Casanova, Elvis and Me

[Vũng Tàu, 8/10/26]

In Joyce’s “The Dead,” the protagonist, Gabriel, is agitated, aroused and enraged by his wife’s suddenly inexplicable behavior. To calm himself, he strings together their best and most convincing moments, though only from his perspective, of course, “Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory. A heliotrope envelope was lying beside his breakfast-cup and he was caressing it with his hand. Birds were twittering in the ivy and the sunny web of the curtain was shimmering along the floor: he could not eat for happiness. They were standing on the crowded platform and he was placing a ticket inside the warm palm of her glove. He was standing with her in the cold, looking in through a grated window at a man making bottles in a roaring furnace. It was very cold.” All this time, she was grieving over a long lost love.

Hearing “secret life,” us vulgarians naturally think only of sex, so, yeah, that one or two times when your mind exploded in a flash, or when you somehow lasted so long, she fell asleep, or, when, impatient and nearly passed out drunk, she thought you were already in, yet so underwhelming (and so understaffed), she had to ask, “How come I don’t feel anything?” Just as shit faced, you were just trying to get it at half mast, then move from there. It’s so unfair that such a tiny, nearly invisible ship can’t even pass through this Strait of Hormuz!