Quick movements reverberated across the floor, up through the steel frame of the couch, and throughout his skull. He opened his eyes to see Jack moving hurriedly about the apartment. “Up,” he said as if he had said it more than once, sounding impossibly sober. They had been up drinking until 4:30am, watching Nixon, a movie Jack quoted incessantly.
He peeled his face from the couch and slowly sat up. It took effort to merely hold still. Jack was going to Hoboken to see his girlfriend. The hurried pacing stopped momentarily. A disapproving look was leveled from across the room. “You really look like shit,” he said brusquely and then proceeded to zip up his one piece of luggage. Slinging it across his back he rattled his car keys in a manner that grated on his desiccated brain. The sight of the bottle of red wine in his right hand made him queasy as he felt himself jostled and turned side to side as Jack pointed at him with the bottle. Watching the tumultuous sway of wine at the neck he felt himself at the mercy of that crimson sea.
“Where are you going,” he said. “No church today. Church on Saturday? What are you dressed for? Not for church?” he asked in a craggy voice.
“Jackass, let’s go,” he replied. And then, “I’ll drop you off.”
He dreaded any movement, let alone descending down three flights of stairs. Walking towards the door, the floor seemed insubstantial-it could give way to nothingness at any moment. Proceeding downward, each drop in elevation furthered the expectation of suddenly dropping away into a never-ending freefall.
It was only a seven minute drive but it felt a drawn out parade through the sunlight's molestation.
The birds were done with their chirping and the second shift of dog walkers, joggers, and assorted exercise ascetics were about their acts of perversion. 9:00am. The day alive and beautiful. He couldn’t wait to go home and give due punctuation to his sickness. From the day, a vampire he would recede- vomitos ex-comunnicatos, amen.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
A Peregrin Smile Page 7
And when you don’t care, you’re always the holiday traveler even when anchored at home. The things that dig deeply into everyone else don’t touch you. In that way he was always the tourist. Why we love the rock star, the artist, the actor, writers, and simply anyone free enough to fuck off at any given moment. Of course, our adoration is greatly affected by that troubadour’s monetary holdings, but blessed art thou who hold this peregrine nature in their hearts regardless of low rent one bedroom apartments, colleges loans perpetually placed in forebearance, and swift pints loaded with the sharpness of hops and malty distinctness rather than driveling piss, a refusal to compromise no matter how many times you have to check your bank account before stepping into a bubble.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Billiards Transmogrified (pgs. 204-206)
With geometrical precision the first three were gone, two soft touches following a rude strike by the cue ball, the cue rolling back for easy shots after each successive strike. Too excited or overconfident, she sent the four ball into the outer lip of the corner pocket.
“Calm, babe,” he said, before coolly placing the ball in the side pocket, his voice, backed by melodic beats, rolling with the four in its languid traverse. The five slid down the rail, easily placed in the corner pocket, eliciting the jarring thud of wood. High tensile strength. Eying the table, lining up the next shot, vision expanding. Six,Seven,Eight,Nine. He searched for the best way to play it, his studious examination being filmed by ESPN 2 to be rebroadcast at 2am, seated on his couch, unknowingly watching himself, mind inured to alcohol’s touch. A mistake and she would quickly finish the game. The last three were tightly congregated, a group of friends ostracizing Six. He plunged a lime down the neck of his beer, sending a surge upwards, sipping the beer while he eyed the shot with a painter’s patience, distance rendering all outside his focus in mottled strokes. Gentle tap, a kiss, and he could place the six in the far side pocket, then break the pile gathered by the back rail. Those soft taps were tougher shots, however. That and table length shots along the rail. Would manage at times, particularly when drunk, to put it off mark, into the rail halfway, power robbing his stroke of intention. Nada ce tiempo. A soft kiss. A kiss, a kiss. “Only a kiss,” he said to her, briefly looking up from the table, a plain carpeted in perfect verdant felt. With his breath, the ball rolled off, a smooth ivory boulder across an immense glade, luxuriating in its rotation, across the table like someone at leisure through the bar, hearing the music from the seat of his soul, acknowledgment with the most placid of smiles, the ball bearing stoically it’s imminent meeting, looking past its divergence from Six. His stroll through Hyde Park, turning round the pond. Low clack, Zen clap, and Six into orbit drifting gently towards pooled squid ink, White trolling off in aplomb, hands in his pockets, whistling, or ruminating on the people passing through the park, the gallows door drop, Six in contact with the wood, the others left in communion by the right corner pocket, close to the back rail, two of them leaning upon it while sipping their drinks, Eight hanging out a bit. Seven the cute little brunette, Italian, lush lips, sheltered on both sides by Eight and Nine, friends vying for the same girl, eager, too afraid to let their chance slip away.
No chance of tapping seven and sending nine home. Could bounce it off the rail down the table. Slight chance. Place the cue flush with the seven, leaving her no shot. More likely to leave an easy one. Best to keep the congregation together, not to break the jocund company. Slip in amongst them. Introductions rather than division.
Gently off the side rail and riding the oblique angle, White smoothly coming between them, a ship smoothly to port, ignoring the companions to embrace her.“You bastard,” she said, seeing seven backed against the rail, the cue ball slowly rolling away. “Go on,” he said, drawing another sip. An air of hesitation in her study of the table, he pointed with his cue and said, “here, then here, and then-” “I’ll kill you,” she quickly interjected, a slight smile while she raised the heavy end of her cue-stick. She wanted to send the seven on an angle and pocket the nine. He watched the cue strike the nine past its center, sending it into the side rail.
“Sorry,” he said, placing the cue ball and lining up his shot. “Not much you could do there,” his words further stoking her distemper. Seven, blistering in inebriety, stumbled towards home, an apple in pendulum in procession through his mind, in her stagger pushing her friend along his way, colliding with Nine to drop him in the corner pocket, the friend pushing ahead, clamoring down the stairs towards the sidewalk.
“Hate you,” she said with her typical pertness.
“Don’t have to paint you in pigtails. You do it yourself,” he said coyly. Turning to Mike, “another bucket,” said in agreement, the music fully around him again, upon him like the rush of air through the Lincoln tunnel. Hardly overpowering, the beats and melody reverberated through all. Previously an accent in the background, it permeated the tables, the billiard balls, the cues, the people, everything.
The buckets came glowing golden again, bales of the sun, Phoebus bequeathing them a gift, energy of heaven pouring forth for all. Ambrosia. Ganbei,Ganbei,Ganbei like church bells languidly signaling the Eucharist, the nectar being imbibed.
Beat her the next two games, carefully making his shots and dropping the cue snug against the next playable ball when presented with difficulty, causing her to foul twice. Frustrated, she missed on other attempts, leaving the table open to him for two, three shots at a time. She botched an easy one in the third game that could have left her in command, instead letting him take the game, potting the final three with ease.
He slid the marker over, the plastic pieces clacking together to punctuate his glee. “No, no, no,” she said to her friends as they were chalking up. “One more game,” she insisted with flint in her eyes. “Can’t take losing,” he said, before pulling out of the way of her half-hearted attempt to pour beer on his head.
She made the first four with no trouble, slinking like a spider about the table, putting them away with professional aplomb. Cold stare upon missing her shot with the five ball. “Frustration or is it me?” he asked, chalking up, lining an easy shot. “Because the problem with nine ball is that you can go along doing so well and then one mistake…” and he calmly dropped the five, a low plunk-plunk gurgling up from the corner pocket. But she had hardly left herself exposed. The six was angled well off- the Black Widow would have a tough time of it. Would be hard enough to touch, let alone to not leave her several easy shots. Mein Gott, three rails, tilting forward and feeling as though the level inside his head was filled with Corona. “Side pocket,” and he let go with surprising smoothness. Coming off the third rail the cue ball hit its mark but Six missed the pocket, hitting with such English that it banked and came halfway back to the pile, strolling back from shop with a handle of gin, stopping to pull a smoke before reaching its friends. “Give it some Zhongwen- that didn’t work,” he said, knowing it was over. He watched, further ensconced by the haze fast upon him, as she bulled Six into Eight, sending him on his way- c’mon, you’ve had enough- plunk-plunk side pocket, ok guys, I’m out, the ball to his friends before exiting the evening. Nine left to eye Seven, finally left to primary purpose, while Six stood alone. Six disappeared while Nine plied Seven. A few words, yet she wasn’t having it. So sorry you have to go, the cue ball taking her away to a corner pocket exit. Nine all alone upon the felt stage, eyeing his drink, emptying his glass, seeing the world in different hues for a moment, a moment instilled with thought, what does- and then the assassin, white fate colliding, sending him on his way. Plunk-Plunk. Game-over. Over as Nine rolled towards that blackness, in the shadows the second he was sweetly struck, residing there in that unalterable trajectory, spinning, the world departing in transitory flashes.
They watched her friends play two games. He sat upon a padded stool with her close in to his lap. The buckets came as though scooped from the same mirthful stream, brought to enrich rather than to quell something destructive. “Lucky,” she insisted before drawing a sip. He watched the lime rise upwards, only to shoot back up the neck as she righted the bottle. “Too certain of yourself,” he said with ease. She quickly turned and he felt himself that lime wedge being rocketed upwards. Amazed by her stare, the severity atop her look of playful impetuousness, he kissed her gently on the forehead and said, “and you have every right to be,” the irises of her eyes sepia Van Goghs, effulgent russet gleams. She kissed him, a kiss of demure voluptuousness, which brought to mind that first night in Old City. Smiling inwardly, he sat with her leaning against him, falling back upon him, the world alive with tactile sensation.
He watched from across the table as she talked with her friends, then his eyes drifted away, replete with ambiguities of infinite warmth. Returning with another beer she pulled up a stool next to him. Pert with an inward curvature at the small of her back, she sat with Zen attentiveness. He began to make sense of it, the up-swell of warmth going through him. With that kiss she excoriated from his soul all worries of the moment.
A cloud about him, she took the next three games. No longer able to obstruct geometry, she won with ease. Even when he made her shots difficult, trying to be overly fancy in each attempt though his head was far too muddled, she found the proper angle. And in these attempts, he fouled twice, giving her play of the table in separate games. In the final game, he managed to sink two, turning the game over when he failed to connect on a series of banks- Magellan around the world to strike felt on his return. The room closed in as she paced to and fro. Watching her, he imagined the cameras, the spectators, the accouterments of a national telecast available at some bar in Thailand via satellite at 9 in the morning.
“Calm, babe,” he said, before coolly placing the ball in the side pocket, his voice, backed by melodic beats, rolling with the four in its languid traverse. The five slid down the rail, easily placed in the corner pocket, eliciting the jarring thud of wood. High tensile strength. Eying the table, lining up the next shot, vision expanding. Six,Seven,Eight,Nine. He searched for the best way to play it, his studious examination being filmed by ESPN 2 to be rebroadcast at 2am, seated on his couch, unknowingly watching himself, mind inured to alcohol’s touch. A mistake and she would quickly finish the game. The last three were tightly congregated, a group of friends ostracizing Six. He plunged a lime down the neck of his beer, sending a surge upwards, sipping the beer while he eyed the shot with a painter’s patience, distance rendering all outside his focus in mottled strokes. Gentle tap, a kiss, and he could place the six in the far side pocket, then break the pile gathered by the back rail. Those soft taps were tougher shots, however. That and table length shots along the rail. Would manage at times, particularly when drunk, to put it off mark, into the rail halfway, power robbing his stroke of intention. Nada ce tiempo. A soft kiss. A kiss, a kiss. “Only a kiss,” he said to her, briefly looking up from the table, a plain carpeted in perfect verdant felt. With his breath, the ball rolled off, a smooth ivory boulder across an immense glade, luxuriating in its rotation, across the table like someone at leisure through the bar, hearing the music from the seat of his soul, acknowledgment with the most placid of smiles, the ball bearing stoically it’s imminent meeting, looking past its divergence from Six. His stroll through Hyde Park, turning round the pond. Low clack, Zen clap, and Six into orbit drifting gently towards pooled squid ink, White trolling off in aplomb, hands in his pockets, whistling, or ruminating on the people passing through the park, the gallows door drop, Six in contact with the wood, the others left in communion by the right corner pocket, close to the back rail, two of them leaning upon it while sipping their drinks, Eight hanging out a bit. Seven the cute little brunette, Italian, lush lips, sheltered on both sides by Eight and Nine, friends vying for the same girl, eager, too afraid to let their chance slip away.
No chance of tapping seven and sending nine home. Could bounce it off the rail down the table. Slight chance. Place the cue flush with the seven, leaving her no shot. More likely to leave an easy one. Best to keep the congregation together, not to break the jocund company. Slip in amongst them. Introductions rather than division.
Gently off the side rail and riding the oblique angle, White smoothly coming between them, a ship smoothly to port, ignoring the companions to embrace her.“You bastard,” she said, seeing seven backed against the rail, the cue ball slowly rolling away. “Go on,” he said, drawing another sip. An air of hesitation in her study of the table, he pointed with his cue and said, “here, then here, and then-” “I’ll kill you,” she quickly interjected, a slight smile while she raised the heavy end of her cue-stick. She wanted to send the seven on an angle and pocket the nine. He watched the cue strike the nine past its center, sending it into the side rail.
“Sorry,” he said, placing the cue ball and lining up his shot. “Not much you could do there,” his words further stoking her distemper. Seven, blistering in inebriety, stumbled towards home, an apple in pendulum in procession through his mind, in her stagger pushing her friend along his way, colliding with Nine to drop him in the corner pocket, the friend pushing ahead, clamoring down the stairs towards the sidewalk.
“Hate you,” she said with her typical pertness.
“Don’t have to paint you in pigtails. You do it yourself,” he said coyly. Turning to Mike, “another bucket,” said in agreement, the music fully around him again, upon him like the rush of air through the Lincoln tunnel. Hardly overpowering, the beats and melody reverberated through all. Previously an accent in the background, it permeated the tables, the billiard balls, the cues, the people, everything.
The buckets came glowing golden again, bales of the sun, Phoebus bequeathing them a gift, energy of heaven pouring forth for all. Ambrosia. Ganbei,Ganbei,Ganbei like church bells languidly signaling the Eucharist, the nectar being imbibed.
Beat her the next two games, carefully making his shots and dropping the cue snug against the next playable ball when presented with difficulty, causing her to foul twice. Frustrated, she missed on other attempts, leaving the table open to him for two, three shots at a time. She botched an easy one in the third game that could have left her in command, instead letting him take the game, potting the final three with ease.
He slid the marker over, the plastic pieces clacking together to punctuate his glee. “No, no, no,” she said to her friends as they were chalking up. “One more game,” she insisted with flint in her eyes. “Can’t take losing,” he said, before pulling out of the way of her half-hearted attempt to pour beer on his head.
She made the first four with no trouble, slinking like a spider about the table, putting them away with professional aplomb. Cold stare upon missing her shot with the five ball. “Frustration or is it me?” he asked, chalking up, lining an easy shot. “Because the problem with nine ball is that you can go along doing so well and then one mistake…” and he calmly dropped the five, a low plunk-plunk gurgling up from the corner pocket. But she had hardly left herself exposed. The six was angled well off- the Black Widow would have a tough time of it. Would be hard enough to touch, let alone to not leave her several easy shots. Mein Gott, three rails, tilting forward and feeling as though the level inside his head was filled with Corona. “Side pocket,” and he let go with surprising smoothness. Coming off the third rail the cue ball hit its mark but Six missed the pocket, hitting with such English that it banked and came halfway back to the pile, strolling back from shop with a handle of gin, stopping to pull a smoke before reaching its friends. “Give it some Zhongwen- that didn’t work,” he said, knowing it was over. He watched, further ensconced by the haze fast upon him, as she bulled Six into Eight, sending him on his way- c’mon, you’ve had enough- plunk-plunk side pocket, ok guys, I’m out, the ball to his friends before exiting the evening. Nine left to eye Seven, finally left to primary purpose, while Six stood alone. Six disappeared while Nine plied Seven. A few words, yet she wasn’t having it. So sorry you have to go, the cue ball taking her away to a corner pocket exit. Nine all alone upon the felt stage, eyeing his drink, emptying his glass, seeing the world in different hues for a moment, a moment instilled with thought, what does- and then the assassin, white fate colliding, sending him on his way. Plunk-Plunk. Game-over. Over as Nine rolled towards that blackness, in the shadows the second he was sweetly struck, residing there in that unalterable trajectory, spinning, the world departing in transitory flashes.
They watched her friends play two games. He sat upon a padded stool with her close in to his lap. The buckets came as though scooped from the same mirthful stream, brought to enrich rather than to quell something destructive. “Lucky,” she insisted before drawing a sip. He watched the lime rise upwards, only to shoot back up the neck as she righted the bottle. “Too certain of yourself,” he said with ease. She quickly turned and he felt himself that lime wedge being rocketed upwards. Amazed by her stare, the severity atop her look of playful impetuousness, he kissed her gently on the forehead and said, “and you have every right to be,” the irises of her eyes sepia Van Goghs, effulgent russet gleams. She kissed him, a kiss of demure voluptuousness, which brought to mind that first night in Old City. Smiling inwardly, he sat with her leaning against him, falling back upon him, the world alive with tactile sensation.
He watched from across the table as she talked with her friends, then his eyes drifted away, replete with ambiguities of infinite warmth. Returning with another beer she pulled up a stool next to him. Pert with an inward curvature at the small of her back, she sat with Zen attentiveness. He began to make sense of it, the up-swell of warmth going through him. With that kiss she excoriated from his soul all worries of the moment.
A cloud about him, she took the next three games. No longer able to obstruct geometry, she won with ease. Even when he made her shots difficult, trying to be overly fancy in each attempt though his head was far too muddled, she found the proper angle. And in these attempts, he fouled twice, giving her play of the table in separate games. In the final game, he managed to sink two, turning the game over when he failed to connect on a series of banks- Magellan around the world to strike felt on his return. The room closed in as she paced to and fro. Watching her, he imagined the cameras, the spectators, the accouterments of a national telecast available at some bar in Thailand via satellite at 9 in the morning.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Caffeinated Meditation During a Penned In New York City Morn (pgs. 157-178)
Alarum, flashes of light. Blackness again. Rising sounds. Intermittent disembodied sound like in blacked-out film scenes; nauseating jump cuts, sonorous footfalls calling him out of his cave.
A delicate trailing of light from the closet door. No other light in the world. Not trying to wake him.
“Shh, back to sleep.” Fresh from the shower, shower cap still on, her hair washed last night.
“Sorry babe. Sleep,” she softly repeated.
Dormir, Dormir, Dormir, the words in gentle repetition, a voice from French cinema. He searched for the alarm clock. 5:22, the lines sharp and angular like stone slabs raised by an ancient people, his mind jarred by the solidity of those lines. Rose red glowing stone. Too early. Obscenely early. Go back to sleep, every impulse tugging him down like a thousand Lilliputians. D’oh. What they fed upon in resting hours. Rejuvenation. A supply of energy built back up. Synthesize it. Sell it over the counter. Never sleep again. Live our dreams. Fly in real life. Spiderman in waking hours. Dough.
Too early. Fade out again. A quick mental flash, a jarring incendiary, his purpose rising him from the abyss. A soldier to duty he shot out of bed, startling her.
Off to the shower in a rush, towing a banner of hurried words- better wait, I’ll be quick.
Emptiness under hot jets. The Japanese love a hot bath. Warmth reaching down and pulling on him, but only to a new place of comfort, the water another sleep. 5:22 am. Unnatural. Why would anyone- thoughts trailed off, leaving him a suckling child before the warmth. He sat in a stupor before suddenly shooting back to the surface.
He passed quickly through the silent hallway and streaked back into the room. Hurriedly dressing, his words a mad rush, bare-chested, buckling his belt.
“Where’s my tie babe?”
Seated at the desk, her delicate features replied through the circular makeup mirror, her voice methodical: “Put your shirt on first.” She observed him with a flash of scintillating indifference and went back to applying her makeup.
He checked himself before the mirror: shirt tucked in just enough; cuffs silver studded. Check, check. Collar starched, perfectly folded. Check.
“Where’s my-”
“Closet, far right.” Her meticulous preparations. Always knew where everything was. Could pray to her if he lost something. Saint Natalie. At her apartment, all items preserved in their original casing. After basketball, the ball to its wrap-around cardboard container that sheltered it like an egg, the curves of the ball bulging out to bare its dimples. Pump returned to its prophylactic sheath, needle unscrewed to prevent any damage. Boxes neatly stacked and shelved, the closet a mini-warehouse as she catalogued the present. An empty box the most depressing thing. Clutter. Something to kick around, a cumbersome weight on the desk or something tucked into a corner or stowed under the bed, an empty vessel waiting to be thrown away.
Alone at night, adding words onto the screen, or steadily scrawling in ink, the inanimate remained reticent. Reason he preferred to sit in a coffee shop or even a bar: the people alive around him. At times intensely up from the page, not quite aware. They were distant and close, dancing along the edges, jubilant about the periphery, and right there with him, supplying the energy keying him up. Flowers taken by the wind, ebullient light. Amongst the people you breathe it deeper. You are them and they are you, always remembering your purpose is never to get away from them. Can’t sit in a room, boxed in.
Re-worked again and again until perfect, he smoothed the tie out. Jacket slowly, methodically brushed off, his tiredness drawing out the moment as he harrowed a fabled fabric land. Lapels adjusted, he turned to her and said, “Tempes Fuget.” No look. Inner melting. Say it again. Throw another egg. Always late himself, she was becoming more and more impatient with him. You always do this in frustration, while he hastily shaved, trying not to leave a broken network of lacerations. Told him repeatedly he took too long in the shower, reminding him as though he were a child. Time this one. I’ll get it under 4 minutes, 5 seconds. Olympic world record. Slept too much. Lazy get up, the curtain rudely opened, the sun left to flood his being, all these images playing out via an accelerated montage. Criticism of drinking habits on a linear incline, though she drank more than enough herself. 105 lbs. Only turned red on rare occasions. Impressive intake.
“Done,” she said, putting her makeup down. The door shut behind them, trapping his eager compliments inside. Boxed up earnest words. Deliver new ones.
“Absolutely lovely,” on the way to the elevator, the words released like a child’s sailboat. Doors springing open, they stepped in. Quick rush followed by a metallic collision. She turned and kissed him.
“More and more every day,” and he kissed her again.
“Hope I don’t tell you too much.”
Even in summer, the first rays can creep warmth into New York City sidewalks, ice cubes thawing, an ethereal quality taken while the life of day is infused into them. In the dull aquamarine of early morn the myopic distance down the side streets demarcates the end of the fish tank world, one which you can only see into from the sides, the buildings corals rising from the sidewalk thirty to forty stories high.
They turned left and headed up Broadway. Shops closed, the windows dark, the few homeless in sight sleeping peacefully- maybe they did. A lone taxi on diligent sentry rounds. They stepped like children through a secret place, a sacred dawn, her footfalls- clack, clack, clack- her four inch heels calling the world to wake. Even the corporate coffee shop closed. Cross 112th. No need to look for traffic. No birds chirping. Nothing astir. Squirrel-less concrete trees vaulting heaven in the distance. St. John the Divine espied to the right down 112th. Never can see it during the day. Always ahead, eyes caught in the current, thoughts taken by the push of people. Look in their eyes, seat of the soul, bounce from one to the next as you pass, New York a swim of eyes resplendent year round, but no one wants to look you in the eye.
A precipice, Mt Taishan calling him to awareness, bearing down on him, pulling history upon him, the present distant from them in the early light, the world a lucid blue, a blue he felt they could drink; it would disappear with the emerging light, the dreamlike ambiguity of time and place that seemed so euphoric at the unnatural hour.
Transient Mt. Taishan, viewed from his spot on the corner above the grate, the transient penned in but free to go, his incessant call in later hours for change. Not locked in like Ez, but as much as can be, the pervasive weight on him, on all. You feel it the second you step foot- off like Ez soon- CROSS 113TH STREET, the grinder turning in his mind, bottles set to full speed through the factory. Clear any hindrances, discard the lees. He thought of them coming by and picking him up while he slept. He knew it didn’t happen that way, however. The concrete had to be suffused with every drop of your being before you were taken, common burial in Brooklyn.
Could go by a hundred times and miss it, the vision staying with him. Giant circular window, brilliant stained glass resplendent in the daylight, dark and mysterious at night, a dark pond bearing diluted shadows, interlaced concrete weaving, calling to him in subdued tones, a few more hours and the sun would be upon it. More vibrant than anything else even with the pall laid upon its skin.
He thought of her here, MBA entitled, dropping in the subway from one tower to another, weekends a swirl of nightclubs, restaurants, lounges, the taxi cabs spinning her round the island, the island a mad blender, the ding of the elevator doors heralding the after-effect, the spinning of the room as you lay in bed, hearing the commotion of the streets below, drunkards in revelry closing the night with their march home, bottles exploding, car alarms blaring, a fight sounding from one of the windows across the way, hurried moans next door or down the hall, noises singular or merging together until they dropped down altogether and all you heard was the stillness of the night briefly interrupted by the gentle disturbance of a passing car or the drudging crawl of a street sweeper, diluted sounds nearly lost so high up, sounds that quickly faded, swallowed by the void of night, the confluence of sounds he came to associate with her.
Would she know every step, the skin of these streets, the days coming and going across the stone fronts, the people candles amid hurried corridors, streets to be tramped upon or sped down, or avoided by a shot below? You feel the streets, you map them out, the concrete imprinting itself on memory, the streets recognizing you as well, something of yourself left forever in the places you walked, layer upon layer with each pass never to be erased, incapable of being edited. And there were so many streets here he did not know.
114TH STREET. The cobblestones of Beijing. Do they speak, passing Labyrinth Books, where he purchased his copy of the I-Ching. Grab some joss sticks and work it out. See where I’m going, where to step next. Unravel the layers concerning the layers he laid upon the universe. We can spend an infinite amount of time- his physics professor. An infinite amount of time trying to lay out the universal equation to see what we will be tested on...or you could study.
Empty tables and chairs chained to the ground or left stacked, entrusted to the New York night, the sidewalk barricades keeping yesterday’s ghosts penned in, away from a phantom stream of sidewalk traffic. 115TH STREET. Past the Shabu Shabu place they ate at on a previous trip. Turn off the heat, the soup bubbling. Perfect way to eat. See it raw. Examine. Eat it raw if you like. Raw diet and its benefits, Renfielditic properties from meat and vegetables. Or throw it in the roiling water, murky boiling waves a turbulent sea. Turn it up and toss it about further. No reprieve. All in. Born again. Great sauces. SAPPORRO, guttural Japanese rolling off the tongue, momentum carrying you rapidly downhill, winds from deep caverns.
116TH STREET. Newspaper vendor absent, shelter closed, soon to flower, light to
tickle it open, NEW YORK TIMES, LONDON TIMES, LONDON CALLING, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, LA TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, L’EQUIPE, LA MONDE, SPIEGAL, BOSTON TIMES, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, magazines for every season accompanying news of the world, plethora of words streaming to you from all points- PRODUCE JUNCTION- the varied scents tickling your nose. Somewhere the newspaperman getting ready. Perhaps on his way. Lone car passing. The mighty Mississippi yet tame soon a rolling roar.
Another orchid to the garden before the iron gates. At the entrance, sharper before the others, all beautiful. “A gift to be up so early,” he said, his head a dirigible supplying an aerial view. “Such a great boyfriend,” the words reiterated. “I’ll be fine,” he insisted, doubtful for a moment, his eyes down the empty streets, his words phantasmal, seeming to exist only inside his head. Concerned interrogation to his steadfast silence. “Better than watching everyone do their hair.” The hair rites never to be seen, only imagined. Certain things better that way. Childlike appreciation. How much it can change- perception meeting reality. The simple made momentous. You do it, come upon it with ease. It becomes your own, you paint it, smoothing it out like driftwood. No perturbing splinters. Ease of sandalwood, one experience after the next. Why not reverse the order? Madly jump into it. Approach her before they ever met. Catch her off guard. Tell her everything. All time his and hers. Could come upon you three years...three years before we met, late night in the back of a taxi-cab. She barely heard him. He was nearly talking to himself.
Walk up and say hi and you would know, somehow you would know. Anything to the contrary beyond comprehension. Information drawn from the same photographic plate, visitations possible at any point along the timeline. Go to China as a child, visit Tianjin- sister city to Philadelphia- in ‘83, and in perfect fashion, ni hao mao? amongst her playground coterie. I am the resurrection and I am the life, exchanging Wookie confectures with her, the tear of the box the perfect pickup line, four year old to four year old, flawless Mandarin, what a thing to have a visitation before mutual memories were set, before his first imprint of the Peoples Republic, tanks on and on, student protesters, the man who stood before the tanks a Jesus for us all. Sainted, the man before tanks, same year the Berlin Wall crumbled, people partying upon the wall; Mr. Grobachov, Tear Down That Wall, sections falling, giant Legos toppling- spurious collectibles sold- Batman/Indiana Jones the same summer. Sometimes you want movies. No one grows up on films. Nicholson’s Joker sure to rival many a Hamlet and Iago. Only genius could add to the role. Batman pajamas at age four. Batman, Spiderman, Superman- admiring Batman the most. Superhuman. No powers. Inspire yourself.
Someone else then. Back of the taxi, 3a.m., ignoring time’s confining qualities, their mortal selves merely awakening to something already there. Telling her, he kissed her neck, breathing her in deeply, bronchioles exalting in her song.
He could imagine the disturbance, the perturbed boyfriend, Natalie at a loss, confused, and then timidly telling him to go, the words checked by a sensation rushing through her body, a live coil of fire springing upon her soul. This is me, presence, the force of the eyes all that was necessary. Ein, zwei, drei, Zuppa! the crenels met upon the mind. Always converging, never twain, through seeming happenstance to happily meet. Time folding, dropping away, opening before them. Count the moments, keep them close, the soothsayer imploring IDES OF MARCH, the warning delivered, never heeded. Moments much more granular when they are missed: sand paper surface, minutia readily accessible.
Suddenly bothered to see her go. Trying not to mind, though he minded all the same. See her later, the slate voice said. The stone voice. Let her go off. An urge to be sullen crept behind the curtains.
Time to kill nothing but time. Have more than enough of it. Stacks and stacks, great pancakes piled high. Warehouses of it drizzled with maple syrup to one’s satisfaction.
Seeing her off, the door slamming shut, a cold shudder out across the concrete, he felt like a mannequin waving off the limo, watching it disappear, a phantom on the streets of early morning.
Killing time. Burning all we have. The envy atop Olympus. 5 hours to himself. Couldn’t imagine what she would look like. His reward. Already so breathtaking, his conception akin to a vision of the day to come.
Left with the pigeons by the gate, the lone security guard manning a lonesome post, a satellite station early in the morning. Close up and go home, the mantra heavy upon the air.
He walked in a circle, following a concrete grid of New York streets. Up to 118th. Turn right. Down a long empty street, academic stone building sealed on the left; giant adobe colored blocks upon which he wished to rub his sleeve, besmirch his face. Right onto Amsterdam- one concession to the Dutch. He preferred the Dutch spelling. Amsterdaam: the elongation of his yawn, the lightness of being along the Amstel. Long rows of campus buildings, campus elevated from street level on the right. The tiny domed chapel. Under the walkway. Ceremony and reception up there to the left sometime later. No revelry now. Stone silence. Cold concrete steps, muffled resound, chastisement for his footfalls. 114th.113th. St. John the Divine looming on the left. How many films? his memory with a celluloid blurring. Cross 112th. Little Chinese place closed. Darkness next door as well. What time? 11a.m.
Disappointment:
no chance, no chance
not a chance stop
at the Hungarian Pastry Shop
Wooden tables, floors, and walls a deeper shade of the same color in the dark. Peace. Order a poppy seed cake, breathe deeply without conscious awareness, while watching the people- students, writers, lawyers, poets, city’s assortment- about their work, religiously fixated or simply conversing, and then dive back, pen madly away. Run out of ink before you’re done, the feeling so certain. Before an oracle. Like a mortar, the refill dropped in. Found while working an internship. Long afternoons on the weekend, sitting and jotting down lines going nowhere. Short stories like forgotten children. Never finished or simply stuffed in a drawer- the only meaningful writing from that time. Infrequent journal entries. Random bits of poetry. Scattered pieces hardly ever a whole left to fester like the last sardines in the tin. Should make a mad Frankenstein of those hurried city exaltations, the words that faded during the week like some passing dream.
In sporadic trips, going out of his way. Any excuse to return. Subway ride to the Upper West Side. In town to meet friends or just to spend the day. A walk through Central Park. A concert at The Hammerstein Ballroom. Chemical Brothers there or DJ-ing at a club by 22nd. A play by Times Square. Spend the weekend. By himself (less frequent) or with Natalie (more likely). To the pastry shop for a few hours. Chinatown bus rattling like a tin bird in flight, air through the vents rendering his thoughts even more diffuse. Dull static hiss. Tepid attempt at writing amongst the assorted noise- children, cell phones, deafening headphones, frenetic mandarin, DVD players- the world going by, the blur of traffic, past the land of the Passaic, and then the Manhattan skyline, the frenzied eager anticipation of the city. Not a word to write. Live it and write it later, actions, mood, thought diluted by the shuttling expanse of time. Couldn’t get anything done. Empty carriage, feeling as though he should have left the book at home. Seated inside the coffee shop, warm deep colored wood wrapping round, the words effusively pouring out.
Where are you babe, on her lunch break, her voice a starling alighting from the void.
At the coffee shop doing some writing, feeling detached from locality, time itself. Conversation going on for minutes before she got specific. Not 19th St. 112th. Perplexed questioning. Manhattan babe. A little sore. Promises to come home same day. Went to sleep and he awoke at 42nd Street. Same as passing out to awake in Boston, the shuttle taking him to the T to step down the rippling steps of Government Center. Welcome to the Gov.
Soon to sleep on another plane and breath London morning air. Try a different route and wake in the future, short spatial jaunt, major temporal shift. All future travel either way. Going somewhere else. Can’t wake up in the past. Maybe at home. Frog in a well, she says. You just don’t realize, day after day, energies a tired sinusoidal flow, work never getting done, back at the same place you start. Add some oil, another of her sayings. Jiao you, but he wouldn’t learn that one until after.
Should have had more of it. More jaunts, more hurried trips, quick snaps in time. Think it, buy your ticket, leave. Show up, stay awhile then tell them you have to go in so many words. Didn’t leave Boston for college, didn’t even visit other campuses. With the exception of a few trips, he was grounded in Philly, in a way having retreated to that insular void again. Rather than evade it, he had to finish his book; he couldn’t leave it behind as he had so many other things. EVENTUALLY, YOU HAVE TO TAKE THEM SOMEWHERE.
His writing would inundate his thoughts. Then they would shift to her or to the lulling static, his world dominated by her even when he didn’t realize it, a suckling entrapment of his subconscious mind. No need to exit his sphere, Natalie effusive with warming rays; reading the course of light about her body some still night or meeting her eyes at the door. No need to move. Soul expanding with each breath, reaching further and further through the streets of Philadelphia along varied peregrinations, traveled knowledge of the city putting him in so many places, intimate with them all, only having to get away in rare times, the city sustaining him. He moved under the glow of her radiance in hours away from her, the principal upon him as the sun upon a plant in darkness.
Should drive out to the Grand Canyon; whimsical crossing 111th. Camp out. Get back to writing. Coyotes for friends. His words illuminating the arid scape like primitive paintings springing forth from the surrounding caves. 110th. A right around the corner. One lurching apartment building after the next, cut stone reaching to the sky, the gargoyles jutting out from the building. One a scribe while the rest took to their porridge, wise happy faces alive for him at this ethereal hour. Broadway. Koronet closed. No jumbo slices. Thin crust gold. Cross the street. Absence of taxis. Taxis for his city praxis, the praxis all his. No dodging necessary. Not the torrent yet to come. Up to the ubiquitous coffee shop by 112th. Check the time. Another twenty-five minutes. No sight of anyone inside. Another circumnavigation, his weight crashing forward, footsteps trilling their speech across the concrete. Complete the cycle once more.
*
*
Running water, the name across his mind, the pages flickering past, people slowly in, seats being filled, scattered occupants distant from the world at 6:50am. Infrequent frontiersmen streaming past the window led by tiny dogs- not as small as Parisian tiny dogs- or hurrying off somewhere, though not with a weekday’s haste. Pressure turned down, leisure allowed in their step. Placid gaits. Casual strolls, calm intake of breath, soft gaze, rise, fall, muffled footsteps sounding through the glass. KEEP WATCH OF YOUR BELONGINGS AT ALL TIMES. PREVENT THEFT. Wait awhile, hold off coffee thoughts. Read on, read on. Bitter black and perhaps a brownie reward to answer any pangs.
The world keeping a blue hue outside the window, a state yet to pass. Tap the glass, send a ripple of sound, disturb the fish. Reproachful thoughts for a suited man making making strides, briefcase in hand. Business on Saturday morning. He looked at himself and then back at the hasty man. Could you go to a wedding dressed that way? They’ll bury you in a suit like that. His favorite Beach Boys song again. Will be the only one not black or blue, his jacket light beige, pants black. 9-5, 8X5,6X2. Full fathom five an ocean dive far better. Check pressure sink below, bubbles rising, rising up, subtle hints surmised on the surface, deeper you go, familiars, exchanging hellos, and deeper still, aliens swimming close, making new friends, friends to bend your head, to keep your circuitry right, open it up a bit, do something different every day, take a different path home-harder for assassins that way- toast buttered with left hand on odd days, every other even day toast forgone in ascetic self-denial, half-way through the month the schedule neglected, routine descending into madness, butter forgotten. A spaghetti breakfast instituted. Base your day on breakfast’s tangential thoughts, Jackson Pollack #___ reaching into the rest of your day. Take a flight to Indiana, end up in Chile, enter into study of dead languages INACCURATE AS AT THE VERY LEAST, SCHOLARS BREATHE SOME LIFE, SO IN LOVE THEY BECOME, LOOKING FOR AN ASIDE, ENTHRALLED EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF NATIVE PEOPLES TO THRILL THEM WITH THE TRILLING WORDS, WATER DOWN A HILLSIDE STREAM, EVEN A SHRED OF TEXT ENOUGH, ONE OF HIS BAR NAPKINS FOUND IN A JAR 3000 YEARS IN THE NEAR FUTURE WHEN COMMUNICATION IS A MERGING OF ENGLISH, CHINESE, SPANISH, BUSHMAN CLICKS, AND TELEPATHIC THOUGHT, BUT TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION NOT NEEDED, MERE TRANSMITTANCE OF SOUND ENOUGH, BOUNCING THROUGH SPACE, EARTHSPACE, OUTERSPACE, THE DISTANT COSMOS, COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS, RINGS OF SATURN AND ASTEROID BELTS PERMANENTLY IMPRINTED VINYL, YET ALWAYS READY FOR UPDATES, THE PANTHEON MALLEABLE, A MOVEABLE MAPPING OF GEOLOGIC PERIODS, DIG INTO THE LAYERS, DIG DEEP, LOUD RINGING SOUNDS, A BRAIN IN SAGITTAL CUTS, GO BACK, BACK, BACK, TELL ME THE CHANGES, FRONT TO BACK, COMMON THREADS RUNNING THROUGH DALE, UP THE ESCARPMENT, GOING AND COMING WITH THE FALL AND RISE, APPROACHING THE NEW TO SEE IT RAPIDLY FADE, SO QUICKLY, SECONDS OR YEARS IN THE SAME INSTANT, THE VIEW LOOKING BACK SHAPED BY THAT WHICH LIES AHEAD. EXPECTATION THE BEST PART, A PERSON IS LIKE THAT, A SUM OF EXPECTATIONS. READ THROUGH THE LAYERS, FRONT TO BACK, DORSAL TO ?, SUBSTANCE OF BEING THE SUM, THE SUM OF ALL REALIZATIONS. GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BELIEVE.
The door swung open. Same steady creak, gentle elongation, doors creaking the same way in locations across the globe. Corporate teams on site checks monitoring the acoustics, sinusoidal imprint watched closely on a laptop, numbers dancing for them, doors oiled appropriately. Pictures of the scenery taken. 100,000 photos lined up back at HQ and scanned studiously. Find the differences in the photos. A child’s game. Any idiosyncrasies and you shut them down and order renovations, skeleton CEO not happy with fraternal twins.
Each one should have something different. Water fountain flowing in crumbling undulations at 16th and Market. 34th St. another Bronze Ben seated sipping a Mocha Frocha Hatte Latte, reading the Inquirer. Phallic dollar sign at Wharton school location kissed with devotion day and night, thoughts and prayers, Wall Street heavy in their heads. Subtle application of urine and fecal determinants after hours by the courteous staff. Coffee always fresh! Play area filled with balls to five feet deep, South St. location. Not smart enough for that though it would still be reproduced art, cheaper and cheaper imitations of a dull original, degradation raised to whatever number of locations, this number added to every ten seconds of the day. Radioactive decay condemned by Morris, Birmingham speech echoing ad infinitum.
Never art, looking around, cheap prints ringing his thoughts.
Sterile joyless frames. Glass cropped tight about the edges. Black metal trim a fingernail in width. Charlotte’s tick-tacky abode. Self gratifying handshake, an illusionary approximation nearly fit for surgery. As sterile as the bar on the corner of 2nd and Market in Old City. But you have to be at ease for surgery, able to take a supine breath upon your feet. Martini. Martini. Scalpel. Scalpel, old Hump Continental falling in love with America.
Big black eye going by, spotted dog towing its owner in synchronous trot. Could never get a black eye on that side. Always having one. Confounding paradox. Happy trotting Paradox lapping up the cool morning air. Paradox the dog. Nursery rhymes:
Paradox got lost.
Hidden in a box, Hiding in a lot.
All the children looking.
Lots and lots among the lots,
for paradox, hidden in a box.
Sullen lot, spirits sinking,
no más, no más, their wearied whimpering.
‘Surely, he’s always found as well,’
one parent coolly replying,
hurried calls ringing goodbye to Paradox,
Paradox in his self-imposed box.
‘Did he know? Did he know?’
the game played entirely too well.
Perhaps stoically insisting,
born into Lisbon,
or ignorance persisting the story’s crux,
Paradox moulles fume air swept into Beneluxx.
They swam out of sight, into the distance of the aquarium. He pressed his face against the glass for two seconds more. Paradox lost.
A ringing creak, the door alive, anew the sinewy scream. Officer Police to the counter in a slow methodical walk, hips dipping sharply, weighted at the waist. Long time Upper West Side resident, an old woman coming in a few seconds behind Officer Police, Peter’s mind roiling from lack of sleep as he surveyed the burgeoning crowd. Mother and daughter in matching light wool jackets next out of the blue, queuing up with them. First line of the day. 7:20am.
Gurgling choking spurts, cough, cough, cough, hack, in spitting fitting spurts, a goose strangled in starts, sharp rises, sudden stops, intermittent spikes, a car coming to epileptic life. From the Bronx, Officer Cappuccino, family from the Amalfi Coast. Looks Polish. Italian-Polish then, like John de Magnus. A cop not much for a grande latte. A grande latte not much for a cop. Too many sidewalk steps. Stay away from the foam- a noxious combination. Cappuccino for sharpness. Something for strength. Take Natalie down to McSorelys. A block or two from Astor Place. Drinking experience ingrained in his mind, still feeling the grains of sawdust about his feet. Same wooden tables from a century ago. Same stove. Sleeve being pulled, accent in his ear, you sitting don you don’ order from the bar, the waiter in the garb of his distant predecessors, jackets plain and neat, BRUINS AND RANGERS SQUARING OFF IN OLD TIME JERSEYS, mugs always clouded. One set bought in their entire history. People everywhere. Seated. Standing. Narrow space on the way to the bar where they stood at least two deep. Supposed to be mad on St. Paddy’s Day. Open at 6am. Drunk by 8am. The 2002 World Cup, out of the pub in Boston, indignant at the non-call, Germany going through one-nothing DONOVAN STOPPED BY FINGERTIPS! and at 9:30am the crowd roaring out, morning tea and coffee sipped quietly on the sidewalk across the street in serene witness to earnest stacks of Guinness, havoc unleashed upon the day, a final clarion call to waking, the sun brighter with their passage through the streets.
Off to the side Officer Cappuccino waiting patiently, sputtering sound of his cup being filled. Coffee served to the old woman while he waited. Cap popped on. Pop top.Slow sips, Arabica drawn from her lips, Cappo Cappucino from the hips: Pow! Pow! Dawn descends from twenty flights for a steaming cup. Sipping again, she slowly turned, slow shift in her axis and a languid shuffle out the door. Officer Police, one sip, two sip, white fish, blue fish, left the cappuccino within reach. Standing sentry, eyes upon us. Not a soul upon the streets. Guard these people. KEEP WATCH OF YOUR BELONGINGS AT ALL TIMES. PREVENT THEFT. Hands always placed as such, folded in front or tucked behind, boredom placing his hands in a hazy state. Why not over the beltline? Daring someone to try, especially in the subway when they lean against a pillar, blind to anyone behind. Give it a try. Keep them sharp.
Father and son two tables over, kid in Brooksbrothers impelling bemused thoughts. Mocha frocha latte extra foam dad! with assurance. Start them young. Can't be one overnight. Baseball eschewed. Stocks, investment options; Is my trust fund being managed appropriately? Couldn't help but stare. Dreaming of Wharton. Summering at the London Business School . One month of philanthropic work in The Philippines to add depth to his resume, his person. Time spent self-searching, gathering photos, magnets. Finish college. Goodbye to high paying internship. Into promising MBA program after two years of work, echoes through the halls of future monies bandied about with the attachment of phallic interest, conversation all the more entrapping, depth-less speech, though he'd think, 'finally, something to speak of me,’ a preserver amid static waste, a resolute identity snatched from the horizon. One who has money- the essential American character. All we to aspire to. You have your property and you can vote. It’s more the appearance we strive for, studying them like creatures taken poorly to their human skins. To wear the badge of ideal consumers. Roman bacchanals, vomitos an exclamation proclamation during the orgy's chaotic chiasmic throws. Compulsion. You have to buy. To be a good consumer best to earn as much as possible so you can buy as much as possible. Earn, earn, earn, or get out, the sea chantey song the island sings. Make away, this isn’t for you or please stay and let the air press upon you, eighty flights upon your diaphragm. Addiction. Would be unnatural to do otherwise. Same principle keeping us after SODA POP and the tasties high on fat, as we’re always salivating. Propose a national test: one week without a purchase or a second of television. A negligible portion of the population too poor to be counted. Choice absent. Even then, they do their best to fit in. Pack of gum every time past the corner store. Salty, fried snacks dirt cheap. Cream cakes. Six pack at said store on the way home, similar stores on every corner you come across. Fit them with credit cards to purchase anything they can't afford, the television, the radio telling them what they can have, the poor wrapping themselves in designer wear. Raise yourself up for a moment. Rob someone. Put the currency back into circulation at a later date. Sell drugs. Everyone behind the counter serving coffee with the latest cell phones. tvs cheap for decades. Dirt cheap. Keep you in the dirt. Or bring yourself out. tv indifferent. Just keep spending or you’re dead. Keep wanting. The fickle light always wanting. You're worthless to it if you can't join in; none of the smiling faces plastered about the subway, the highway, or the bus stops smiling for you if you can't take part, a condescending grin in every face. Wanton, blinding light. Anti-Neo-Platonist light. Submerge yourself and drift below, sink in a blanketing dream. Drink, drink, drink in the depths, jingles reaching deep along a languid path, the clown fish brushing past, all things barbed and scaly sharp, at your feet bubbles up mumblings from the bumbling carp, extremities torn apart, making it a pain to keep the brain dulled to sleep, from river bed to ocean deep, current never felt, not a woe among folds of atmosphere. Change mister. They just want to participate like everyone else- the hunger they wish to stave.
The dad returns, sits taciturn, hardly a turn of casual conversation, the cardboard cups chess pieces between them. The son interviewing. Serious looks, or trying to approximate them, gradually acquiring the indifference of abject seriousness. Not too long ago, he’d be put into an apprenticeship if not sent away to school. Shovel coal. Work the fields. Push the cattle. Time with Smithy. Learn the books. Set the press- five hundred copies needed. Tiresome. Break away and move to Philadelphia. Rolls in your pockets strolling up Market Street. Have to go past Walnut for that same cobble stone feel. The walk from 2nd in Old City over to South Street or the narrow stream along Elfreths’s Alley on the other side of Market. Rumination in walking. Worries departing in a walk, stones a slow mastication.
Officer Police, cappuccino out into the street, silent patent leather footfalls falling
further away, Corealis effectively removed from his thoughts.
Creeping over the building tops, an assassin bold in perch, the sun stronger in quick succession, nearly stinging, springing from the whiteness of the page. Flipping through, the background's hint of yellow hue long distant, the words emblazoned obsidian. Warmth upon his face, gradual growing notice, he thought he'd need to shift. Take the seat opposite, keep it even, turn the other cheek.
Time expanding, pages turning, slowly losing himself in sidewalk explorers, people of the risen world. Concentration taken, the narrative halted. Incapable of focusing on the page, doubtful of time's progression, yet hopeful time was drawing close. Extracted from separation by a textbook falling to the floor. The time, check the time. Wanted to put it off- slower when aware. Molasses slow. Dreadful slow in the golden light altered by his heavy head, a glare so disparate from the aquamarine of earlier. Couldn’t resist. 8:32. Impossible. Marooned, a distant moon for so much longer- where was she in the city? Doing her revolving part opposite him perhaps along the Upper East Side. No way to know, early dawn mumbling diluted in his head. Possibly mentioned last night. Any spot of the city. This early, could get there quick. No need to drop below. Late nights staring up out of the cab, high facades rushing by, or head Buddha-ed back, a smile beneath starry eyes, witnessing a stream of divinity, thirty, forty streets disappearing in that ride home, angelic warmth by his side, diadems at dance in his head. The lever pulled back, the pinball shot- she could be anywhere.
Read on. Thoughts nothing. Let the words make you, transform you, his muddled mind telling him only the story was real, the coffee shop a disingenuous gathering, a paper maché to fall upon itself when he left. And he was an empty vessel before it, creation opening up, blossoming from the page, language streaming in undeniable ripples in subtle sinking synchronicity, aural projections redirected through shining genius; believing in that other world, true ones believing there's no difference, the lattice structure slyly deduced, not lattice as in POST NO BILLS glowing white on a blue field over a steel structure in the night. Melt the skeleton away. Let us believe in the night not lattice like, meld and stretch it taffy soft, a ride to go on and ‘oft, curves and drops on inspired words, eccentricities humming away, pitching a fever, rush of air, rapidly through the streets, no-hitters on your beatific mood. Feel the framework in your day, not the connections to anything ecstatic but that which keeps you rigid. The real trick was knowing they are there, the microtubules across the skin of the world calling it to congress. Then you burn them out with calm indifference.
Submarine back inside that other world. Vehicle shed, he swam in bliss. Flashes of light, cymbal chimes, the interruptions distant, muffled even in proximity. Interlude- up for air. Studious students incongruous about him. Too early on the morn. Enjoy your rest, rest of the morning a repast for tired minds eaten up with glee. Awaken the mind on walks by West River Drive, recalling sunsets silently seated in the grass, newspapers smartly spread, comics, travel, business their bed, the words rubbing against them, leaving a muddled imprint on her bare legs, their arms, the ink lost in the darkness of his jeans, white sails gliding across a sheet of glass, the transient's sheet taken away, resting upon the grass, sun slowly dropping, two with Chinese Junk sails, brown corrugated folds slipping through invisible fingers, the last rays of the sun, Junkets springing to life about the Hudson- sudden spastic shakes, the table awakes, his phone in epileptic fits. Grab it before the dead it wakes. Message in a box, the phone the shape of a little coffin. Push. Decompression. Push. Decompression. Words alive on a screen in ephemeral life. He wondered if they could live forever, to be studied by future archivists.
Miss you. Are you alright?
Fingers walking, tickling the keys, a ribcage soothingly plied.
Not to worry. Seeing you off safely, a glimpse of you worth any trouble. Not any trouble at all.
9:17a.m. Sprawl of an emerging sun. Awash in this stretch of time, an exemplar of devotion, a communion with the hours, perseverance to signify a saintly heart. Mere bucket drops, tick-tick-ticking adding up. Could go off by himself. Couldn't change it anyway. Wouldn't let him back in the building. Set to roam the streets, to watch the city come alive from his caffeinated perch. Donde esta mio coffee? Several pats about his sides, his coat pockets, the fourth pat delivering: right inside jacket pocket. Gingerbread man to the counter, stepping through the obstacles, where were you at 6:30? his eyes asking them.
Steaming cup, left hand held, moist delicious sight atop the dais of his right palm. Back through the clustered tables to plant himself before the crowd, sipping, watching as someone's pet tethered to a post watches the world go by, a small satellite life enacted around him. Champions breakfast, bare staples, approximations of real sustenance. Need a Chinese pastry shop, his head remaining a barely tethered balloon. Curry beef puff. Bo-zai. Fill you up right. Any day to take off and be another part of American me. Pho, Vietnamese soup to be endorsed by Donovan McNabb, to be canned and homogenized.
Light warm upon his skin, inured to its passage, he sat and read, encapsulated within the pages, the words rising high above him, the burgeoning city sinking further from notice- a shot of yellow, veins alive with blood, pulsation, yellow cab activation, HONK HONK, passenger receptor signaling, the light going out to signal a change in conformational state, doling out the traveler across the city, the cab empty, seeking another, searching, searching, reaction enacted once again, the streets, the avenues to descend, speeding upwards through the streets, slowing for a light, I'll get out here, always the subway rumbling underneath, the sound gurgling up through the steel cross-thatch. Another flash of yellow in the corner of his eye. Back inward, leaving it to travel off into blackness. A bus rumbling by in a tenuous flash and he was gone, back into the book.
Ecstatic conversation, the narrator’s words eager about his ear, an incorrigible obsessive better than all the Romeos that came before. Honest, pure love the reason for his focus, his obsession. The simplest of courses, a gentle rilling. Honesty Hem's policy. Best words to live by, the ones that speak of yourself. His mother sitting him before the mirror, the giant wall covering mirror behind the couch; chin propped on her hands, following suit he looked over and stared forward, seconds distended into minutes. Odd thing to do he thought. Not a monkey face during a mad rush along the hall, passing the mirror, or a Tyrannosaurus brushing his teeth, just a slow steady stare looking forward, forward into himself, oddity of it dissipating and then all alone he sat, empty with that stare, wholly new to him but trusting Mom's suggestion, word's breaking the silence, a sideways look, studious eyes upon her, her finger pointing back to the mirror, Mom pointing at Mom, Lilliputian Pete turning upon Pete Lilliputian; "Always be true to yourself, no matter what you do," Mom's words, warmth of the gentle sun upon his cheek. What my mother told me, his own words upon his ears as he read, the door squeaking off in the background. Hardly conscious to the world, sinking deeper and deeper into the other, rising up in spurts, momentous upsurge, a great white breaching to find someone seated at the table beside him. When did she get here? Various people gone, replaced, more people jumbling about the counter. Back below, riding soft currents.
ES KILNGELT!, the jarring ring, a diamond dicing serenity. 10:18. Excited salutation followed by enthusiastic words denoting concern. "Fine, babe." Assurance given in triplicate by a patient sentry biding the morning, hearing the jocund choir- her friends- chorus away a quick goodbye. She voiced an ebullient Muh! and the line went dead.
Babe woken from sleep, stranded in an alien clime, concentration gone, he stared out the window, watching the people pass. Warm New York weather, blossoms effulgent, petals outstretching upon the penultimate morn, perfection in this light aglow with promise, no need to focus, simply lose yourself in the coruscations, happy dog smile, dog's lulling lumbering walk in passing, tongue lagging, happy wagging, devoid of care, maybe a thought of a squirrel long ago chased. Dad used to feed them. Out in his bathrobe upon the stone steps, then the wooded porch in Arlington- the locations drawn out in childhood but now overlapping like transparencies-sometimes only in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, enwrapped by the early morning air, laying out the salted crackers, even peanut butter spread, the convocation, the communal bread, the squirrels making their riled chirp-chirping sounds when the cat got out, running up a pole in Southie. More pigeons than squirrels in Southie. Dad would try to shue the birds away but would give in, happy to have any audience- the numbers that would gather- but always wanting of squirrels clambering from the trees to cross that emerald lawn in Arlington. So you've moved to paradise, I've heard, Fitzgerald’s older brother, the terse remark, so excited had he been, the backyard a rolling green sea, foamy in jumping tufts meeting his running rush, not an island amid a sea of concrete, a section of concrete special only in that it was yours, with your dog in your place, metal chain-link sectioning you off from the world- Buster wouldn't return the ball, simply sat and stared, played when he wanted to, happy in languor, would appear by your side- the driveway adjacent abutted by the giant fence, monstrous to a child, divider of worlds, MR. GORBECHOV, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL. Where poor people live, he was told, but why his question. First time for such a thing, Buddha's trip outside the palace walls. Projects. Like what they did in school? Arts and crafts every Friday, end of the day. Make Mom a Santa for the tree, coffee cup for dad, a picture frame (picture included) for grandma. First word ever examined. Projects. Were the houses projects, something new being tried out, tried on them because they were poor? He wondered if that was it. Perhaps a way to help them, make them better, if they were poor as a result of being bad, looking across the expanse of grass, the view of stacked apartments obscured by the dense clump of trees. A faint glimpse where the woods ended. The visual blocking another barrier. Another way to keep them separate, off in another world, only able to get a good look during rare rides along the street on the distant side. More human from that perspective, not something mystical as they were blurred into something fearful by the distantce on the other side of that wood, the trees standing sinister, dark strangers about a street corner draped in trench coats. Where the niggers live, Fitzgerald’s other brother sneering, the word distasteful from his lips. Had only seen one black family there, looking deep into the chasms, the alleyways between buildings, walking down the back drive, or down his block playing stick ball near that one section where the row homes stopped, an odd little break like a bombed out plot in Dresden, just a grassy lot giving clear through to the driveway and the giant chain-link, and across the field through to the people aimless between buildings never seeming to look at you or anything else for that matter, coming and going perpetually as though they were blind, maybe capable of seeing, but indifferent to the light, having acquired a gentle apathy towards it, white faces gazing off into the distance seeing nothing. Niggers just the same, the vitriolic response, all knowing and reproachful. When the Irish were black, years later, a freshman in high-school, first time he heard that he thought of Fitz's brother, wishing he had that ammunition at the time. Or reading Sister Carrie in college- ‘is a foine couple.’ Taunted with that one by a friend. Had wished he could ask his grandfather about that comment- 'when the Irish were black.' Type of thing you went to him with. Randomly put it to dad at the dinner table, Mom off with Annie at soccer practice. Pausing, quiet in thought, a smile spreading, he said, "first, he'd ask what your teacher's last name was. 'Wasn't an Italian was it?' he'd say. 'Not that there's a thing wrong with 'em. Let's make off to the North End abouts Peter,' and he'd forget himself for a moment. 'Young Peter, tell your parents we'll be gone for the day,' God he loved to take you out, you and Annie both. 'Borrowing the kids, Mom and dad', and off you'd go.” He paused again, the air still and silent about them. “'Italians. Not bad people. Great people, like the Irish really. Why the flags are near identical," he continued, assuming his granddad’s voice. "'Took all the same and never backed down. Grow up and get yourself a beautiful Italian wife'-his time in Italy alive while he said it," his father said, and see the kid you have, but I tell you'-and here’s where his eyes would get intense- 'no Roman ever set foot, not one-the English- probably an Englishman’s blood driving your teacher- they were a conquered people, why they were always set on putting it on us. Germanic tribes, Normans, Anglo-Saxons, Roman invaders, constancy in chaos- What was his name?'" dad laughing in the end, thinking how his father filled such interludes with easy laughter. “He'd brush it aside before you could answer, always his own answer at the ready, an easy smile there for you; 'no one's black boy, not even the blacks- what a thing. Black people. What a phrase. Only the people worrying themselves on these things black themselves, putting it upon themselves,'" his father stating it all with an easy air. But he could remember that time in Southie, an insurance agent dropping by the house, first black man ever to step foot across the threshold, let alone all of Southie- some cruel trick played by his manager he later thought. Creeping below the top step with his sister, both in their pajamas, eyeing their father, the air heavy with tension, like watching Archie Bunker in the flesh, his father’s best intentions sometimes distant from reality. And the drive to Disney World when a Statey pulled them over in Maryland: “give him a watermelon,” the words in a growl before, “lousy nigger,” heavy and grating under his breath. That's how he learned where these things came from, witnessing bursts of anger from his father or from Fitz’s dad. Even Granddad was allowed his philosophical leanings since the blacks were rarer than the squirrels dad yearned to greet on those early morning hours. The old man was given the gloss of a saintly register, but after all, where did dad get it from? That blithe acceptance that exists in every parochial neighborhood. When angry, angry like when working on the car, everything would change. Anger was the difference. Like when fighting with mom.
His grandfather, often stoic and silent, would suddenly burst forth, a myriad of thoughts from his lips. He alternated between this state and standing sentry about the house, seated in his chair in the den or looking out the front window, suddenly distracted from his book by something passing on the lawn or in the street.
He’d lead them to the T, he and his sister, the trips on any random day. There were arguments he would raise, points to conjecture on, the two of them listening, Anne having given up a long time ago, while he tried to interject, and Grandpa kept going, Peter thinking he hadn’t heard him, while he followed the thread of his thoughts until turning down another street, and then silence, the silence of footfalls; “sometimes quiet is all you can want, you listen to it and the world comes alive,” Peter testing it out like a coat you slip into, hearing his footfalls much sharper, the amplified rush of passing cars, a distant radio, ignoring Annie, “Peter, Peter,” growing more persistent. “Trying to be like grandpa," he said, presumably hushed. "Try harder," his quick response, and a few moments later he broke the silence by answering his question from earlier, the question Peter thought he hadn’t heard.
Through the turnstile-JUNG-JUNG- down the steps and towards the platform. Rattle of the approaching train. "The C- Copely Square. Let's go. Towards the Gov." Mad happy elves, they followed, a chorus singing in his mind, THE GOV!THE GOV!THE GOV! The whole ride awaiting their emergence from the subway that would open to the entirety of the world amidst the giant amphitheater of Government Center, the buildings around the plaza giants turning on their heels to take notice.
Maybe the people were projects. Test them out. Give them a chance. See how they do. Bonfires lit by the fence during the holidays, the silent flashing lights respectful of the solemnity of the occasion while the firemen's curses carried through the cold night air to drift up the alley like plumes of breath.
Almost on cue, a homeless man marched in slow shuffle by the window. Hat, scarf, and jacket despite the early morning warmth. Might shed some with the zenith. Probably can't tell the difference. Every day of the year invisible to him, absent of individual character. A dead foliage person, discolored to our eyes, let him sink away, the subconscious collective song. Lost to the elements of the year. What could change mean for him, when change brought nothing. Empty eyes. Weary, pallid gaze from a deep recess registering his notice through the glass. Why don't they all go to California, a friend of Natalie's said. Or Hawaii. Con-artists, great beneficiaries of charity- she was certain that most had a wonderful taking. New York Times article mentioned. BELLS!BELLS! "20,000 a year?!" he said. "With no expenses, they could go to Fiji. Start a colony, bottle water and sell it." International consortium of the throw away people. Meek shall inherit Fiji. Home-less Diaspora. What would the rate of schizophrenia be then? Could it persist across generations in Fiji or would the sun melt it away? Charlie Chaplin on the flag. Oscar The Grouch on the pennies. More peaceful than Switzerland.
Then he was gone, distant, out of view. Limitations of a window. Only a brief moment in time. Still living in winter or lost in spring, shuffling out of view.
A technicality of neuroscience, he told Natalie’s friend. Winter coats in summer exclaiming the hypothalamus’ failings.
Guitar lessons 15/hr. Best Deal. New York City. Classical. Rock. Funk. 25 years experience. Half the numbers gone. Tatters hanging, digits missing friends. A Perfect Day For A Banana Fish. The paper taped to the window of a tiny blue box- Apt. Finder. Find anything less than $1300 best to be a contortionist. Places fit for newly released prisoners. Acclimation projects. Little extra and the landlord phones to tell you when to eat, when to urinate. No pets. Visitors limited. Keep artwork on the walls to a minimum. Courtyard inaccessible except on the second and last Friday of every month. Twice a day make your way to the park at your leisure. Breathe in deeply the anxiety of the open air.
Students loading up the car. A weekend trip. Sleeping bags, tent, assorted camping paraphernalia. Bacchanalia over hill and dale. Alcohol, condoms, assorted narcotics. Only reason to have a car here: a jaunt to the country, a trip to the grocery store, furniture brought back from New Jersey outlet malls. Will pull around for the rest, voices barely audible through the glass. Cooler, inner-tubes, fly-fishing rods, sniper rifles for wily game, all loaded, his imagination’s play. Head up to Lake George, major seat of our history. Bordering on old and new. A replica of a fort all you can see. Burnt to the ground, fiery the number two pencils fell (it was Fort William Henry he’d later recall). Roman drinking cups. How you take it? the barman asking. Car share big here. Day trip or go shopping out of town. Bye bye buggy. No parking worries, the endless searches, your eyes a creeping satellite up and down the blocks. The love of a city where you can always get around. A yellow blur at night. Drop underground, switch from the 1 to the 2 or 3 at ninety-sixth or seventy-second, then barrel straight down Broadway, change to the N, R, or Q, out into Chinatown, Canal Street, or exit earlier, 14th Street, Union Square- White Stripes playing today- not for the shops, but open air, the people, the music. An excellent martial arts demo there March a few years ago- protect NYC on some of their t-shirts; Gotham’s ninjas. Get on the alphabet lines, stop by the museums, see Hakusai’s wave crashing, the Greco-Roman main floor, Samurai weaponry and armor, mahogany room overlooking the lawn, steps second to Philly’s Art museum- New York Metropolitan. The people blossoms upon the stone steps. Take a picture from high overhead.
Stand up, stretch. Effectively dominoes, his vertebrate popping in succession. Prolonged cracking, his neck to the side. She always made a remark. He wondered if a cold rush went through her. Sound of revulsion every time. Said he looked like a robot. Thoughts of kung-fu movies, Saturday matinees. Climatic showdowns. Neck cracked before the big fight. Fist crunching, knuckles popping before your opponents face in disdain in an indifferent final taunt. Bruce Lee.
Walk across the room, stretch the legs. Look around. Throw out trash. A to B and back to A. A survey by the waste-can. Several laptops ebulliently lit. More students. Cute girl two tables away, illustrations studiously examined: muscles, tendons, ligaments, bone. Anatomy. Medical student. Maybe an artist. Another text underneath- Organic Chemistry. If an artist, a masochist as well. Right brain, left brain, right handed, left handed sugars not the same.
Din descending back down, the world rising columns of black ink upon the off white background- crenulated, textured, dimpled- hypnotized as he stared, examining the paper, the paper as earthy as a piece of papyrus, a closer look revealing the lines and cracks of the pavement, his entrancing stare reveling in its palpative traverse, dipping and rising with the craters- a collateral effect of the press or simply the texture of the paper. Some born with the ability to roll the tongue, others dimpled. Not all possessing a cleft chin. The lucky few.
In their varying shades of black the words were textured ideograms, each character a picture in his transfixed state, a multi-varied image come to life, the simple stark lines and curves seeming to shiver under the blazing morning sun. Stone structures gazed upon in Neolithic wonder.
A picture of a baseball a million different things; a spherical object to an isolated tribesman possibly inspiring a myriad of associations through its familiar yet alien form. Only our perceptions make the world, he once read in a treatise on Holographic Theory. A book then an empty thing if never read. But the power is always there, the pitch ready to be released from the mound, the loaded gun over the mantle place, the third act to come before long. A golden ring found in the mire, lost for ages, truth and salacious lies possessing the same seductive power. Making sense of the implicit through perception one bears witness that the implicit is comprised of all possible points in space and time, the time of neglect and the time of reading intermeshed in the nether space, that rippling hazy sea.
First time at The Garden, excited to see Cam Neely. In awe of Yzerman. Bruins, Redwings. Couldn’t believe he was actually there, in The Garden. Awe never wearing off. A puck nearly dropping their way. First time the immediacy of the moment, a deep breath of appreciation for locality and time, came upon him. Bruins in home white, Redwings glowing red. Cam Neely. Transcendental moment. Yzerman on a slapshot. Spirit bobbing on a kite string. Veneration. Steve Yzerman.
High school. Boredom heavily set in. Calculus or programming, staring ahead, diffuse gaze giving the blackboard depth, words long erased overlapping and floating by in star-field simulation. Coming to focus on the teacher’s desk, its entire history and the history of that exact point in the universe unfolding. The teacher’s ties day by day, various expressions, changing moods over the course of the year, different faces for different classes, a maddening haze of quotidian aspects meshing with after school program leaders taking to that seat, a blurred rush of faces poised over that desk or any other desk placed there since the school stood passing at 500 frames per second, the absence of any visage in off hours, the room quiet and dark, spiders scurrying silently across the floor, no one teaching, no one being taught, that spot on the 2nd floor closer to how it existed before the school was there, a lonely point in the air, perhaps intersected by a tree, the tree torn down to make way for the school, or previously an empty spot, seldom filled, tenuously defined, at one fleeting moment holding a cannonball in its arc, for an hour every Tuesday and Thursday from the years 199? To 20?? from approximately September 6th to April 27th, Mr. Chicownitz teaching Programming I to eligible students, second year and up, Christian Brothers Academy, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Northern Hemisphere, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, 010100011100000100010, the spot containing a memory of all interactions in its history, history including all future occurrences as well due to its connection to the implicit, each cell in the body containing the full bank roll of the human genome though never using the entirety. Take a piece of that desk, melt it into taffy, stretch it out like a vinyl record, drop a needle, hear screams from the Titanic, a polar bear’s roar, Cleopatra’s chortling moans, the teacher’s voice, whiz of a cannonball, a hummingbird’s wings, an admonition in Cherokee, ein, zwei, drei, ZUPPA! the third Oktoberfest, a sandstorm in the Sahara, radio waves bouncing cold through space, commerce buzz at Timbuktu before the Sahara’s swallowing, Teddy Baseball over the Green Monster, Fenway Franks! did not have sexual relations with that woman, The Archbishop of Canterbury laying his seal, SPIKE burst of a meteor at the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, FLYERS BEAT THE BRUINS TO WIN THE STANLEY CUP! rippling effect of Supernova across the starry sea, explosion of the Hindenburg, Bobby Orr suspended in the air BRUINS WIN!Peter Harris, Stand up Straight, Heil Hitler, the loyal millions, ‘sooner or later we will melt together, Drawing Rings Around The World’ -from one of his favorite songs- fireworks popping to celebrate the centennial, railroad spikes driven home by Chinese hands, in repetition their song being sung, the words shrapnel past the foreman’s ears, Whistler arguing his case with self-assured words, Shaku Zulu’s exhortations, shattering splash of a great white scattering a 1502 seal pup, lazy lapping of waves upon San Francisco Bay, Wagner conducted by Wagner, echoing voices of harbor seals by Fisherman’s Wharf, the flash bulbs popping, Pele handed his first World Cup, Sister on The Challenger explosion in somber tones, quiet homeroom morning, A’s/Dodgers World Series earthquake rumblings, overpasses collapsing-he drove the same expanse- one small step for man, Friends, Romans, Countrymen first time on stage, Bushmen clicks, solar flares outreaching, magnetic imprints through the air, 1879 coal-miner cough, pomp of the Union League opening on Broad street, uproarious support for Lincoln, coal miners dying in Western Pennsylvania in 2004, parade of Irish footsteps from the boats to War, Gala event at the Union League, heavy murmur of the party, 300 and you’re exempt from service, the call going out, The Union Forever, waves crashing ragged at the pass of Thermopolae in the preceding moments, I HAVE A DREAM THAT ONE DAY, IT’S GONNA TAKE A BIGGER BOAT, WHEEL-OF-FORTUNE, static hiss, signal lost or channels changing, IT TAKES DIFFERENT STROKES TO RULE THE WORLD...DIFFERENT, CRACK OPEN A NICE COOL, THE REFRESHING TASTE, GRASP THE, ME AND MY FRIENDS LOVE A GUY WHO, LIVE YOUR NFL DREAMS, FANTASY FOOTBALL, COOL MOUNTAIN STREAM REFRESHNESS FOR A MOUNTAIN ROCKY GUY, NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS, GREATEST FANS IN THE WORLD, YOU AND YOUR FAMILY CAN ENJOY, ARE YOU A MITCHUM MAN? car crashing into the wall and bursting into flames at 125mph, a teradactyl’s screech overlaid with a kitten’s meow, a mewing kitten freezing in the night, spare some change sir, feet shuffling, never allowed from the middle ground of existence, underwater groans of the capsized dying, calls retarded by a suffocating atmosphere, cruelty of convergence, silence between tracks, a blending together of cold stillness, listen closely: a field in the spring, harvest, Aurora Borealis over the Northern Sky, the Pine Barrens still and silent, the sound of those facing death alone, the world opening up, children pouring in, sounds of play juxtaposed with scattered birdsong, hints of the spring he hoped, prayed it was such that February day, Grandma alone in her room, Mom downstairs for a brief moment. The world pouring into that room- God, all the world he hoped. A bell incessantly ringing, their voices with her, their mutual interactions dancing before her eyes, giving her warmth. Mom, not your fault, Grandma knew, the only thing he could muster, realizing later his mother never left that room, was always there. Everyone had been there. Hoped Grandma knew, but at the same time he knew she felt them there, some part of their subconscious with her in that moment, a wind both chill and warm through the normality of that day. He hoped for it to be real, to be more than a mere consolation. Heavy hydraulic press of brakes, the rumbling eager engine, a rumbling that bespoke a reluctant stasis, his footfalls clanging in descent, a jarring collision with the concrete, the asphalt feeling different from any day before, the sound different, hanging there in muffled fashion, misplaced neon green of a late winter lawn, corner house on his block, little beagle one house over, aging, white and grey in the face, barking and barking, calling over, hi, come over, bus stop a few hundred feet to the left of where it used to be- why’d they move it, the little dog left to wonder- no longer sending them past Barney on the walk home, can’t today, his eyes said, holding the kids back, the neighbor’s kids, Annie at swim practice, distraction, best impersonation of Daffy Duck, just over far enough to cut off the sight line with the tree. Who can catch me- five dollars. No Barney, no chance of them seeing, but he had to see himself, couldn’t take his eyes away, kept them there, their backs to that tree, while they demanded a different impersonation, blocked by a giant Christmas tree, waiting for the ambulance to leave, grandma inside, covered with a white sheet.
“Get out of here.” Calm at first, in repetition the words coming much sharper. The dull shuffling of feet continuing as though he didn’t hear, the world a soft senseless cloud around him, the transient side to side, in diagonals, and then semicircles as he gradually retreated from the coffee shop, diffidently mumbling, beseeching the crowd, no one person, for change, for simple recognition, his eyes gently beseeching them. He ignored the continued cries from Green Apron, demeanor unperturbed by what was outside of his gaze, the narrow scope he sheltered himself within. Only when the Barista came from behind the counter did he put a measured unease in the transient’s peripheral vision. His step slightly hurried, he persisted, speaking in broken phrases; “change to help... God bless...some change... I’m asking you New York...God’s children,” disjointedly, never raising his eyes to them while he felt Green Apron’s approach, the force of distant push-hands guiding him out.
He was gone, the door truncating the Barista’s admonitions, and off along the sidewalk he went, shuffling along the perfidious streets. Get out. Come back I’ll call the police. Local sanitation service. Street cleaners. No parking on the left side of the street 9-11 Monday and Friday. Same for 9-11 Tuesday and Thursday opposite side of the street. Wipe the streets clean. Keep the customers, the city, the people from all traces of reality. Buddha before leaving the castle walls. The spray devises in a sleek plastic shell, the boxes coming in at the end of every month on schedule from Watuk.
Should have some sympathy, he thought, watching Mr. Green return to his cappuccino machine, firing it up like an 88 gun, ready to shoot giant pastries or bagels from the sky, or pigs that finally fly, eager for the day, itching in his vigilance, eager to be the first to clip an aquiline pig.
How much could he make at corpos coffee, headquarters in Coprus Christi, corporate maxim carpe diem, insufficient flow of cash, a lien against poor Liam, out on the street not enough to eat per diem, carp for carping, leaving a terse requiem? To brush away the transient like a roach you beat at with a broom? Maybe it was simply that. Disgust. It was New York. He couldn’t be too judgmental; not everyone’s head was steeped in a delirium of bliss, the sunlight pouring in through the window to enthrall him at times with an autistic fascination. He couldn’t judge. Any other time he could have viewed it differently. Maybe, had the transient approached him, had he interrupted his thoughts, he could have been just as dismissive, or worse-he imagined it from the transient’s perspective- he could have kept his eyes on the page as if he were never there.
He turned his gaze back over to Green Apron. Serving up an iced bowel movement, shot of expresso added, lots of foam on top. “Sandy. Sandy,” Mr. Green calling out. Had to have other jobs. Maybe a student. Student housing much cheaper. Still confining for the price. Other jobs possibly. Housing in Queens maybe. Not cheap anywhere though. Even in a cell. 200 square foot apartments in every major city for five hundred and sixty- eight hundred. Labeled studios or efficiencies. Austerity of an eremite. Self denial, simplicity at home, though closer to the city center. Imagined himself living that way when the cash began to run out. Complement your limited space with sparse furniture, the kind you can chop into kindling or throw into the streets in revolutionary spirit at a moment’s notice. Bare floors. An elevated board for a bed. A shirt of horse hair and daily flagellations, pondering the mice and cockroaches traverse overhead across dingy dark pipes, pipes suffused in darkness above the removable ceiling panels. Knowing they could hold your weight, the pipes suffused by the darkness.
At a bar someone bemoaning a paltry 700 square feet. Recalling his first two apartments, he saw his former self breaking a bottle over that person’s head. Thought he should give him one nonetheless. Stepped out of pseudo-luxury- ha!- to prolong lethargy, the not working, work equating to zero if one ends up in the same place from which you started, so when employed, he was never doing work. Slightly smaller. Away from the Square. Spruce street. Several mod-cons missing. Sans door man. No furs in the elevator, such as when a decorous woman remarked on the wonders of it, complimenting the fake fur trim of his parka, justifying her choice to herself while he stood silent. Spurious, just like you, he thought. I know they suffer, she said- something you write into a script to be mouthed by an egregious self-absorbed bitch of the world. But it feels and looks so good, her body lilting in a 1920s sheik, hands smoothing out the fur, a wave of mink before her descending stroke. He wanted to tell her about absorption while elaborating on vampyric consumerism. Zelda, I like to think you get some of the animal’s soul as well, he wanted to say, staring into the reflective burnished front that held the numbers in their embedded slots, not black numbers painted on white plastic to be illuminated when he pushed them, but numbers formed of brass bulging out at you- one of the luxuries he paid for, those bulging numbers of brass. He kept his gaze forward and said, “the fur’s smoother because they suffer.” Wouldn’t mind people wearing fur if the entire animal was used. If it was killed in a humane way. If they didn’t decimate the species. Otherwise, they should make people kill them with their own hands and strip the skins themselves, pull away the sinews with their teeth. Dropped in the wilderness and forced to use every part like the Indians. Watching the animal’s eyes while every ounce of its suffering is absorbed into their souls, their own push for survival placing the death in perspective. Better to do it painlessly. Respectful, because the immersion within nature calls one to harmony. The situation impelling gratitude, respect. Humane and not a sinew wasted. No need to wipe them out, an ermine statement fashioning on extinction. But if you need to be inhumane, do it yourself . At least things are kept honest that way. Not much for fur anyway. Puffy bubble suit. Licentious connotations towards a licentious business. The silliness of year after year of imagination deprived Halloween costumes.
Indifferent to eating most animals. Non-selective omnivore. Save the swine. The unwashed and malnourished pointing out the restaurants that serve fois gras. People on and on about the cows. What purpose if life were a Disney movie, if their flesh was drenched in urea? Military target practice for dummies. On to doves and sparrows, ever closer to being a sharpshooter. Darwinism misconstrued as murder, though he was all for improving the process. Crushed together across an acre or two in a pen, ill at ease all their lives, disease rampant. Global alarm setting in. Too much methane, get rid of them the alarum going out. But that’s how progress is made, the first soundings bespeaking delirium, an unflinching demand that is gradually adjusted as the call is taken up by the masses.
Ring!Ring! Jumbling resounding ring-tone, stuttering steps of the phone vibrating upon the tabletop.
“Hello,” staring into the street; cars gliding by, sun’s warmth upon him; the feeling of someone watching him.
“You okay baby?” the buoyant question, her first words lost in the rapid rush, the commotion surrounding her. Chorus of hellos thrice delivered. “Fine Fine Fine,” he assured her, each minute a fin well spent.
“Sure babe. Fifteen minutes. See you then.” Her doubts still present. Doubting his patience. His only bit of trepidation dissipated hours ago. Time to read. In meditation staring out the window, watching the city rise. Difference between them. Why he could go off to bars
alone. Wanted her to believe it, but she couldn’t comprehend such a thing. Misinterpreted the calm in his voice for underlying disquiet.
“Got through a lot of my book. Really, its okay.”
Rhythmic goodbye, sweet undulations in her voice: her smile, suppliant eyes, complexion before the moon, that girlish preening pose before him, his hands along the firmness of her waist.
Exit directly to right, gone from the caffeinated stage into the aerated world suffused with
aspirations. Wait by the gates, 116 and Broadway, Columbia University. Will be there in the immediate future, the future immediately moving on, a boulder taking you with it, no time to look around, enjoy the ride. 113. Finally getting things on. Motion worker, the day commencing. His mind lost amid the wonder of the glaring sun imagining the vision to come. Hair, makeup, jewelry, accessories. Wedding ready, the wedding prepared, close captioning for the hearing impaired. Morningside open. 114. Sidewalk brunch, lunch, exercise, last nights excursions exorcized. Where have the dogs gone? Other side of the street, past dual yellow cabs streaking in opposite directions. Yorkie Yorkie, ich liebe Neue York. My kingdom, my kingdom for a condor, a bald eagle overhead. Sophocles Descend! Pick out the delicious sidewalk traffic. No, no, that one there, sunflower skirt, solar flare burst. 115. Two cars, a third speeding forward. Slow down- WAIT. Stroll across. So fast, her words alive in his mind, always checking his hurried stride. Could clean up in the run-walk. Lawyers and accountants in that one. Slightest sign of perspiration and termination toute de suite! terminated repeating in sharp echoes like the bounce of a rock down a craggy cliff, a robotic word put to metallurgic minds. And they’re off, nervous twitch, sweaty dynamite, up and down the elevators, in and out the doors, some standing outside the doors, no time to burn down their smokes, hurry, no time to talk, eyes pinned forward, clack, clack, clack, polished shoes towards where they go, everyday a race, transient spectators exhaling gun-smoke in the eaves.
Newspaperman to his wares. The world electric speaking, voices fragrant in print. Get the ink of the world all over your hands grabbing several, gliding palms overtop. Immediate updates online, rendering the paper the after-flash of the media onrush, the cacophony of sight and sound accentuated with live streaming video and pod-casts, information filtered out further, thoughts and stricture rendered by everyone with access. Not too long ago the ink wait was all we had.
116. Waiting for the light. Steady flow of traffic. Don’t run, feeling he could suddenly leap into it, unable to hold back. Sidewalk and street two adjacent streams, either one to sweep you away. Light green. Tiny white figure. Deity of safe crossing. Antithesis of the god, the fates who brought the cabs hurtling upon you, legs swinging, hips loose in their sockets, not minding the ride through warm air that stretches out forever.
Would have to lose the jacket soon. Island breached in five strides, two strides, end of island reached, back into the street, drivers to the right wearing an air of perturbation. Caged cats, hungry sharks, the light baying them back, they wanted to zoom forward and send him a-sail. New York the worst. Philly a distant second. Slight bob, up on the sidewalk, over to the old iron gates, students pouring in and out in procession. Two stone walkways abutted by verdant plots, a verdant isle separating them. Left, right, three hundred and sixty degrees in inspection. No one. Checked the time. Spot on. Through the gates, take a seat. Stone bench between the paths, behind the old gate, coolly ensconced within the shade. Guard booth directly in front. Staring into the grass, the subtle variations of green. Ellipses. Slight curves of sprawling leaflets atop the bushes. The guard seated, staring as well. Into the street then looking down, reading. Head back up, left to right on a swivel scanning the sidewalk. Static hiss ejaculation, the walkie-talkie retrieved, button depressed, held diagonal to his face, the antenna from behind looking as though it emerged from his temple. Copy that Jackson, tedious speech to make the tedium more dramatic. Loved to use them as a kid. Listening through the thin panes of the booth, he imagined alpha two delta, need air support. Coordinates yankee-niner-foxtrot-zero.
Tuned him out and let his gaze go off along one walk and then the other, following gilded summer skirts, perpetual cherry blossoms. Up ahead, before the library, several white trucks, cables, wires, random equipment splayed about the lower steps- filming in progress. Always a movie in New York. Hurrying from point to point, the flash of reality you get at Astor Place before the double ring of the turnstile, the approach of subway lights, a facade contrived for a five second background shot, scores of New Yorkers waiting around for hours to say months later, look, there’s my head, the scene freeze-framed a thousand times on DVD.
The people back and forth, more hurried than the pigeons across the walk. Crosswalk before him, blur of cars going by, the pigeons bobbing, gait of the people from coils gaily released. Drivers at the light. Looking straight ahead. Talking on cell phones. Fineable offense. Students in anonymous passage before their eyes, no feature focused on, just a diffuse gaze ahead, the students devoid of faces in that gaze. Crosswalk light counting down, flashing red. Green signal, they take off. His focus shifted to the perpetual sidewalk peregrinations closer in, travel intersected by cold metal bars. Crosstalk between the bars.
Bobbing in closer, miniature Thanksgiving Day parade balloons molested by a slight wind, the pigeons approach taking him from his reading, reality interrupting his reality. Feet extended like fingertips upon a sleeping body, the first pigeon towards him, a brown mottled mask down its neck interspersed with daubs of white, touch-ups by some mad painter about Riverside park. Another converging on him from the opposite direction. A third, interest piqued by the others’ approach not to be left out. A fourth, a few feet away, remained aloof.
Slow, still breaths watching them, not wanting them to feel the weight of his eyes. No attempt to draw them in. Act natural. Forgo supposed pigeon vociferations or pretext of telepathic thought, mental suggestion, perhaps the thought of a few crumbs behind his shoe. Relax. See if your very breath draws them in. Must be why they’re here, drawn to him, sensing him a Bodhisattva upon the bench, all things resonant under the New York City sun.
He retrieved some brownie remnants from his inside coat pocket. Neatly wrapped, the stiff wax paper in coruscations of rippling sound. Unperturbed, their easy air amidst the spreading of communal bread, the one wearing the brown mask bowing in appreciation, flecks of white starring at the top and budding across the body, elongated into tears along the wings. The second, come as you are picture perfect pigeon struck from the standard mold, usual Wall Street wear. Neat, the feathers starched and pressed, perfect symmetry in the colors splayed. Third possessing a pure white underbelly matched by the wingtips, purple haze summer sunset crashing upon its coat, purple bleeding to a dark blue on the edges. Pink beak, a spot of white, tiny nostrils at the top. All the others tawny yellow beaks. Fading yellow tan, the fourth, Fourth Duke of the Earl of Pigeonshire. The ensconced space absent of cooing, the tiny walk between paths. Only coo in movies. Maybe just in coups, wanting to get out. Tai-chi stepping across the granulated stone, they raised themselves on the tiny pebbles interspersed in the concrete. How relaxing it was to watch their careful walk.
The duke coming closer finally, he waited. Slow trilling of water he opened the paper to get at the last of the crumbs. A persistent rain heard from under a corrugated metal
roof. A shower of brownie crumbs, blessings for all. Butlers or dignitaries, they bowed in feast- enchanté, enchant, enchanté, pleased, thank you. Two inspecting jabs, move it around, and then gone. Searching, backs bent, hands stuffed in pockets, coattails dipping past. Knock the next crumb about, forehand, backhand, forehand, wrister, HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES! Suited pigeon wasting no time. Incoming darts, sparrow, thrush interruption. Perfect pigeon delivering a bobbing body check, a bobby setting things to order, jostling the juvenile new arrivals. Had seen them use their beaks like spears before. Watch out little guys- one narrowly avoiding a contemptuous strike, the pigeon throwing the bob of his body into the counterbalancing strike. Threw a few scant remnants their way. Quick before the- the squirrel shot through the sprawling creepers stretching to the iron bars and dove into the fray. Pigeons not of mind to bother. The smaller birds momentarily harried before the feasting continued uninterrupted, the participants unaware of each other, emptiness in isolation, walking meditation feeding in close proximity, unconsciously avoiding each other. Clamor of the phone. Get it before- second cycle had no effect on them. He removed it slowly from his jacket.
“Hello.”
Earnest apologies again, her voice gleeful, alive with perfumed scent.
“Sorry babe. Will be there soon. Coming by in the limo in ten. Look for a white car. Should arrive before us.”
Her friends. Checked the time. Twenty minutes past the last time. There soon. Twenty miles walked, a few blocks nothing more. He went back to watching the pigeons. Busy near his feet, he opened his book. Advancing through the pages, they receded to the margins, an extension of the page slowly disappearing, punctuation sliding from the page until he looked up and was surprised to see them gone. He had missed their slow beat-cop bobbing away, sparrows and thrushes missiles in flight, undulation of the grey-white tail of the squirrel bounding off.
Words formerly obsidian before the sun became charcoalian in the building’s shade. Leaning forward he dove back into the sun, the shade terminating at his feet.
The sound of footsteps while staring off into the street. One set, two. A familiar face. They stood before the guard-stand, waiting. He closed the book and rose. Around the iron gates to say hello. Her friend Mike that had come down to Philly. Paying a visit while in New York. Weekend trip. A big group out for dinner that time as well. Another friend. Handshake, introduction. Then, standing, waiting, waiting with them, a slight wind fading in the air, the morning chill slowly being burnt away. Mike lit a cigarette. Waiting in eggshell smoke. Rapid exchange of Mandarin to finally break the silence, fired like the first salvos of a dawn assault. The pigeons, he wondered, looking back along the walk.
“Sorry,” he said, attention rushing back to them.
“Originally from Philly?” Mike asked again.
Funny how things filter through your brain, words heard in a moment of inattention jumbled at first, a stuttering stagger overlapping each other to be dissected and made sense of as your brain plays the sounds over and over, the answer coming a second after you ask the reflexive question.
“Boston,” he said. “Then Connecticut. Moved to Philadelphia a few years ago. I had an
internship here briefly.”
Company names exchanged. Nod of recognition. Late morning nod upon the reception of cursory information. Back to staring and waiting. Static film noir scene punctuated by a concentrated hit of a cigarette, the violent intake of air, a slow exhale. He felt impelled to say something. The air upon him, pressing him to be social, to inquire upon tedious facts.
Everyone except Wanjin and a couple coming from Harvard, Mike said. Not hard to pronounce. Wanjin. The Zs were tough. Had introduced himself as Steve at first. Handy moniker plucked from the air. Steve. Generic Steve. Not Steven, wo jiao Steve. More instruction needed for his tongue. Ch but not quite ch, a rhythmic humming coupled with consonants that one threw like darts out into the world. You had to hit a triple every time or your take was worthless.
The phone rang, a resounding interruption spread out across the morning in lengthy intervals, his morning abutted by the calls, broken by the jarring ring of his phone, the moments complete, separate from each other, each new ring seeming to be the first one of the day. Raising the phone, he imagined a mental patient on the other end, furtively calling from the sanitarium to infect his thoughts.
“Hi babe.”
A bus through the intersection and then he saw it: a white stretch limo, a delicate hand waving from black space. For all the morning minutes and hours that had fallen upon the face of a stone to disperse and evaporate, he almost couldn’t bear the delay while waiting for the light. He wanted to rush through the impenetrable traffic. Dart through, spring off, and cart-wheel around an impulse told him. Steady sigh, the wind across his face, looking left south along the avenue, he wondered if she was studying him through the blackness of that glass while he looked away. The opening atop was nearly as dark, painting the interior in an insidious light amidst the breath of the resplendent day. He tried to see, to discern any hint of a gaze, any intention through the glass, the open space of shade. Only darkness. Nothing. A cold silent pond bereft of night’s illumination. The white figure sprang into ephemeral electric life. The cars halted. Weight forward, he plunged from the curb, casual strides taking him across. Idling island traversed, he went back into the halted stream, with the other pedestrians cutting a temporary current. A fever surfaced, beckoning him forward with haste. Though patient all morning, a voice frenetically impelled him. Inhaling deeply, he relaxed his gait to slowly approach the door.
Eyes adjusting, he leaned further into the darkness, a darkness made distinct by the blazing sun. It felt as though his head were suddenly immersed in water. Vision befuddled, she caught him off guard, diving forward to give him a kiss. Only in the last instant her visage beaming before him. She was the only thing he could see, his eyes stung by the light peering into the shadows of the car, the other girls slowly coming in, cold jewels before a diadem, their hair up in silken folds, sails set billowing by the wind, russet waterfalls tumbling in curving crenels riding to crescendo.
Concern in her eyes, her eyes lit with a gleeful fire. “You okay babe?” she said, placing fruit upon his lips. “So patient,” and she kissed him again, the alacrity of the word through the limo, the other girls- fully visible, her attendants- turning from their conversation to give echo. Speech subdued by the lingering pulp of her kiss, he turned briefly to see her friends laugh with the gaiety of children as they bandied Mandarin about the cabin. She was normally shy amidst her friends, severely demure at times, but could break to be the exact opposite, not caring at all. But one of the many simplicities, one of the many accompaniments that would rise above the enrapturing music.
Keyed up. Fever back to replace a sudden onset of malaise. A happy pitch of the blood. Hardly a word to add.
“Yes babe. I’m fine.”
His brain swam in that smile. A trail of streamers shot through the dim interior with the pull on the corner of her mouth as she kept her gaze on him while talking to her friends. He was lost in the rise and fall, sharp peaks and drops, rolling rise of speech, the words cryptic and beautiful, hinting on a deeper part of her he wished to divulge himself to, another thing to know, to love about her. Taught him the curse words early on, awful things to say about someone’s mother. Expect a fight in English. Funny how translation can lead to the presumption of innocence. Could say it with conviction- he was a quick learner. Mimicry helped him approximate the tones. Eventually he could hear the difference. Catch her off guard at dinner. Pinches under the table. Ju-tou in front of her friends, kauizi always in motion. Beat her to it- she liked to call him that. 105lbs, but she could eat. Never lacking in appetite. Nor himself. When are they coming to pick us up? her eyes insisting they hurry, though she was unable to leave the bed. Kissing her, they would escape. They left fifteen minutes ago. Words and intention crashing upon her, more intense with each kiss, each deep plunge into her eyes. Helping her with her clothes, her mind separated from extraneous thought, their pores shedding an accelerant, the world them, them, them, the present burning magnesium blinding and forever, all answers in their ambrosial embrace. They were children off into the blue, up through the air and deep into the depths, free, lost in every kiss.
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