My story so far …
Look, I’m not going to waste time on a lot of trivia. What do you care what my childhood was like, I’ve been trying to forget it ever since I escaped! Plus, I know ALL ABOUT future biographers. They don’t do you any favors. None. So the Hell with them. They’ll get what I give them, nothing more.
I was in Paris. We were all in Paris, if you weren’t there then I’m sure I don’t know what was wrong with you. I guess it was fine, for awhile; there was a lot of activity, things were happening! Just around the corner. I raced around along with everyone else. I turned so many corners I squared the circle! Circled the squares. Whatever. But I started to feel invisible, like I was on the outside of things, looking in, like they could see right through me. What the hell? I mean, I had published the first edition of Negations while those slackers were stumbling around the streets after closing time, shouting bad poetry, sobbing and spending their parents’ money. After awhile you kind of want to take things seriously, you know?
And the painters. Everywhere! Crawling out of the woodwork, haunting the cafes, clogging up the thoroughfares, impressing the girls. Always claiming they were broke, always making vague pronouncements about Art and Life and Love, then scuttling back to their garrets to attempt green scribbles with a claim on trees. I mean, please! And calculating: they had the souls of accountants. They’d wait around until I was on my third glass of the green fairy, which is a sacrament, really, and ought to be respected as such—anyway my third glass, and then they’d start hitting me up for “rounds for the house!” “Enoch, mon ami!” and “voila le Maestro Vert!”
After awhile I noticed I was the only one left. Me and that rabble of painters. All the smart people had moved to London! Free of the infernal artists, free of the beautiful avenues, free of the cursedly lovely weather—well obviously I couldn’t blame them. So I joined them.
