously I made the move to erase the year 1850 and correct myself, declaring they would smell the wine and not the year. Despite my ever-present state of inebriation, there is certainty within me that I would wish for them to inhale 1850, not the wine. A fresh napkin is tossed on the table, waiting to be unfolded and used as a substitute piece of paper, like the previous twelve.

Pushing another cigarette into the slim, little, red holder I strike a match and send the flame to the tip of my death, waiting for it to light. Three used matches sit on the small saucer – matches, you see, because there have been more times than I can count on both hands which I have lost a cigarette lighter of any form and it is a slightly expensive habit to replace. Matches, you see, because they are quick and cheap, much like the putain which wait on the sides of lonely streets, secluded lanes. Every night I pass a pétasse péjorative of some sort; one in particular seems to favour a tight, black vinyl skirt and eyes that were dark with cosmetics.

I inhale a few years of life into my lungs, before releasing it back into the air around me. This new napkin came just in time to write this down, before I ran out of room on the last. In between its folds came a piece of paper that resembled a bill. Beautiful steak, wonderful pasta, and some champagne – this was nothing remotely similar to the single bottle I ordered. Finishing my glass, I suck away a bit more of life as I realise this is the francs I asked for. The other thing I failed to remember I loved about this little restaurant is the fact that everyone who visits was overflowing with cash and they were all too ignorant to check a menu or observe prices.

My fingers clicked beside me – my way of signalling for that ever faithful waiter as I quickly filled out the price of the customer’s bill in the empty space he had diligently left open for me. Every night I do this, every night I come in for a rare bottle of wine, refuse myself a meal because the breezy feeling that each bottle creates is far too great to resist and every night I fuck a few customers out of their money. It isn’t as though these bastards will ever notice that they’re short a few francs, and if they ever do, they certainly won’t miss it. They pay for the ambience and the fucking ambience they will receive!

He takes my altered bill and I stand up, making a grab for the near empty bottle and make plans to take it with me, filling my pockets with an absurd amount of napkin. Why I never bring script paper with me eludes me, but I suppose at the end of the day it saves me a bit of money. Bottle in hand, napkins in pocket, the waiter passes me and places my money into the breast pocket of my jacket and I, as I said earlier, saunter out the front door, completely drunk and with a few more francs than before.

She laughs in such a way that displeases him, her breasts sitting in that dress in such a way that one is not certain if they are in there too tightly or merely resting loosely under the fabric, waiting to come out. “Please, my love, cover yourself or do not laugh in such a manner,” I overheard him plead as I sat at my own seat that was two tables away. Sweet, red silk cascaded over my legs, disappearing under the table as my focus remained on this one man and this one woman sitting in front of me, to my left. He had grabbed her shawl now, in attempt to thrust it over the chest of his woman; in spite of him, she laughed more in the present company they had at their table than ever before.

“Good evening, mon chéri, is there anything I can get you?” asked a smooth voice on my right. Turning slowly, I stopped only when the view of his overpriced and elaborate waiters outfit had entered my peripheral vision. I continued to watch the disputing couple as I spoke, “Bring me a bottle of your best wine.” I had demanded that he do so more than I had been asking. I was fascinated, compelled to continue observing the couple still arguing, but it was no longer about her mammary glands; it had changed to the proper etiquette in a restaurant, as well as her dress. “It is hardly becoming of a lady!”

I wondered how much longer it would be before they notice I had been staring at them. Weeks have passed since I have put pen to paper with any thought or idea on what to write; would they notice that I chose them as the object which breaks my weeks of stagnant thought? It is her which reminds me of Tiyamaria, a woman with a name almost like the drink itself, and he resembles Malcolm, too. That fat porker of a man who knew how to fuck his way out of anything – quite literally, Malcolm was a fucker; both these men seem to rely heavily on image to get them anywhere. Digging into my pocket with my left hand, I withdrew a thin, red fume-cigarette as my right hand continued to search for my cigarettes.

A bottle of French red wine is placed on my table on a bucket of ice, as I put my stick of cancer into its holder and light it; I grab the bottle of wine from its bucket and read the label, Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre from 1850 – a rare bottle, if I wasn’t mistaken. There is one thing I rather liked about this little restaurant, I thought as I poured myself a glass from the bottle whilst inhaling mild, smooth smoke from my cigarette. That one thing was the fact they chose to uncork the wine for me; opening a bottle of wine has never been a skill of mine. I thought back to Malcolm as my eyes glanced back over to the table that I observed moments ago; they seemed to have stopped arguing now and he had clearly won.

Shawl wrapped around her shoulders, covering her chest she sat there with a look of contempt on her face. If she had her way, I would be inclined to say that she’d eat with her fingers, just to disgust the three suits that joined her and her husband at the table. The more I watch them and put thought to the bits of napkin I repeatedly keep requesting, I realise that she is more like Tiyamaria than first imagined. Tiya was a woman who would always want her way, who would do anything to make another’s life miserable if they didn’t give her what she wanted. In some sense, she was a whore, bedded by every man she met and emptied their wallets just as easily.

Malcolm didn’t care about her, either; he had personal matters of his own to tend to, and an image to uphold. He spent too much time buying expensive looking suits, top hats, gloves and the like, whilst poorly furnishing his home with empty bottles of wine and spirits. Malcolm wasn’t a drinker, as I recall it, but he definitely liked having the image that he did and it seemed to work with the ladies. With that being said, the ladies he chose to “woo” weren’t particularly a regular, normal breed. These ladies weren’t women; they were girls, barely budding of age and at least twenty years younger than he. They were naïve and far too trusting – an empty wine bottle on the floor said to them “sophistication,” “class,” “wealth” and “position.”

I doubt any of these girls had ever seen Malcolm drink a single drop of wine, unlike I who as I write this, must fill my glass again. This heavily grape taste tingles on my tongue and is going to my head all too quickly; perhaps I should have ordered some food with this wine. That’s what I tell myself every time I visit here, I always say to myself that I should have ordered some food but I know, just as well as the waiters, that I am only here to drink wine, get drunk and saunter out the front door with a few francs more than I entered with. Putting that in words on this napkin makes me feel somewhat like Tiyamaria, like a whore who enters a room with very little money, does what she has gone there to do, and leave with more money than before.

If that is the case, then I am a whore; a whore to this wine, a whore to this restaurant, a whore to this pocket of mine.