The Girl With The Pynchon Tattoo

“Shall I project a world” 

                                          -Oedipa Maas, The Crying of Lot 49

At 7:18am my heart stopped beating. I remember the exact time, because in a vain attempt to disguise my captivated stare, I fumbled for my phone in my pocket. She was a vision of enigmatic beauty and in the space of six stops on my morning train commute, I fell deeply and deliriously in love. Not a word was spoken and our relationship ended at the Esplanade station, as quickly as it had started. And it was perfect.

 

Dealing with people on any level transcending altogether inane day-to-day bullshit has always been my greatest weakness. I guess at some point I got cynical, or tired, or both; whatever the reason, it’s rare that I see any value in making the effort to get to know new people. Having a few good friends is important, but having a few good friends that I don’t need to make an effort around is even better.

Perhaps this explains my ongoing, unrelenting relationship with womankind. For as long as I can remember, women have been the root of my happiness, the sole cause of my frustration, and the basis for my regret. For a smart man, I’ll never understand the power that they have over me; bewitching, beguiling and (various stages of) beautiful. If it is possible to justify a Superman analogy, Kryptonite is an apt descriptor.

More recently I’ve attempted to avoid the problems women cause for me, or at the very least, have kept them to a minimum. Save for maintaining an entirely self-destructive and barely-explainable non-relationship with a girl who I should have known better than to fall for, I’m doing ok. Days are punctuated by my proactive efforts to pretend that I’m not desperately in love with her, while her's are no doubt similarly burdened by pretending that she doesn’t know.

I don’t use the word love loosely. Its corrupting influence has rarely reared its ugly head; I can count on one hand the amount of times that I’ve felt the burn. Going off of my career record, the classical preconditions seem to require some form of damage and clearly-otherwise-avoidable negative repercussions.

That's why I was surprised (more than anything), when in the course of a daily taxing train ride, the rules were turned upside down.

Train systems are a microcosm of the society they service. I'm often distracted for my entire journey trying to reason whether I love or hate my crowded, synthetic, six-car world. For better or worse, people are fucking interesting, convoluted (and not so convoluted), hopelessly predictable creatures. With rare exception, they talk loudly on phones about their tedious lives and pass their time reading trash fiction and celebrity biography.

In the midst of mourning another Thursday morning, it happened. The doors opened with their usual tacit self-proclamation, and an angel entered my invented world. Morning sunshine spilled through the doorway as she entered, seeming to suggest that it desired to accompany her wherever she went. Partly through the operation of the universe, and partly through the ineptitude of our public transport bureaucracy, she made her way up the aisle and stood barely thirty centimeters in front of me.

She must have caught me staring, absent self-control, because she smiled at me. If I had to guess, it was somewhere between that smile and the reach of her outstretched hand, that was the moment I fell fiercely and unashamedly in love.

Hand outstretched, she sought the refuge of the painted yellow handle, seeming to grow organically from the seat back in front of me. It was then that I saw it. On the inside of her wrist, hidden (but in plain view), was a small, simple tattoo; a black muted post-horn.

I don't think that snobbery has a place in the appreciation of literature (save for the obvious observation that the ethnic cleansing of all consumers of vampire literature might not be an altogether bad thing for the survival of the human race). I can say though, that anyone who has read and really understood Foster Wallace or Pynchon, would be amongst the winners if reading ever became a competitive sport.

The muted post-horn, thanks to Thomas Pynchon, has become a symbol of the quest for something more (or less, as the case may be). Scattered throughout his fantastical world in The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon used this symbol to represent a real, or perhaps imagined, underground postal network. His protagonist embarked on an extreme, albeit unanswered, search for truth. To his devotees, the post-horn has become a symbol of the quest to find something more, at the risk of uncovering something substantially less. The cult of Pynchon is small, but loyal, and a chance encounter in the wild is a less-than-remote prospect.

Some men like women with tits, some go for Beyonce arses; apparently my kind of woman has tattoos that represent remote and impressive literature references. 

From the moment I saw that tattoo, I projected a world.

Her tattoo, an enduring memory of a literary pedigree. Perhaps a reminder to her adult-self not to take things too seriously, and to never give up the hunt for something more.

Her hair. Medium length, straight; the kind of brown that confuses and intrigues, sensibly professional at the same time as suggesting that she is not altogether unadventurous.

Her jacket was rolled at the sleeves and responsible for helping my discovery of our shared passion. It cried professional, with a hint of party. I settled on mid-level management, or impeccably well dressed second-hand bookshop employee.

Her eyes were dark and deep. The kind of deep in which I'm easily lost, and the kind of eyes that have corrupted me before. In a shared gaze which lasted longer than it should have, she used those eyes to place an indelible mark on my soul. 

I would not dared to have spoken to her, because in my projected world she was as perfect as she could have been. In that instant, and in that place, I was more in love with her than I could ever have imagined. For that time, neither she or I were broken, and it was the best feeling in the world. 

"But with a sigh he released her hand,

while she was so lost in the fantasy that

she hadn't felt it go away, as if he'd known

the best moment to let go"

 
She got off the train at the Perth Esplanade at 7:47am, taking her sunshine with her as she walked. As she disappeared up the escalator in the throng of the faceless crowd, I got the feeling that I would never see her again. Although it may be difficult to fathom, I was not disappointed. To borrow from Pynchon, it was undoubtedly the best moment to let her go.

The search for perfection is all-consuming. I was once lucky enough to know a woman who I considered perfect, and I managed to recreate the phenomenon in my projected world. The insane truth is that we are designed to waste most of our lives pursuing perfection in possession, in employment, in relationships, only to be disappointed when the unattainable reality sets in. Enduring perfection is confined to fleeting moments, with time and change serving as its mortal enemies.

I've since been asked why I didn't say something, or do something. My answer being a simple 'why'? In that moment, I was in love and everything was as it should have been. To say or do anything would be to risk breaking her spell, and I risk that I was wholly unwilling to take.

A knowing smile and a lingering stare comprised our entire interlude; nothing more, nothing less, and the search for the meaning of the muted post-horn would go on.