These Hollows, and Suchlike

Donari Braxton has written brave quantities of fiction, poetry, theater, and "cross-genre work," and has also translated. His writing has been widely anthologized in the UK and the United States, and his first collection of stories, I, will be succeeded in 2008 by a second. Presently he lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he is at work on a novel. Here are my favorite lines of this story – "These Hollows, and Suchlike" – which is funning on both us and itself, anything but "hollow" and yet, full of holes: "Jewish humor, I supposed. Choggys liked Jewish humor. And so I asked him flat-out: ‘Jewish humor, my nigga?'" Dr. Choggys West has appeared in Braxton's fiction before. One hopes he will have the occasion to consult with us again. – Joshua Cohen, Fiction Editor "I want you to tell me your favorite word in 1994." "My favorite word." "In 1994, yes." "No." "Be a sport," said Choggys real rationally-like. But I was being a sport, I insisted to Choggys, who scowled and added: "Be an art then," he added, so to that I quickly stammered off: "Ask me again?" "1994 please, your favorite word." "Hiccups." Choggys hesitated before asking, "And presently?" "Yes." † Dr. Choggys West had one rule. Don't be a push-over, and the vowel, always, is the tonic syllable. I didn't see how the second rule related to helping me grow as an individual, so I said that to Choggys, and asked him what kind of therapy he practiced. "Hula-hoop." "The fuck outta here," I told him. So vaguely twinkling like a loose basement tug-incandescent he added, "And if I keep it up, I may even get my degree." Jewish humor, I supposed. Choggys liked Jewish humor. And so I asked him flat-out: "Jewish humor, my nigga?" And Choggys sniggered and uttered nonchalantly: "Why, are you Jewish?" "Would that premise my question?" I asked. "Would that pr'e'mise my q'ues'tion?" "Would that pr'e'mise my q'ues'tion?" "Would that pr'E'mise my q'ues'tion?" "Would that pr'E'mise my q'ues'tion?" "Better, Donari, better." † "I want you to tell me about your very first memory." "I was a hole." "You were a hole." "Correct." "Do you mean you were a sperm?" "No, I do not." "Were you referring to your mother's vagina then, Donari?" "I certainly was not." "Tell me about it then," pronounced Choggys in a very phony Arabic with a fake German accent-Freud, I suppose, was the idea-that didn't entirely crucify the vowels; diphthongs, ablauts, even emoticons over obscure lower-case i's reeked of discriminate meaning when he vomited them up, so that if he were in the midst of confessing his sins, on the brinks of orgasm, making pp's or war-talking the enemy, each word made a kind of finger-print in the ear of the listener, not one identical to another and so on. Choggys was actually a Russian and in reality one-half-parts Jewish but three-parts water, like a woman. He wasn't listening and I wasn't listening and at some point Choggys was saying the following:
"My motto, prior to playing Rasputin under the Saudi Prince, is to always make of the vowel the tonic syllable." "I know that already, doc," I told Dr. Choggys. "Subsequ'ently, for example." "Subsequ'ently, for e'xample." "Wiederholen Sie bitte." D'i'nosaur, l'it're'ture, e'xtra'o'dinar'y, supercalafragel'i'sticexpialadocious. Sophistication will saturate you over motherfucker, he reassured me. MEINE Raffinesse is sehr, sehr gut, he reassured me. † Our sessions took to the street when the traveling Russian circus came to make its three-day festival of our tiny, unpronounceable village, and Choggys, parading through it, exuded confidence for everyone's benefit, making small talk with peasant folk, women and Africans in the Russian language. Had they been Arabic speakers like myself, he'd never have acknowledged their existence. If I'd asked him: ‘What did that one just say, Dr. Choggys?' then Choggys would not translate their words, but rather summarize for them their words, and usually proceed by briefly psychoanalyzing them, too. I offer an example: This one says that he wonders what I am doing in this country, and if I am a diplomat. I told him that he should be careful to ask only questions that require definite answers, the Maoist. Dr. Choggys had pushed a young Slav into the mud who had stepped on Dr. Choggys' shoes. He tiptoed over the man and sniggered. "In a mud-puddle, I am the absence of mud-puddle," Choggys recited above the filthy young Slav, temporarily blinded and very, very sad. But then, just beyond the mud-puddle where the Slav had once been standing, some form of gambling slot-machine in fact was what was missing, and I said Look! and Choggys, half-embarrassed, turned and made to walk away. But I insisted for health reasons. I said: After all, Dr. Choggys, I'm paying for this! Choggys had no choice but to walk back and pull down on the machine's ruby-knobbed lever. First its currency detector declined Choggys' money, but secondly I put in a coin and the six reels started spinning patterns of symbols that couldn't have belonged to a rainbow, as if six-thousand eyeballs were rolling back in its head. Choggys would have glanced over to shit on my superstition, but he couldn't look away either, and soon the reels began to accelerate exponentially, and the ready symbols of colors bled into a canon, whipping around snow-gloss that gleamed like diamonds, then vacuumed itself up again suction-cup-like. Through the loud, schlocky humming of the machine, the young Slav had risen to his feet and came to stand beside us. Choggys told me, "Put another coin back in, stupid Fuck!" And Choggys screamed to the Slav in Russian, "You, clean yourself up!" But the machine was at rest, and the symbols were letters, and the letters, we couldn't help but notice, almost certainly spelled hollow.
"Us holes," I began to tell Choggys, who I'm sure was piqued by the sight of an irrepressible smile bubbling under my lips, "us holes just have nothing to lose." "Oh shut the fuck up," replied Dr. Choggys. I guess he thought I was only I-told-you-so'ing, but smugly, having figured him out long before, I wasn't. † "There's more to a hole than the gravity," I began to answer his question. "More than the plummet, there are also the feelings, like the feeling of passing from one thing to the next, hibernation…" "Oh go fuck yourse-" "Wonderland rabbits, for instance, will come and go through a half-sister of mine, and another one, my grandfather's brother, was the barrel through which Kennedy got slugged." "Ja ja ja ja ja ja!" He exclaimed his disinterest. "Friends of mine are just about everything imaginable, from trenches so-to-speak where tyrants pigeonholed, to Manhattan manholes, puncture wounds and wormholes, chimneys on anthills and assholes, et cetera." And finally, I noticed, Dr. Choggys was beginning to listen. "Believe me, Dr. Choggys, well-born parents will mobilize and leave eyelets for blue blood, exhaust-pipes on Benzes, famous popstars' gold pie-holes and other such things, though all prearranged, these hollows and suchlike, just as everywhere across the board in existing." "You," diagnosed Choggys West, "are a dirty, dirty man." Was. I was a great gaping hole. Succussing the shit left from passers-by by gurgling it right into the soil. Ingesting it straight into the soul of the earth. Speaking to myself quite often. But by then, however, Dr. Choggys was hup! so sorry, afraid that our time was up.