xtcian

horrfff

11/14/03

Scotty and me, Times Square, 9:44pm

You can't always get people to come out to Brooklyn, so I met Scotty in Times Square in time to see Master and Commander at the Mega-Dodeca-Googleplex on 42nd Street. That part of Manhattan is so profane, like a scene out of "Blade Runner" but not as interesting. Crews of German, Australian and Japanese tourists line up for abuse at the hands of ruthless middle-aged men hawking stereos jacked-up fifteen times the price at electronic stores; the Olive Garden on 45th St. routinely fires employees who don't foist 1.5 bottles of awful wine per table.

Each network has their own 7-story television monitor piping the video feed over a vast sea of smelly, loud, arrogant people who never, as is the tradition in New York, look up. If your pockets aren't zipped shut, you'll return home without your wallet, keys, Palm, iPod and dignity.

After the movie, I got on the 2 train, ostensibly heading back to Brooklyn, not knowing the entire line is under construction. We were forced off the subway at the Atlantic Avenue station, which looks like the St. Marylebone barracks in London after the 1944 blitzkreig. Shrapnel is underfoot, wires hanging from the ceiling of underground caverns, with slick water sluicing off them into black puddles below.

I made my way down to the deepest level of the Atlantic station, three miles into the Earth's crust, with barely any oxygen to breathe as I tried to find the Q line. Upon arriving at the platform, a cadre of hollow-eyed travelers looked up at me as though they had been waiting for the train since 1955. It was dead quiet, the kind of silence that severe ear infections bring.

I looked down into the well between the train tracks to see a river of stagnant brown water, lined with ancient bags, spittle, and decay. The putrescence wafted up as a family of rats darted through the water to the other side.

In a fit of macabre hopelessness, I wanted to jump in and wallow in it, for this is one of The Worst Places in North America. I wanted to lie down in this filth, braise in it, just to see how long I'd last. A few more seconds thinking it, and I almost began to dry-heave on the platform.

I am going to drive upstate on Sunday, get out one of our Adirondack chairs, face the sun, and think of nothing.