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"...I don't want to live no more n' more, I don't want to live no more. Take the key and lock the door, I don't want to live no more..."
Buckle up it's the law, said the sign, beneath the letters reading, "Welcome to New York City," as the car began to bounce and lurch, really seriously for the first time, as if in warning. He eased his foot up on the gas...
"...That was Judy Garland singing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and this is the best music ever made on eleven twenty W NEW and we're in the make believe ballroom..."
TRUCK AND BUSSES
USE UPPER ROADWAY
"...I don't want to live no more n' more..."
The ramp soon broke its course parallel-above--snaked away next to and swerved downward, falling even. The cars merged--westbound--slowed--moved--foggy city--the length of it--up-mid-down town covered in a sheet of grit-fog--cars slow again- The cable cars rattle in rust--people going to Roosevelt Island--people going to Long Island--people going--CABS!
"...I don't want to live no more..."
He looked to her as if she had all the answers-
From the revolving door, the back door, he walked away from the artificial heat, the defective and those whose concern they were. He had bundled his mother, asked the man that slammed the stapler from behind the large island-desk if quiet wasn't a good idea for the ICU. and was soon tossed out under the guise that he had overstayed the designated visiting hours.
As his anger subsided and he passed the rows of the intensive care sick, he realized that escape was his focus for as long as he could remember. With a wink he thanked the balding resident for encouraging his sarcasm and the head nurse for protecting one of her own.
"...Take the keys and hock the floor..."
His feet stood on the edge of the sidewalk. Taking a deep breath, he watched the wind blow--scattered fallen yellowing leaves amongst and almost across the blaring traffic. One soon settled, not quite making it, into an oily puddle a few feet before him. His naked toes, from inside his sneakers, attempted to grip the curb for extra leverage, as he waited for the row of cars to be caught behind the traffic light and jogged across the street. Being afraid to reveal his ignorance to any of the city dwellers that he sensed were watching, he abruptly choose the path to the right, immediately leading into the park's murkiness.
He purposefully strode past a woman throwing a stick--waiting for the dogs reprisal up the inclining, paved walkway, at a fixed speed, hoping to swiftly bury himself deep within an anonymous core of the wooded sanctuary. He felt himself stop at the foot of a greening metal statue, that he was to dub the lost emperor.
It was surrounded, just as he by a circle of woods, park benches and an exit's absence, save for the one he formerly paved. The small man stood atop his battle-horse, his tarnished sword raised, pointing beyond the canopy of oak to the drifting cloudy sky, in some form of forgotten triumph, as the absence of his worshiping-conquered masses looked to him for his frozen guidance.
Avoiding the inscription to save his budding kinship with this still life, impulsively, on one foot he spun around. Prematurely and off balance, he halted, in surprise--coming face to face with a woman who, in turning, he sensed had been observing him from the comfortable vantage of her own particular park bench.
-staring at her as if expecting her to fade, her innocent scrutiny at first frightened but soon made him skeptical as if she were about to ask him for the time. As his mind pondered his body automatically softened and took three unrehearsed baby-steps forward, as it began to prime itself for a kneeling bow before her, to rest it's head in her skirted lap, to softly cry, as she'd sooth him with whispers, as her fingers would run through his hair, until he'd finally fall asleep.
He competed with her holding his fixed gaze stiffly within her own. This futile act made him feel weak and defeated. His vanity told him that he just looked plain stupid. With the mind's override, his spirit recoiled--body effected an about face, as it carefully stepped around leaving the statue his friend behind, for the strange lady to look after, as he quickly descended to abandon the failed path less trodden upon...
He was a homeless. He leaned on the decaying brick wall and watched the man uptightly emerge from one of the parks many dead ends. He remained cloaked, as homeless people tended to, until the man came within a boy's length and then he sprang on him like a Texas rattle snake.
"Can't get into the park from there," he said.
Startled, the man stopped and absently looked him up and down as if searching for a UPC. bar code. "What?!"
"That's a dead-en'. You need to go that way to truly get within this park."
"Yeah-I know, thanks," he lied, while following the imaginary line created by the sages pointing finger.
The homeless felt better about himself in wake of his rare act of charity by helping someone, so obviously weak and more vulnerable than himself. He watched a pinkly clad woman jog up his path and awaited her return--deciding if or not to follow and further protect his fading ward.
...Suspicion made him peak over his shoulder four times to see that the man who watched him enter and exit the fruitless path was not watching him then...
All sorts of symbolism began to unveil itself, turning around, testing the shallow experimental, mystical waters in his mind; the woman drawing him in, the homeless-Merlin-Obi-wan, reminding him, after the fact, that he choose the wrong path. A warning?
He gave another quick glance back, comfortably finding himself out of its sight while keeping watch for any new sources of potential evil.
-The woman stood in his mind just as she previously sat before him. She was unreally clad in black, but the book in her lap touching her hand lent her a certain concreteness. What was she reading, some kind of spell-book? More likely a fantasy, but not like any of the garbage that he had tried before--escapist love stories set in a world, so very similar, to his own, only dressed differently, much more cut and dry, good and evil.
He found himself slowly walking on a trail--joggers streamed past, all seeming slightly distressed about something. He continued on--looking out over the reservoir he had just stumbled upon. He knew it was a reservoir because the whole expanse seemed to be completely fenced in and had shalelike gravel on the shores, but mostly due to the sign that read: New York City Reservoir... Keep Out.
It had never occurred to him that these people drank water that fell through this oily sky. He thought it all came from upstate or something. The dusty chilled water in those stainless steel fountains that stood guard on every floor around every corner all over the whitewashed hospital, probably came from this particular fenced in lake. Why did he feel so inclined to drink from every one of them, every fuckin' time he passed one, especially when supplied from such a big sorry pool of corrupt New York City water, especially while something that strikingly resembled the spirit of the Bronx, lingered just above the other fenced in edge of it.
The Bronx, he thought as he passed another small sign that seemed to appear with some regularity on the fence that bordered the water. A group of joggers again impatiently avoided him. Dazed and feeling very annoyed, as if he was missing something terribly important, he stopped and impatiently gaped at a sign. `ONE WAY' it read.
He initially felt very stupid--beginning to quickly walk in the opposite direction, but halted, tediously turned around and purposefully strode up the precise middle, now dominating the minor roadway, right into the face of the next wave of joggers, as he reveled in his defiance, until that is, he skipped over to a less uptight stretch of sidewalk that seemed to have fewer laws to break. He found himself turning around, slowly walking back in the general direction of the hospital.
"...Ain't don't wanna live no-more--no-more..."
He found himself standing beneath the Madison Avenue entrance of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, peering through the sliding doors, inside.
"...Ain't don't wanna live no-more..."
He glanced down the Avenue, at the cars, people, the man that approached to sell him flowers.
"...Should I get pizza--the pizza store or see mom in the intensive-core... I don't want to live no more..."
He stepped up the steps, his body triggered the electric eye. The doors slid aside. He felt this decision was right. Uptightly striding past the Security guards, he arrived at the foot of the elevators, pressed the `up' button--the doors slid aside upon his command and he entered the small empty room, fingers rode over the keys, he pressed `eleven' and waited.
The doors slid shut and elevator lurched upward, only to stop suddenly just a floor above. They parted, opened to a crowd of five that he sensed wanted to be in there with him, wanted to all see each of their mothers with him all lined up in a dismal intensive row.
Jumping past them, he split the group in half and escaped the box, leaving about five seconds to spare before the doors shut the six people, far away from him, to be discharged elsewhere.
He wasn't ready to pass the guards and exit the building in search of pizza, not so soon, nor was he willing to go to SICU., particularly via this surrounding herd of elevator.
Aimlessly, in a still life compromise, he drifted into the cafeteria, chiefly because it happened to be sharply around the corner, on his floor.
Aimlessly he surveyed the squalid salad bar, the grill, the dairy case, the freezer, soda, frozen yogurt machine and finally stopped in front of the coffee machine where he filled a very disposable, large cup, picked up a newspaper and paid the pink-uniformed cafeterian in money. He found an anonymous table where his back was to the window, to keep any surprise before him, began leafing through his paper and timidly sip his hot, weak coffee...
-She sat leaning back, away from the table, her black tinted, nylon covered legs crossed--resting on the opposite chair. The arid white on white desolate air was seemingly being pushed back by an aura surrounding or coursing directly from her. He had trouble seeing through the glassy static that it devised at the borders. Taking off his glasses, he cleaned them with a coffee stained paper napkin and replaced them on his face. As his eyes again came into focus they were shocked by her joining-passing glance. He quickly returned his attention to the Times, taking a sip of the tepid murky liquid from the styrofoam container that continued to warm his right hands grasp as it flowed dustily down his throat.
He watched her gaze innocently tilt upward as she carefully followed a delicate object, lazily descending through the eleven story solid bulk of plastic, glass, stone and steel; raw materials of the structure encasing them. As if she willed it, a leaf impossibly whisked through, ignoring a beige rectangle of ceiling tile, as it slowly fluttered to a perfectly centered landing on the pages of her book resting on the formica table that sat before her.
He wondered what she thought of such an occurrence, but she just innocently regarded the reddish autumn leaf. As if impossibly catching both in a single locus would help to lend an explanation to such surreal circumstance, his eyes tried to watch both her and this illusionary object, who's rational place was across Fifth Avenue, among many others of its kind. Failing, they darted back and forth between both, as an inexperienced soap-opera actress, refusing to choose a counterpart's eye.
A breeze he just about felt, faintly lifted her almost black hair carrying it from the front to the back of her partially exposed, angular shoulders.
He looked from table to table scrutinizing the dry-heat-uncomfortable expression plastered on all of their faces and in a rush, the union of hairspray, perfume, sweat, foul and freshly minted breath, foot odor, rotting garbage, boiled vegetables and the soup of the day took a suffocating hold of him.
Turning around to find the outside, he watched through the window, a strange mixture of new and old cars and taxis, sluggishly funneling through the five implied lanes of Madison avenue. Appearing soundless and unreal he was thankful for the glass barrier. His head unsurely veered back to her, as a silky ghost seemed to dance over him, he felt her shields being crisply extended around himself, bringing with them a modest smell of smoke leaving a stone-mason hearth, lazily drifting from an undetectable course, coming from an intimate wooded cottage, being carried dreamily to this couple by sporadic autumn gusts--replacing the suffocating artificial jumble, that he had instantly forgot how to take for granted...
...His gaze tilts upward, following a delicate object that lazily descends through a fading eleven story bulk of plastic, glass, stone and steel-
He watches the leaf fall breaking the plane of what once was the stained off-white ceiling--fluttering to a landing on the table, inches before him. Greedily attempting to hold all of the ripe autumn bite he now felt, he hugs himself, closing his eyes tight, as he slowly opens them and they connect with hers.
While buried beneath the carpet and concrete, not forgotten only for its lack of membrance, an acorn sprouts--spawning the beginnings of a massive oak, that begins reign over seven floors of the decaying bulk of the hospital building--pleasantly beginning to shield them from the cloud uncovered, fluid sky. They jointly watch styrofoam cups and plastic forks, glasses and earrings, buttons and bones fall to the ground. Creating inches of future compost, colored and brown leaves continue to sporadically drop. The hospital and waving patterns of surrounding structures finally crumble almost to illusion, leaving checkered mounds and mountains for blocks and blocks, enough to cover an island.
-She rises from the skeleton of her former chair walking to the suggestion of his table--taking his hand. Testing the ground, he rises and they walk together down a valley that was once Madison Avenue, through the expanse of the resurgence of central park.