To Be Fucking Young

Tonight – Sunday night – kids are up on the roof again. We hear them tromp up there, quickly breaching the invisible border of the motion sensor alarm. EEP EEP EEP.

A minute later there's a ghastly shriek. A sound someone makes when they are sure they are about to die. We pause the TV in order to give each other portentous looks.

Because now it's serious.

Steve rises and gives a cursory glance out the window, as though he'd see something. As though he'd see some lithe, young white chick floating through the air, on her way to meet her sudden, unexpected end amidst the plywood, trash and pissed-on weeds of our back alley. Some pretty, precious thing ripe for the tabloids' first screaming headlines of the working week.

But there's nothing.

In fact the next sounds we hear are mirthful cries, the universal sounds of inebriated jubilation. Great convulsions of titters and exclamations.

More tromping.

And each time, the alarm: EEP EEP EEP.

Here we are making glum little jokes about how old we are, how young are they. But still. It's goddamned midnight.

Finally PC takes the initiative. With a few grim words like, "OK. Well." Resolutely he puts on his shoes and heads out the door.

I feel like he shouldn't have to shoulder this alone. Or also I want to take some kind of stand. Make some petty old man's gesture of my own.

So I follow him out the door. Up the stairs all slick and soiled by many muddy footsteps. Up on the roof under the hazy, rainy sky. There are at least 50 people up there. All having a good time and shit. Standing around in little groups. And PC spreads his arms and says, "Listen up!" And he says saying something about, I don't want to be a drag, but it's late, it's Sunday night, this has to stop.

It's unclear to what degree this is sinking in.

"Is there anyone who didn't get any of that?" he asks. Emphatically. But I find it an intriguing question nonetheless. And then I say, "Party's over." Because I feel like saying something. And immediately I regret it. The gulf between me and them is now articulated. I'm the old crank with the faintly tyrannical, empty taunt. Some chick says warily, "Yeah, yeah." Dismissively. Insolently. Like, The party may be over, but the war has just begun.

Maybe she's the chick we didn't see fall and die.

Ah, to be fucking young.

In the Park, on our backs, with the multilingual murmur of the crowd around us. There was a strange cloud like a claw mark, soon absorbed into the night. And then planes and planes, some high, some low. Helicopters. People stepped single-file along the narrow track between the blankets, deliberate, like mountaineers. Out of nothing there arose the hum of strings and the opera being performed drifted over us like haze.

From you stepped onto the platform off the train there was a smell. And it grew thicker toward the stairs, enveloping us in its strangely sweet clutches.

I climbed the stairs amid murmurs.

And burst out on Canal Street on a clear, blue day, beautiful in the extreme. And the stench was all around me: garbage, shit and death.

The vacation house has a dry, sweet tear of punch on the yellow formica countertop inviting ants. On the cutting board there's a quarter-eaten pie in a dented foil pan.

It's dark in there but for the light above the sink; people nursing sunburns are paying homage to TV.

They Lie in Circles on the Street

On my way across Malcolm X Boulevard at 110th Street this morning my reverie was interrupted by a deranged woman's insistent, outraged rant.

"They lie! They lie! They lie!" she repeated. Then, as she passed me across the crosswalk, veering somewhat into traffic: "They lie in circles on the street!"

What's Your Poison?

On fucking 9/11 we met at her apartment late in the day to watch TV. The general hysteria served to deflect the malaise that had infected us, it seemed. She welcomed me with a Mona Lisa smile. My sister had preceded me and was on the phone, distraught, crosslegged on J's ancient, thinning rug.

They were drinking – it was inconceivable not to drink, of course – but J. said something weird to me. Under the circumstances. She said, "What's your poison?"

I guess she meant, gin or vodka. I paused and gamely made a choice, whatever it was and for whatever it was worth. But it struck me funny that she said that. On any other day I'd appreciate the weird juxtaposition, intentional or not, of hokey cliché and wry morbidity. But on that day, it was - weird. And I didn't even want to be all reverent or nothing. Far be it from me.

But still.

What's your poison?

The Acquisition - 1

We looked each other over and said, nice pants, nice shirt. We all wore the same pants. We all wore the same shirt.

We didn't really but we did, really.

We entered via the voluminous rotating door and there we were in a gigantic atrium, peered down upon by skylight and a gleaming acre of marble. Purposeful people came and went.

To and fro.

We'd been summoned by the enormous company for interviews with a view toward the enormous company's possible acquisition of our tiny startup.

We looked each other over and said, nice pants, nice shirt. We all wore the same pants. We all wore the same shirt.

We didn't really but we did, really.

We entered via the voluminous rotating door and there we were in a gigantic atrium, peered down upon by skylight and a gleaming acre of marble. Purposeful people came and went.

To and fro.

Every night in the mirror I must examine my incrementally deteriorating scowling, jowly face.