7/24/2019 Philistine Hermes
2/1695
Itsbeen bouncing in diagonals off walls,
maybe three or our times beore it reaches
our ground floor apartment. A weakened
ray, eventually here, spreading as ar as it
can, shaky and sluggish it hits my body.
Slow waking, rolling to one side, hot sweat
revealed, dampening our unclean sheets.
Tis is the third time I have visited NewYork in the summer and I
would like it to
be the last. Can I just go home now, move
on, orget it all: changed and marked.
But New York is one o those cities that
creep up into you, even afer you have lef,
the pain is suddenly orgotten and you are
back, undeterred by missed flights, fights
on the Bowery and a city that never sleeps.
Its a place that requires you to achieve a
house in the Hamptons or the summer,
we all dream, instead satisfied with the
burst o a fire hydrant to cool our sticky
bodies. A summer day in New York
requires you to Do Te Right Ting as
insisted by Spike Lee. Or more likely shout
No Unnecessary Noise! as my ather
once did on the platorm at Union Square,
one too-long summer, as the metal wheels
o the subway train, crashed passed on
their metal tracks, madly rattling over a
screeching tannoy.
Rolls o film bleach and glare in the heat.
Everything is exposed. Your hot skin
rubs against me, becoming prickly and
agitated, as we ride the subway, swaying in
unison with the rest o the city trundling
underground the pacing eet above.
We emerge through the station, gasping
or air as the platorm fills with the heat o
an imagined hair dryer. You grab my hand,
desperate to escape and take me with you.
Clicking out through the revolving doors,
poor sufferers entering in our place. 30
steps which you skip, making it 15 until
we are out. W 4 and Washington Square
park here we come. Passing the people
playing chess, who have done it orever
and never stop. Dont stop. We rush past,
our hands sweaty in your tight grasp. Te
brown leather bag heavy in my other hand.
Weighing me down as you bop through
the crowd. Noticing, you stop, kiss me
gently and swap the bag into your own
hand.
I remember where we are going, what
happened yesterday, the act that we are
getting out and a small smile breaks across
my ace.
Our exodus began yesterday, without
knowing it, sitting at a small cae near our
rented apartment. Te white tiles are cool
beneath me, I slip my oot slightly to the
right, releasing it briefly rom my sandal,
a ew moments o relie on the cold tiled
floor. I push my toe into the black ground,
a orgotten gap in the tiling, squashing it
down as my heel raises. Focused on what
I am reading, I dont notice you return.
You sit down with your spoils, porcelain
clicking lightly down onto marble table
tops. wo white saucers, two white cups,
two silver spoons, two glasses and one
porcelain bowl with lid. All to aid with the
progress o our afernoon.
Te final click catches my attention, the
porcelain bowl with lid. Te colour o
precious stones dripping down its edges. I
look up at you, you stare back, it reminds
us both o the same memory. Boundless
antasy and explorationyou laugh at me.
You have some-one with you that I do not
know, but you tell me he has something
to say to us.
Te next day we wait on a tree-lined street
in Greenwich village, the setting o the
New York we know in stories and films
but is now the home to million dollar
brownstones. Te cast o Friends could
never o paid their rent on time. Its no
longer in the words o Allen Ginsberg:
poverty and tatters and holloweyed and
high sat up smoking in the supernatural
darkness o coldwater flats floating across
the tops o cities contemplating jazz
Tere is no contemplating jazz i your
apartment costs $3000 a month. Our blue
Chevrolet, a significantly brighter blue
shade than the sky, which turns a hazy
cream in Summer, groans past. An old car,
or should we call it classic, carrying the
weight o 103 years. It pulls up just ahead
o us with a heavy stop, straight rom
when Detroit belonged to Henry Ford and
the Chevvy became the best-selling car
in 1929. Beore the crash and the walls o
Detroit began to crumble, a society now
(un)structured on decay, restructuring
through politicisation and cheap rents.
We jump in, engine revs and we begin topull away, leaving you
just enough time to
lean out and pull in my brown leather bag,
which you almost leave resting on some
unknown silver structure on the streets o
New York.
By the time we arrive at our destination
we were sticky and grotty, that travelling
dirt that dampens between your thighs
and marks lines across your neck. We are
finally out o the city, ready or anotheradventure, but I am sure
we will be back,
sooner than we expect.
You open the curtains to let the light in its too early but a
Summer in New York
means noise a noise impossible to sleep through A line o golden
light cracks through
our tiny New York apartment window bouncing off the white wall o
the opposite
apartment block
