Resisting the peace
The police stood against a squad car, waiting probably. There were a woman cop and two man cops. It was boring to see them just stand, drinking coffee & shaking their mustachios. This is Manhattan, not a village in the Midwest, tell me boys, where’s the action?
They told me nothing, I had asked them with my shoulders & eyes, but there were no replies of any kind. The sidewalk creeps haunted me to take their yellow flyers with a fried chicken coupon. Five wings and a thigh for $4.99, I wasn’t buying it. Now’s not the time for nickel-&-diming anyway. I certainly didn’t want anybody to now about my vicious desire to start tearing at the wrists of the man with the flyers, so I squinted my eyes & focused forward, eyes on the prize. Quiet now they’re looking this way. Walk slowly past the poor man & don’t let your fingers seep into his aorta.
Enough of this horrible gawking, keep going. They are all suddenly adoring the footwork a mind like mine can produce. There was a strong stink from the pharmacy’s garbage & everybody pretended not to smell the animals rotting inside the toothbrushes and milk cartons all around us.
The policemen & their policelady slowly raced into their ride, taking a couple good pulls on their coffee before chattering into their seats. The car walked away down Broadway onto 4th, driving me to a mad spiral down to the concrete floor with the screaming red light now lively stomping on top of the white, blue roof.
My stagger nearly finished on a bald veteran selling his story on a cardboard sign for a Ritz cracker or a forty of Old English.
“Semper Fi!” he started out on me, loudly enough to knock me teeth across the sidewalk. I scrambled stupidly to collect my incisors.
“Oh yes,” I said, “and we must Unite or die!” There wasn’t time for a proper introduction so I ran from him like a broken animal, knowing this man could sympathize. If anyone will, he’ll notice another man’s need to slice away at part of his own brain. IT MUST BE DONE.
Lobotomy now was no longer a consideration. It was the only answer to this terrific nightmare. I began there on the street with two ballpoints behind the eyes & got working. I was a messy job.
They told me nothing, I had asked them with my shoulders & eyes, but there were no replies of any kind. The sidewalk creeps haunted me to take their yellow flyers with a fried chicken coupon. Five wings and a thigh for $4.99, I wasn’t buying it. Now’s not the time for nickel-&-diming anyway. I certainly didn’t want anybody to now about my vicious desire to start tearing at the wrists of the man with the flyers, so I squinted my eyes & focused forward, eyes on the prize. Quiet now they’re looking this way. Walk slowly past the poor man & don’t let your fingers seep into his aorta.
Enough of this horrible gawking, keep going. They are all suddenly adoring the footwork a mind like mine can produce. There was a strong stink from the pharmacy’s garbage & everybody pretended not to smell the animals rotting inside the toothbrushes and milk cartons all around us.
The policemen & their policelady slowly raced into their ride, taking a couple good pulls on their coffee before chattering into their seats. The car walked away down Broadway onto 4th, driving me to a mad spiral down to the concrete floor with the screaming red light now lively stomping on top of the white, blue roof.
My stagger nearly finished on a bald veteran selling his story on a cardboard sign for a Ritz cracker or a forty of Old English.
“Semper Fi!” he started out on me, loudly enough to knock me teeth across the sidewalk. I scrambled stupidly to collect my incisors.
“Oh yes,” I said, “and we must Unite or die!” There wasn’t time for a proper introduction so I ran from him like a broken animal, knowing this man could sympathize. If anyone will, he’ll notice another man’s need to slice away at part of his own brain. IT MUST BE DONE.
Lobotomy now was no longer a consideration. It was the only answer to this terrific nightmare. I began there on the street with two ballpoints behind the eyes & got working. I was a messy job.
posted by Gary Crane at 4:03 PM
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