Walking in the Village. Heading to a complicated art opening. California friends who had gotten tangled with an East Coaster. Who should know better, but in the midst of a divorce, she was all too eager to join the cult of endless sunshine. This mutual friend flirted, using naïveté as her main weapon. It seemed to work well for her, but seemed to be a stunningly shallow refuge.
She had eagerly begged for a tour of "his Greenwich Village". Every point on the map began with him saying, "Well, there USED to be a flower shop here. . . " or a gallery or a three story brick apartment house that started life as a home for a single rich family. The tenants shared a grand staircase and each bathroom was carved out of a dining room.
They had committed to stopping for food or coffee at a place he could remember from his time there in 1961. It seemed like a fruitless task and they wandered into the garden behind the 6th Avenue Library.
The tulips were freshly at attention here, further uptown, some had yawned open like a prostitute spreading herself too wide.
The sun was strangely bright and hot, even though it was near evening. The tour had just another week to go and everything they saw had the taint of the ephemeral about it.
Uncharacteristically, she slid her hand into his.
"He's going to break her heart" she said.
"They seem happy" he said.
The birds twittered and flew, dipping their beaks into the Japanese waterfall.
"They don't talk about anything. It's all posing and intonation. All they do is giggle."
"that's the language they speak in California. Substance is nothing, its all about style. Some days it isn't so bad"
He flashed his 50,000 megawatt smile on her at 10%. Looking across the grass, she slipped into his history for a moment.
She felt his innocent marriage in the cobblestones, the old buildings and even the trees around them. The last witnesses.
Both him and whoever that girl was, his wife, at 18, freshly married, slightly terrified. Running barefoot in the park, the same sun, the same setting, the perfect spring evening she had longed for her whole life. Equally young, equally scared. So little difference in the few trips around the sun between then and now. Nothing seemed changed at all.
*Lazy Day by Spanky & Our Gang
She had eagerly begged for a tour of "his Greenwich Village". Every point on the map began with him saying, "Well, there USED to be a flower shop here. . . " or a gallery or a three story brick apartment house that started life as a home for a single rich family. The tenants shared a grand staircase and each bathroom was carved out of a dining room.
They had committed to stopping for food or coffee at a place he could remember from his time there in 1961. It seemed like a fruitless task and they wandered into the garden behind the 6th Avenue Library.
The tulips were freshly at attention here, further uptown, some had yawned open like a prostitute spreading herself too wide.
The sun was strangely bright and hot, even though it was near evening. The tour had just another week to go and everything they saw had the taint of the ephemeral about it.
Uncharacteristically, she slid her hand into his.
"He's going to break her heart" she said.
"They seem happy" he said.
The birds twittered and flew, dipping their beaks into the Japanese waterfall.
"They don't talk about anything. It's all posing and intonation. All they do is giggle."
"that's the language they speak in California. Substance is nothing, its all about style. Some days it isn't so bad"
He flashed his 50,000 megawatt smile on her at 10%. Looking across the grass, she slipped into his history for a moment.
She felt his innocent marriage in the cobblestones, the old buildings and even the trees around them. The last witnesses.
Both him and whoever that girl was, his wife, at 18, freshly married, slightly terrified. Running barefoot in the park, the same sun, the same setting, the perfect spring evening she had longed for her whole life. Equally young, equally scared. So little difference in the few trips around the sun between then and now. Nothing seemed changed at all.
*Lazy Day by Spanky & Our Gang
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