Untitled Again
The bright sun penetrates the
hazy New York day. The look and feel of the summer sky remind me all too
vividly of my grandmother’s cataracts and I shudder, despite the heat. The
mercury reads 98. Well, not so much the "mercury" as the clock at Uncle
Louie’s Savings, Loan & Critters. Sweat glistens off of my body and I
am naked. Emotionally naked, that is. I rub my eyes in disbelief, much like a
cartoon character who has seen Bugs Bunny
masquerading as a lady bunny, although my eyes do not pop out of my
head. As I gaze lazily across the street, I am shocked into action. I rise from
the lawn chair that I have set up on the sidewalk and move slowly across the
street, my gait trammeled by the immobilizing brace that I sport.
After stopping for a quick Red Bull
to replenish my depleted energy supply, I make my way to Central Park, that
most central of parks, to view the wide cast of characters that patrols the
inner circle of lunacy. My first encounter is with a man who sports a scraggly
beard. His face is swathed in dirt. He informed me that a one-armed Guatemalan
named Carl is going to furnish my apartment free of charge. I informed him that
he had soiled his pants. He told me that this was not what had happened. The
soiling of his pants allowed him to receive messages from the Zerphlag galaxy.
I told him that shit could not function in that capacity and bid him good day.
My next encounter was with a woman who kept offering sexual favors. This is not
out of the ordinary for me, as I frequently spend days receiving and relenting
to such demands. This woman looked remarkably familiar. I scanned the recesses
of my mind and decided she looked like a young
Kim Novak. I do not mean to
insult
Kim Novak. She is a dear friend
of mine and a very exciting woman. Kim Novak and
I used to stroll the beaches of the French Riviera, drinking the finest wines
and laughing at the Maurice
Chevalier-like accents of the locals.. It was there that we would
frolic, sometimes nude, for hours upon hours. In the salad days of the late
1960’s,
Kim Novak and I would spend
hours ingesting LSD then laughing at the seagulls. Later, when she spent time
on the prime time soap opera “Falcon Crest”,
we would recall those days of grandeur. We lived the high life and then some. I
have no regrets. Once more, I digress.
My day in the park nearly complete, I join in a pickup softball game on the
side of the Lesbian Jewelers and we defeat our mortal foes, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. President
Edwin D. Hill struck out on a 3-2 changeup to end the game. I purchase drugs
from the ice cream man, fruit from the drug pusher and ice cream from the fruit
guy. Sated and intoxicated, I return home, pleased with my adventures in the
park.