GAMES OF THE RIVAL CLANS
A NOVEL
by CHRISTOPHER ERVIN

CHAPTER ONE: Cluster of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of Time

My ex-girlfriend loved Dorothy Parker. She was just obsessed with her - in a cute way, I used to think. We shared a bed for years, and every morning she would wake me up and tell me all her nocturnal fantasies with feverish glee, dreams of the Algonquin Round Table, of Herculean binge drinking, of a phantasmagorically blurry New York unlike anything I could have imagined myself.

She used to recite this one Parker verse, sometimes, after we'd both exhausted ourselves, fucking each other. I think it was called the General Review of the Sex Situation -- but I may be wrong about that. I don't remember waking up, most days. My memory is not that strong.

The verse itself, however, I know by heart. It goes like this:

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.

Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to then, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What early good can come of it?

It always made me laugh to hear that coming from her. I had devoted myself entirely to love -- to being in love with her and her alone, delighted by the monogamy - no, the monopoly - I had on her flesh, her soul, her spirt. She knew this. She recited the verse because it was such a lie to us. At least, that is what I used to think.

She's only been gone -- I don't know.

I still make too much coffee every morning, thinking she'll be there to drink it. I still leave two towels out in the bathroom, his and hers, thinking she'll be there to need it. I can't even remember how long it has been -- two months? Three? And I still set our (my) little apartment up like for two physical bodies. I do not think I am happy or sad or angry or lonely yet. I am just confused.

Routines are hard to break. Every morning I wake up and make too much coffee so I can catch a bus. Destination is work. Work I agreed to do to support the dreams of a woman I no longer know.

I can't even tell you what my job is. Not because it is some sort of top-secret government hush-hush program, not because I work in R&D at some groundbreaking company, nothing like that. I cannot tell you what my job is because I honestly have no clue what it is I do at that warehouse every day.

There is a single computer on the warehouse floor, cubicle walls encircling it like ramparts. I sit in front of this computer and I input numbers that mean something to it, although they mean nothing to me. It is a terrible, ancient machine, the computer; it creaks and whirls constantly, freezes up unexpectedly. If it were a classical postmodernist concert piece, I imagine some critics would find it innovative and explain to their audience of attentive readers - all twelve of them - how "Warehouse Basement Computer Concerto for Bassoon" perfectly captured the frustration and exhilaration of the modern compositional atmosphere. The computer is not a classical postmodernist concert piece, and it does not play a bassoon. No matter how perfectly it captures the modern atmosphere in the art world, it captures none of utility it was actually designed for.

Like everybody else, I tend to personify mechanical tools. When my guitar is out of tune, I always think that it has a little head-cold. When the car doesn't work, I'll think it is just being belligerent. It is human nature, I suppose, to take these cold, dead tools we rely upon and stuff them full of motivations they cannot actually express.

I have not personified the warehouse basement computer like that. It is neither good nor evil, friendly nor temperamental, submissive nor rambunctious. It just... is. It is.

It is terrible performing it's primary computer-ly functions, yes. But I cannot bring myself to loathe the machine, because it is merely a tool.

Loathe the management, loathe the weapons-makers and the pharmaceutical companies and the cabal of diamond dealers in Antwerp; loathe not the goods these jackasses pedal.

That sounds like something my ex would think.

I have a lunch break every day, which I spend with the union boys who do all the actual work in our warehouse. We all pile into Frank's car and he drives us to this little pub called Quibbles'. I sit and laugh, eat a terrible BLT sandwich, smoke a couple Pall Mall's, and join in as my co-workers engage in their lunchtime rituals.

It looks like a pagan rite.

First, Frank and Iggy shout "Cans and Knives! Bring 'em here!" The staff at Quibbles' will bring over something like a dozen 16 oz. cans of Natural Ice and as many steak knives to our table.

"Up with People!" our group of 13 shouts once - like a gunshot, or a fanfare. Afterwards, this mantra is repeated, "up with people, up with people, up wiTH PEOPLE, UP WITH PEOPLE!" in crescendo. Then a number of us shotgun the beers -- some days, we all do it, and some days, only Frank and Iggy do it.

Frank will then shout something completely out of place -- "Fernadomania!" or "SUN DON'T BURN WITH COPPERTONE!" -- and begin telling us a variation of the same basic monologue, which goes something like this:

"Fuck you if you think you're life is bullshit, you fags. Fuck you if you think this job is bullshit or if you think your wife and kids are bullshit. Fuck you if you even for a moment doubt how much I love all of you, how much I love being here. Oh, and fuck you faggots for thinking I want to fuck you just 'cuz I'm man enough to admit that I love your dumb asses. Grow up.

"This is what we got and this is who we are. And it is great, so fucking great I want to break down and cry like a pussy sometimes. Now let's get back to fucking work!"

So back into Frank's van we go, reeking of beer and cheap cigarettes. Some of them operate heavy machinery after lunch, but so far, no disasters.

I suppose I am some sort of manager at the warehouse. Laborers labor; managers enter meaningless numbers into ancient computers. No one treats me like a supervisor or manager because I have no skill supervising or managing, ever, in any facet of life. All I have to do is look around our (my) apartment: dozens of unwashed coffee cups, mismatched pairs of shoes, overflowing ashtrays. At this time, they are all, more or less, interchangeable.

I get off work around 5:30 every evening and ride the bus back to our (my) apartment. It is a 30 minute trip, I'd guess. I usually just plug those iPod earbuds into my head; I am starting to realize that my cubicle at work and my iPod at travel are all, more or less, interchangeable.

This is my unbreakable routine. As much as I used to hate it, spending so much of my time and energy away from my ex, is as much as I cherish it, now. You can invest so much of their physic energy in a single place that suddenly losing that place will ruin you.

On May 16th, my unbreakable routine broke.

INTERLUDE: May 16th, 1906, Graz, Vienna.

Gustav Mahler wasn't sure about Richard Strauss on the sixteenth of May in the year of our Lord 1906.

Strauss wanted to spend the day in the hills above the city, picnicking and relaxing in the company of his friend. Mahler, who was in no mood to picnic but certain Strauss would somehow manage to screw even so elementary a task as this one up, agreed to join him.

"I would like Alma to come along, too." Richard said quietly (in German).

"Then she will come." Malher said. (also in German.)

The three of them, Gustav Malher, Richard Strauss, and Alma Malher, met up in front of Court Opera House; Malher was the Director of the Court Opera, one of the most prestigious and coveted titles available for any conductor in the day and age. He had hoped to begin this expedition earlier in the day, but the rainy weather in the morning prevented an early departure.

Malher noticed a photographer lurking in the shadows of his great hall and shouted out to him (again, in German).

"Excuse me!"

The photographer jumped, startled. "Oh -- yes?" he said.

"Take our photograph. This will be a historic day, and history will appreciate some evidence of it."

"Um - okay," the photographer said. The three celebrities posed, and the photographer took their picture.

Then Malher, Strauss, and Alma climbed into Malher's opulent coach and started up, climbing the gentle hills that surrounded Graz. Malher could not deny the beauty of his current home: the morning's rain had cleared, and the clouds were gone; Mahler halfway believed the weather cowered to his will for just this one day. It shall not rain tonight.

Richard had grabbed a copy of the morning's Grazer Tagespost, which he was idly flipping though as the coach traveled.

"Here, Gustav -- look at this. The English minister of war is saying that he "knows Germany and loves Germany's literature and philosophy." He can recite passages of Faust by heart! Is that not a peculiar thing to say?"

Mahler leaned over to look at the paper. Sure enough, the Lord Haldane was blathering on about his love of Germany -- but Mahler was more interested in the other leads: Croatia's Serbo-Croat alliance was gathering force, and in Russia the Tsar had just dissolved the Duma. Not that much more interested, perhaps, but at least the other stories had some weight behind them.

Of course, the only item in the paper that interested either men was Ernst Decsey's preview of the Graz Court premiere of Strauss' Salome.

"Strauss' tone-color world, his polyrhythms and polyphony, his bursting out of the narrowness of the old tonality -- Salome is nothing less than his fetish ideal of an Omni-Tonality. No serious lover of music will miss this performace tonight." wrote Decesy.

"Yes -- very interesting, Richard," Mahler said at last. Alma scribbled away in her notebook. The coach stopped in front of an old inn and the three headed inside and sat down on a dilapidated wooden bench.

Mahler looked at Strauss, sitting carefree and quiet across him at the table. He judged his rival's appearence. Richard was a tall, lanky man. His chin was weak, his balding forehead protuberant, but his eyes -- sunken deep in his face -- those eyes could pierce though metal, Mahler thought. He thought of how silly the two of them must look, sitting next to each other: he himself was a full head shorter, but nothing less than a muscular hawk of a man, a Semitic archetype of genius in flesh.

The two men talked while Alma scribbled away in her notebook; Mahler appreciated his wife's reluctance to speak on this day. She was not known for her rectitude.

The conversation was banal, halting, and - frankly - asinine. Mahler skirted around the topics he most wanted to discuss with Strauss - the terrible cacophony and beauty of the opera, how hard Mahler himself had fought the Court to premiere Salome in their - no, his! - House, how he had threatened to leave Vienna altogether if Salome was to be banned from performance, how sad that Dresden, a backwards nowhere regarding music, rather than Vienna had been the location of Salome's premiere, how feverish his impatience and how boundless his excitement had been when he came to Dresden to hear Salome, how greatly he admired Strauss and how greatly he despised him.

Richard was not going to talk about Salome, certainly not today. Mahler knew Strauss was a pure kind of German, without poses, without long-winded speeches, little gossip and no inclination to talk about himself or his work; an indecipherable little genius piece of shit.

The sun began to go down. Mahler grew nervous - Strauss, of course, heightened his appearance of nonchalance. Alma continued to scribble.

The tension became unbearable. With as much caution and reserve as he could muster, Mahler spoke:

"Richard, I do think we should be getting back to the Hotel Elefant. We - you need to get ready for the performance."

"Let 'em wait. They can't start without me, you know." Strauss said.

Mahler leapt up from his seat; a peculiar mixture of megalomania, paranoia, rage, and delight coursed though his body until it saturated him and began to seethe though his pores.

"If you won't go, then I will - and conduct in your place," he said.

Strauss laughed heartily, and his cheer infected Mahler, who then realized the grandiosity of his pronouncement was perhaps a little bit over the top.

As dusk fell upon Vienna, the three rushed back to the Court Opera -- in a chaffered car, no less.

The atmosphere inside was electric and eclectic. The newly rich mingled with the aristocratic, and the poor music-lovers of Vienna shoved their way into every crevice of the great House. Arnold Schoenberg, having seen the Dresden premiere with only a few of his students, had this time brought his entire entourage. Johann Strauss's widow, bitter that this provocateur shared her beloved, deceased husband's surname, came for reasons so complicated that Mahler didn't bother worrying himself with them. (Also in attendance was a teenager who later became rather infamous. His name was Adolf Hitler.) Richard and Gustav hurried backstage without creating much commotion - only a handful of patrons had space enough to see anything other than the limbs and heads of their neighbors -- and Strauss changed into his formal conducting clothing much faster than Mahler had anticipated such a lanky man could manage to.

"I am ready," Strauss said to Mahler.

"Then go. Go. Change the world tonight." Mahler said.