Prince and Broadway (644 hits)
Category: RomanceRating: 1.9 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Rizzo (View user info) at 2006-08-16 21:25:52 EDT
Eggs. That's what I kept thinking as I stood on the corner. It clashed into my own personal chaos, a cannonball in the pool when I wasn't looking, a foreign object on the X-ray. I couldn't control it, and the blissful Picasso panic thought-stream I surfed on all day broke hard, flushing me and my little whacked out thoughts into the undertow.
Eggs. I had to look away.
Summer in New York is awesome. It's never so hot in the city. The big ass buildings shade everything, and you really don't sweat it, literally. I enjoy the lingering smell of smog, the taxis with their horns honking and their motors revving, manhole covers hopping, the churning of a sewer. Urban elevator music. You never really listen to it, but then again, shit wouldn't be right if it wasn't there ... would it?
I'll admit it - I'm shy. I can't just go up to someone and strike a conversation. I'm not good at that. There are times, awkward times, where another human being, usually a woman, expects me to say something and I just don't. I can't - I have nothing to say, and once the moment is gone, once it's passed, anything said, anything at all, it's just wrong. Sometimes I know I'm expected to say exactly something, to pull that proverbial trigger, and again I fail. The hammer is cocked, the bullets are loaded, the gunpowder is fresh and flaming and itching to be ignited, and yet there I am holding my dick in my hand. Shyness. Some people have that hairpin trigger. Not me. I can't shoot worth a shit.
I took a stroll in New York for no other reason than to take a stroll in New York. I was feeling good, wearing my leather even though it was a hundred degrees outside. Cool as a cucumber, that was me. Looking good, feeling good, still running even though I smoked a pack a day. Lighter in pocket, waiting for that special someone to come by with an unlit butt, ready and poised, ready to pull the trigger, zip zip, zip zing. Trigger man, that was me. Cologne on, sober as a kitten, beard trimmed just right. I was a fucking mess, all dressed up with no place to go.
There to my left, a plate glass window. I checked out my reflection, organizing a few strands of hair, brushing non-existent dust off my shirt. The inbox of the human anatomy. The guy who gets things done.
I stopped over by the Eggs and ordered coffee. I avoided looking at Eggs because I just didn't want to think about it. Eggs didn't fit. Eggs weren't right. Eggs scratched the needle on my little tune. Eggs fucked everything up. No Eggs for me, no way, no how, it's noon and there's no Eggs, not here, not there, not anywhere. Coffee in my hand, a dollar twenty-five in his. Same familiar vendor cups, same freeze-dried coffee, same cream sitting out all day simmering next to the Eggs. I gulped half of it down and threw the rest out.
I had been to this intersection one other time. I read about it in a magazine one day while I was taking a dump. I ripped out the page and stuck it in my pocket. Weeks later, I found it, a crumpled up laundered mess. Some girl was on it, on the page, and she wasn't all that pretty, but that's not why I was here. I wasn't here for her because I wouldn't find her here. For all I know she was juxtaposed on that laminated page by some hotshot Photoshop wizard in L.A. who had never see this intersection. He probably had no idea what it was like in New York. He had never listened to the elevator music, never enjoyed the taste of smog in the morning. He had never been headbutted by Eggs. Fuck him, and fuck her. But I was here.
Like I said, I was here once before. I had been drunk, and it was another summer day in New York. I remember the blood rushing through my head, my words mumbled and slurred. I had wanted so badly to come here, and by the time I had gotten here all I wanted to do was go home. Home had been such a long walk away, but that was then, and this was now. Home wasn't all that far now. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was irrelevant. What mattered was the day and how I felt. It was a great day to be a New Yorker and it was a great day to me be. Hence, I was here again.
None of this made sense. Not even to me. Coney Island would have been a better place, or the Loew's on Broadway. Maybe I could have gotten sloshed at the T.G.I. Friday's in Times Square for a few hours, then hit on the hot teenie boppers waiting to go screaming into TRL. That shit just wasn't right though, not now. I was here, and I felt good. I was prepared to make a move, albeit an unknown one. Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut, I say. Gut man, that's me. Instincts high, adrenaline rushing, go all in with three of a kind when you know the world's got a full house. Fuck it, put your game face on.
They usually walk in packs, but not here. Each one of them a lone soul, walking into desperation with utmost confidence. They're watched at all angles, scrutinized on every level, even imaginary ones. They're too good for everyone, and never good enough for anyone. They walk, and smile, and walk again, charming with their perfume and their slim cigarettes and their Coach bags that match everything they fucking wear. They sicken me, not because I hate them, but because I hate myself. I can't bring myself to their level, and I can't, for one moment, consciously bring them down to mine. They're too big to fit on my canvas, too much abstraction in my reality, too much realism to fit in the abstract. It clashes, but not like Eggs. Eggs just doesn't fit. This, it fits, but maybe somewhere else in my mind. Just not on the canvas.
I remember that author describing this place as a nexus of the universe. The Mercer's right down the street, not too far away from Eggs. There's stores with merchandise that I couldn't afford to buy even if I had no bills to pay. I stick out like a sore thumb at the Mercer hotel bar. Even if I order the right drink, my clothes are frowned upon with pity by the help, and the girls don't even bother to look, or if they do, they think nothing good, I'm sure. Nothing worth mentioning to me, anyway.
The best place to meet a beautiful woman, that author said. I'm sure that L.A. fuck never factored the elevator music into the algebraic equation, or Eggs for that matter. He never theorized on what would happen to his little nexus if I was thrown into the mix, me with my lighter and my jacket in the summer and my perfectly trimmed beard, painting pictures all over the place while the world swirled and puckered and coagulated around me like hot Jello spilled on the beach. It made no sense. People say shit, and we just believe it. We paint these pictures in our heads, and then the day comes when reality smacks us in the face like a Mack Truck crossing the intersection. There's no hope - we always get let down. I guess that's why there's no way any of us can see our future. I'm sure someone figured it out, but then he quickly realized that whoever had seen their future would walk away from the whole experience utterly disappointed.
Shame. I had always wanted to see my future. But then again, had I seen it, I'm sure I would have avoided this day, if not for Eggs than for the other pending disappointments lined up behind it. Life is just a big to-do list, and the more we analyze it the more we realize it sucks. It's not worth being able to see a hundred steps ahead, if ninety of them only fuck up the canvas. I guess it's time to stop looking ahead. Maybe it's time to ditch the plan, to blank the canvas and begin again. Who says I can't have Eggs at twelve-thirty, or Bacon for that matter? Hell, if we're going to go all out, why don't we play the trifecta and bet on a large glass of milk with a double Scotch? Yeah, that'll make the elevator music sound soothing.
Meet me at the Mercer hotel bar. I spy a pretty girl over there that needs a light.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Author's note: I miss UberMadness.
User Reviews
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2006-08-17 13:40:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I miss Ubermadness too... when I move, I'll get the next one going.
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2006-08-17 12:50:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2006-08-17 12:26:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah, so when are we hangin'?
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-08-17 10:31:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well done.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-08-16 23:47:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Author's note: I miss UberMadness.
I concur.
Submitted by strwbryfanatic (user info) at 2006-08-16 23:27:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-08-16 22:58:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this is what uber was for.
i should stop being a waste of bandwidth and write.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-08-16 22:56:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
as i got to the end i thought to myself - we need another ubermadness it brings the best out of Rizzo. Weird.
We gotta go drinking again pal, plenty to catch up on.
I'd like you to meet my woman too.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-08-16 22:53:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Summer in New York is awesome. It's never so hot in the city. The big ass buildings shade everything, and you really don't sweat it, literally. I enjoy the lingering smell of smog, the taxis with their horns honking and their motors revving, manhole covers hopping, the churning of a sewer. Urban elevator music. You never really listen to it, but then again, shit wouldn't be right if it wasn't there ... would it?"""
i'd forgotten how good a writer you are Rizz - i'm ashamed to say.
How's things cunt face?
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-08-16 21:50:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
hangin' out with lars on 6th street he knew i was in trouble i was feeling much like the devil there was something burnin' deep inside of me ran into three puerto ricans these girls took us to the funhouse where we played a lonely pinball machine hangin' on the corner of 52nd and broadway cars passin' by but none of them seem to be goin' my way new york city well i wish i was on a highway back to olympia...i'm having a hard time understanding it gets all too demanding she's all gone and i'm stranded something burning deep inside of me all i know it's 4'o'clock and she ain't never showed up and i watched a thousand people go home from work how many times will it take me before i go crazy before i lose everything something burning deep inside of me ran into three puerto ricans those girls took us to the funhouse i don't wanna be alone again.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2006-08-16 21:29:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was a delight to read.
Submitted by LSD420 (user info) at 2006-08-16 21:26:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
AMAZING