This afternoon after finishing the lunch shift at the Ebasco executive dining room high above the Trinity Church, I changed out of my white shirt and white jacket and black pants into my punk outfit. Juan and the rest of the Latino staff changed out of standard uniforms and shook their heads at my clothes. I am the only gringo in the dining room staff. They were friendly, but generally kept their distance, figuring me to be a spy for the engineers of the nuclear power plant division. The workers only speak in Spanish and the executives have mistaken me for a Spainard. The bosses talk about how to secure the nuclear plants in foreign countries around the globe.
"Best to create a zone of fire around the plant," said a senior broadmember.
"No warning shots. They take that as a weakness. Shooting to kill stops them dead."
One of the execs noticed my listening.
"What's the probelm?"
"Nada, senor."
I hated all of them. Vicious capitalists. I could poison them all, but I needed this job.I said nothing about the conversation to my co-workers. They had all heard various version from these murderers protecting their profits. We all needed this job, especially since my fellow employees were mostly illegal migrants. Thankfully they hid my gringoism from the bosses. The manager was German and like speaking his native language with me. I rarely understood hom, but nodded out 'genau' and 'exactly' worked as a response in any situation and any language.
In the subway I waited for the uptown 7. Its approaching rumble announced its impending arrival. An attractive pale raven-haired vixen in black leather sat on the bench. Skin and bones. No breasts under her laced vest. I suspect she is a dominatrix. She read Carlos Castenada's The Teachings of Don Juan. The book about shaminism was dog-eared, either from other readers or she read it so frequently that her fingers had tattered the pages.
Back in 1972 on a hitchhiking tour of the USA with a college friend, Peter Gorr, we met Diego Santos, a hispanic fakir in Haight-Ashbury, who claimed to understand eternity. Peter and I were both majoring in mathematics. I understood the power of zero better than eternity. Diego had reefer and offered us a place to crash, which was gratefully accepted since we only had a couple of hundred hundred dollars and still had to hitch up the coast before heading back from Seattle to Boston on I-90. That night after several hours of ranting Diego claimed to never sleep. Never. Two minutes later he nodded out. Peter and I were grateful for the silence and we left before the dawn to head up the coast.
I had never read The Teachings of Don Juan. So much for Shamanism. I didn't interrupt the vixen's reading. I know nothing of life. I am only a waiter for the lunch shift in an executive dining room overlooking New York harbor.
Presently I'm reading KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT by Tobias Schneebaum. A tale of cannibalism in the junlge of South America. The train stops at Christopher Street. The vixen and I get off. I follow her at a distance. She stops and turns around. I stop and she writes something on a piece of paper. I follow her out of the station down 7th Avenue in the opposite direction from my room at the Wesst 11th Street SRO. Her leather jeans. Tight. I imagine her naked. Then tragedy. Her boyfriend meets her. She looks at me, as I go by and turns to pass her the piece of paper. Her parting glance says at another date. Farther down the block I opened the paper. A number. A name. Sharon.
Later
Sitting in Yogurt Delight, where Kyle Davis works as a waitress. The boss has a camera on the cash register. I pay for my coffee and sit by the window, opening the Times to the Sports section. The Bruins beat the Canadiens 4-3 in overtime with a goal by Bobby Schmitz. Stanley Cup Finals tied 2-2. Could this be the year the Bruins beat the Candians? I get an erection thinking of Sharon. Not in a bed. At night. In a alley. I walk back to my room.
Mars the red planet is 30,000,000 miles from Earth, If one was to comunicate with someone there a radio signal traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes several minutes to reach Mars. No immediate gratification even on Earth. If I call Sharon on the phone, there will be a delay of almost no time, but still a delay as the call goes through the wires to the telephone excgange and back. Time travel to the past is impossible, but when she answers the phone it will be the future.
Only two words.
"Meet me."
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