Salute Your Muderers

I'm in motion.

I'm moving by three O'clock, leaving my room and starting the fucking clock. I shoot to 96th street and hop the way, and guess what? The Fucking Express is Running. Ain't that some shit. I hop on the Two train, which wastes no time taking me down to 14th Street. From there I find that the L train across town is not running, so I do it on foot. I have a half an hour to get the job done. I do it in Twenty Nine minutes. I beat Cyndi Lauper there which is what counts, and hang around with a few of my crew in front of the building...well Tom F if you want to name my crew.

I also shake hands with our feature and he introduces me to women that are with him. One is Red Plaid girl. Let me describe Red to you. Dark haired brunette, tall, about a hundred ten pounds if she was soaking wet, hourglass figure, red plaid shirt, cinched at the waist by a leather belt. Black stockings, heels...hot. Shit, I shook her hand twice. In my bag, I had a half finished 'portable' and it made me gabby, my mouth running. I had a lot to say in a short period of time waiting for Cyndi.

Come to find that the woman is married. Well, those are the breaks. At the very least she'll be good to watch walk around the SHOUT OUT.

Cyndi walks up and opens the joint, and we pour in. I set up the stage, and we get off to a slow start. But then again, even though we had the lowest turn out of readers, we had the highest ever turn out of guests. Needless to say, the joint was packed from end to end. We're going to have to have an usher pack the seats soon. People were sitting out in the bar area there were so many. This shit was madness, we had so many people. I'm beginning to think that it would be a good idea to find another location for the show. But finding someone to allow us to thrive like Nell of Otto's is hard.

With a slow start, we still get everyone through the show, and the feature does a really masterful job. This was a good day. I break down the stage and do a few, very few, handshakes and close down the room. I take my ass outside and join one of TWO toke circles, and then head to Kennedy fried chicken for chicken wings and sweet potato pies to ease the munchies. While we are eating we have one of the workers behind the counter berate us for being there too long.

Too long? My brother and DJ are not pleased with the gentleman, but I notice something. There are three people standing outside waiting. A woman, a baby stroller, two men. All three young Latinos. No big deal, right?? But this quasi-owner was having a fucking conniption. My Spidey senses were on high as the woman walked in, almost like royalty. "You guys finished," she asked. "You have a nice time?" I look at her. She was cold and freakish. We gather our shit and make ready to leave as the two guys come in....leaving the baby and the carriage OUTSIDE. I look at the quasi-owner, who really appeared White, although he was Middle Eastern, as if all of the color had drained from his face.

Whatever was going down, I think my brother and DJ registered it too. We left, heading down the block. Then, some fucking madness plays out. Synchronicity to some extent. As we are walking down the block, a group of three women are walking towards us, and the woman in the middle, of which I was to the men, says the very same sentence that I was saying. The same sentence to the letter upon passing.

It was at that point that I was sure that we had just avoided a confront- ation with death. My brother even pointed out the coincidence of the moment, so that I was certain that it wasn't from some strange hallucination. But to me, there was something morally wrong in the Kennedy's Fried Chicken. Morally, meaning against life. Pro death. We had just brushed up against something wrong.

Or maybe I was just too stoned to realize that it was time to leave the establish- ment. I peeled off from my brother, and I think I did so in a huff. There could have been an argument, I'm not all that certain. Then I went to Starbucks and with a cup of coffee, nodded off until my brother arrived. THEN I nodded off again until it was time to leave. I vaguely remember getting home, but I do have a 'retriever' sense. One that gets me home all of the time. Unfailing. On target, SINCE New Jersey.

In New Jersey, for some reason, I've awoken in train stations (although I took buses), memorial parks no larger than sixteen by sixteen in width with a statue in the center of it, people's lawns, the back seat of my car, at a bus depot, and a cemetery.

But my retrieval senses got me home.

For the first night in a long while, I slept all night long like a baby.

Hobobob