The Sky Is Green

Scott and his girlfriend were coming over to New York from London to celebrate his birthday at the Who concert at the new Barclay Center in Brooklyn, which is only a few blocks from the Fort Greene Observatory. I half-expected to be invited along with the glamorous couple, except upon the day of their arrival into this fair city, Scott texted a message. "Problems." His girlfriend Cara, a smart blonde publisher, clarified the situation with another SMS; "Glitch in concert plans." Within hours the two were planning on permanent separation. She was too attractive a girl to lose over nothing and I argued for re-conciliation, since I had never seen the Who. I had come close in 1970. They had been playing at the Boston Tea Party, but I went to see Rod Stewart on the Commons. I missed Woodstock in 1969 along with Altamont. This year I thought that I could relive my past through the present. I was wrong. Yesterday Scott and I sat in General Fowler Square eating bagels and he explained, "No matter what I said about the blue skies, she said that it was green." "Couldn't you last out the madness?" PMS is only called PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken by another ailment. "Impossible." "You know you're not the most communicative of people?" Scott didn't answer the phone. He thought that texting was intimate. I thought that he was dead wrong. "I know." "Recognizing your faults is a step in the right direction." "Maybe, but I can tell you right now that we aren't going to see the Who tonight." Scott and I had played basketball on Tompkins Square Park, he had preferred to snort K with me rather than go home with Naomi Judd, and my first article was in his Paris magazine. "Not a chance?" "Not none. The sky is blue and she sees it green. She's taking a friend to see the Who." "I know what you mean." I hung up the phone and cursed Cara for fucking up Scott's birthday and then damned her for not taking me. The sky is frequently blue from the windows of the Fort Greene Observatory, but I have seen green too.