Fin de Siècle / The Secretariat

I. Fin de Siècle

"I been gone a while", as if acting in a movie he spoke cinematic and slow. "But now I'm here to stay. Got me a coupl'a friends and a place to lay."

"Well, that's good", I wasn't quite sure where he was going with this one so I held on. It wasn't like we were surreptitiously hitching a ride in the middle of the night on a freight car through Albuquerque but I didn't dare tell him that. He was on a roll and I felt like we were on the set of "Emperor of the North Pole". But now I'm thinking if he's Lee Marvin that would make me Ernest Borgnine and I wasn't quite ready to lay down with that one just yet.

I suppose for posterity's sake we should roll the tape all the way back to Bernalillo County; back when our dreams were still busy straddling the Río Grande. I was with a girl from Nuevo León by way of Washington, D.C. And yes, it gets even weirder. Except here by 'weird' I mean magical and by 'magical' I mean cinematic. Not unlike my man Lee Marvin who was still chewing on that same sweet cherry cigar he'd found on a trail inside Cibola National Forest (at least that's where he'd told us he found it. Naturally, I had my doubts.) I had realized, however, some time earlier that it was best not to ask where Mr. Marvin found his borrowed cigars. It was safer to just sit and listen and maybe catch a contact high - or headache for that matter.

"They just don't make Blinds To Go for a Murray Hill window", sure, she had a point and sure, I was listening, but my mind was distracted by this giant Caesar salad that had just been placed before for me and the piping hot sweet kugel she'd ordered. She was all raisins, cinnamon and sweet farmer's cheese behind fresh oven steam. Sugar and warm sour cream. "My boyfriend at the time was Jewish so I was trying to show him how a Catholic girl can cook like his grandma", table two were deep in conversation and I was enjoying every last warm noodle of their sweet volley.

"You can tell where you are by the garbage. In Bed-Stuy its empty boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. In Chelsea its empty bottles of Riesling", she was cute the way she toyed with the ice in her iced tea. If only she knew just how gorgeous she was she probably wouldn't be sitting across from me but I wasn't about to get up and leave. And here I was drinking coffee faster than they could fill it back up but still they never wanna just leave the fucking pot on the table. I guess it gives them something to do when things are slow. I wish I had that problem.

I knew a guy who bought a star for his girlfriend. He was upset when I told him it was most likely a bunch of bullshit. I mean, sure its a sweet gift but how does he know the guy next door doesn't own the same fucking star!? That's like saying you own a raindrop or a cloud except with coordinates. And now you've gotta go out and find a refracting telescope or else whats the point of buying a star? These are the things that weave their way through my skull in the middle of the night. I must have left the screen door open because all kinds of storm was getting in my mind.

II. The Secretariat

I had a dream all the yellow cabs in New York turned on us and became kamikazes. One jumped the curb outside the Waldorf and took out 20 people. Another jumped the curb on 30-something and Madison and hit a crowd of people on their way to work. Two cabs drove right into a coffee cart with a long line near Houston. It was happening all over the city. Suddenly like roaches they were everywhere. A screaming yellow blur. Like zombies. People were diving into stores to avoid getting hit on the street and moments later a cab would smash into the store itself. There was no haven. No place of safety, shelter or sanctuary. At first people thought it was some mass cruise control GPS accelerator malfunction but it was happening everywhere and targets were obvious. Like bombs with wheels. Street level, sidewalk terrorism. The asphalt became the sky. 1010 WINS was advising everyone to head underground but people thought that was a trap, too. It was scary. And in my hypnopomp hallucinations I struggled to open my eyes and make it stop.