Two NYU bros argue over the best cut of steak, grass-fed or kosher. A maid vacuums a dead man’s hair from a motel bed. Nothing in this city can be thrown away. Every sin settles in your heart forever. I seek the right questions that will make the silent Father speak. The Holy Ghost tells me I’m an elephant killed by a small arrow.
I’d like to die and live forever, I say.
Or give your life to someone else, says Darling.
I touch her forehead.
You’re warm, I say. You should lie down.
Does the Lord suffer, too? Does he have woe? The Krishnas and Adventists throw their hands up in Union Square. The happy throngs, Eli, full of love and misery. We hustle chess on this old sunny day but then a thin kid puts a knife to your throat.
I thought this was a safe city now, I say to him.
It was till whites started killing brothers.
I have Cherokee blood, I say.
Everybody says that, he says.
Yeah, everybody says that, I say.
Give me the cash, says the kid.
I give him my money and my rabbit’s foot and dagger.
I have no answers for the fading American empire. The streets are quiet now but souls are heavy with gold or the anger that comes with too much hunger. Cataract scouts furniture for his dream house. This might be a good place for him to settle down once his mission is complete. I go to the Met and take my time. It is my church, my house of worship. To the Japanese garden on the second floor.
Damn, this shit is tranquil, says the woman with the purple hair.
It’s Zen, I say.
Tranquil as hell, she says.
I build my wings in the basement of St. Thomas Church. A cigarette between my lips and some hymns playing low on the boom box. The ATM signs make whores’ faces red and the crusty kids from Idaho stay warm cuddling black labs with red bandannas. An old man in his underwear runs after a girl with diamonds in her ears. Then to my personal heaven. I rock Darling in my arms after a long day of work. Flesh of my flesh, I say.
You really think I came from your rib, she says.
I don’t care where you came from baby, I say. I’m just glad we’re here.
On the subway I catch the eye of a girl who looks like Tuesday with a man who looks like Finger. I run for them but they get off the train. I squeeze my way through the doors but my leg is stuck. A drunken lacrosse team pushes me out just before I’m sliced in half. I run after Finger and Tuesday. I knock over a German tour group and nearly push a blind babushka onto the rails but save her at the last minute. I run up the stairs. I can feel Tuesday and Finger’s comfort again. Their friendship. Their weirdness.
Tuesday, I call. Finger!
A man dressed as a woman and a woman dressed as a man turn around.
Sorry, I say. Thought you were someone else.
The summer fades to leafless trees and the rapists on Rollerblades fill the parks again. Cops’ walkie-talkies bark out numbers and a drunk girl is always crying in the street.
I lost my dog, she says.
What’s the name?
Mr. Nobody.
Nobody?
She weeps.
Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.
I am among the long-distance runners in the long-distance race. They enjoy their strong hearts. They say running gives them great sexual pleasure.
Where are we running, I ask a runner.
To the finish line.
Where’s that?
Depends on how far you want to go.
St. Edmund dies in the arms of a peasant girl. He’s known for wearing shirts made of human hair. Tonight at St. Thomas Church we dine on rotten peaches and stale coffee, Eli. I shall set sail into the great expanse of sky and to that Lady Liberty and fill the voids of my heart with a new child for the nation. I am the wings, bad saint of the sky. I am the lover of wonders. Peace be with you.
And also with you, you say, Eli.
Go back to sleep, I say. There’s nothing good out here to report.
From sea to shining sea, lift up thine eyes. To the serious nurses going serious places. To the asinine lovers of fine wines and cigars and the food-obsessed. There is nothing worse than an aficionado. Darling, come closer to me and let my hand rest on your belly. Just a little and let’s weep together for this the most awful and beautiful nation in history. The stranger asks the stranger, Will you watch my stuff? I fall in and out of love with humanity again and again. A cop kills an unarmed kid. Hate. A Korean wedding party laughing on a double-decker bus. Love.
St. Charles dies in the dunes of Arabia holding the hand of a lost rabbi. They pray together to the same God in different ways. They feel the pull of the long-dead kings of the world, their slaves and wives and plagues and firstborns murdered in the streets. Eli, we could eke out some romantic vision of the South, go back to the old time religion of Mississippi. Stay closer to the cave than the drawing room. Destroy the poets with their hearts on their sleeves.
Cataract reads Penthouse in braille. He writes songs about the rapture on his yellow guitar. Nono jogs in her velvet black tracksuit and brews kombucha tea. The living long to live more life. Cataract gives a quarter to a one-legged trombone player in Washington Square then takes ten bucks from his cup. My visions are escalating. The tiger and lamb make love. The snake and Eve commiserate. Adam takes another bite.
St. Sylvia clowns on the streets of Budapest for her supper when the prince finds her and makes her queen. From the seat of power she protects the Christians from being thrown over bridges. She walks the promenade with orchids in her hair. Her throat is slit by the descendants of Spanish Moors in the afternoon so everyone can see.
The man with horns in the West Indian parade has a message for you, says Darling.
What did he say, I ask.
He says you will only know yourself when you see your face.
What?
Physicists explode the world to bits to see what we’re made of. The signs of everlasting life are all around us but I don’t have the right eyes. Gods are dreaming up new stuff to baffle everyone and the snakes in the grasses smell with their tongues. I am stretching myself toward the streetlamps that fill the empty heavens. The news isn’t even news anymore. People work and work and work for tiny numbers in the clouds. The ditch digging will never end and the thin, sad girls of the East Village all live in Brooklyn now. Eli, there is nowhere to preach the gospel, no gospel left to preach. No sun I can see. Nowhere left to lose my mind in peace.
I wish people still smoked cigarettes, you say, Eli.
They do.
Yeah. But not like they used to.
Below the sports bar is a grave where the dead Indians slumber. Darling and I fight all morning. She is suicidal and so am I. Then we make up with kisses and cups of black coffee and the stars of the night fading into day.
I want to marry you in a French country church with the baker as the witness, I say.
I want to marry you in the wheat field where van Gogh killed himself, she says.
Cataract is fishing in the Hudson River. He smiles at the bankers and fools, his dark eyes seeing everything but the physical world. He knows every dream we have and every fear and every highway happiness. Nono cleans the fish and they feast. They seek the carnivals and fairs and go antiquing in the good part of Bushwick. Darling’s father’s father was a great crooner of love songs and her mother’s father owned a condom company. She darns my socks and makes my breakfast. Eli, we are men by desperate means. I rub my wings and pepper the night with prayers to my lovers and friends. I go to the chapel and weep for better ways to make my bed.