He has never played drums before…not in his whole life. He keeps a beat like a firing squad…everything comes out at once and assails your entire body. The difference is that I am not blindfolded…and I have committed no crime. I don’t deserve this. I think of every excuse I can to justify his poor drumming. He has some kind of paulsy and he is just expressing himself. He is a very special drummer. He is worthy of respect for his courage. He deserves a pat on the back…but not much more than that. He won’t take any self-respecting woman home with him. Not here. Not in the Walrus and Carpenter. This is no place for a self-respecting woman. This is a refuge for men who’ve been beaten to self-degradation by self-respecting women. This is where we come to self-medicate. A waiter with bad facial hair. A guy who’s his apartment’s own personal Santa Claus impersonator…every year. And now an autistic beatsmith. I ask an older Middle Eastern man for a cigarette. He has patches on the elbows of his brown leather jacket and is balding, but the collar of his sea-green polo is nevertheless popped. As he hands me the cigarette, I catch a glimpse of his large silver wristwatch. Ten O’ clock.

    “This guy is terrible.” I say.
    “Yeah. Really bad,”
    “Where are you from?” I ask.
    “Originally?” he asks back.
    “Yeah,”
    “I spent thirty years in South Africa,”
    “So were you born there…or…”
    “No. Not in Africa, no.”
    I look at him pensively and take a long drag from my cigarette. I don’t smoke.
    “And you?” he asks.
    “America,”
    “Where in America?”
    I am caught off-guard. I don’t expect an Englishman to know the States. I can’t name all of them off. I know some people who can. Alphabetically. Freaks.
    “Originally?” I ask back, “Ohio.”
    He closes his eyes and nods, knowingly. What does he know, this man of Africa?
    “I have heard things,” he says, smoke filtering slowly out of his nostrils, “about Ohio.”
    I am intrigued. “Such as?”
    He opens one eye, but only a little bit. “Is it true what they say about girls in Ohio?”
    Oh my God. He certainly is not a man of Africa. He is a man of the world. He is Brainiac. He is Ozymandias. He is the Shadow.
    I watch him put out his cigarette and I put mine out in turn. “It’s true,” I say.
    He laughs and I see his teeth. Yellow. Faded. Antique. “I knew it.”
    “Where did you hear about the girls in Ohio?”
    “A soldier passed through here. Nineteen years ago, yesterday. Or maybe today. He was from Ohio,”
    “How can you remember that?”
    “He passed through for about a year…and he told me something I would never forget,”
    I leaned forward on my barstool. “What did he say?”
    “He said…and I will never forget this… ‘Frank,’ because I went by the name Frank at the time, and still do on occasion, he said ‘Frank…if you’re ever stuck and feeling lonely, just remember…there’s a girl who’s just as lonely as you in Ohio…and buddy, they’re the downright dirtiest company you can find.’ I’ve been on every continent on Earth…and I’ve still never been to Ohio…and you know, I still feel lonely.” He lights a cigarette and exhales, “Bullshit.” The word drifts on a cloud of smoke.
    “What happened to the soldier?” I ask after a long pause.
    “Cedric the publican got a letter a few weeks back. From his family. In Cincinatti.”
    “What’d it say?”
    “He died. Somewhere in the Atlantic.”
    “Oh.”
    “But his family is fine. Two kids. Beautiful wife, an Ohio girl herself. Obviously. They sent a picture.” He points at a Kodak photograph nailed to the wall near the wines.
    The autistic drummer opens the door as white light pours in and blows through the smoke, piercing past my eyelids. I look over at Frank’s watch.
Ten O’clock. In the morning.
“Bull.”