The body was discovered on Thursday morning at the harborside light rail station. It was a Harborside Homicide; it wasn’t the first, and it sure as hell won’t be the last. I should have this rewritten in a hard-boiled mystery style.
I have been smoking weed for about 44 years. 1981 February Beatle fest, Perry Dedovich. Nowadays I smoke at home and I rarely leave my apartment, so I don’t know how I am. I haven’t Liberty State Park on a Saturday afternoon, June 28th, Julio Lopez’s birthday, he’s not here I am. That’s how it was supposed to be anyway.
I smoked half a joint here, and I can’t believe how high I am. It’s going to be a most pleasurable ride back to Hoboken. This is my spot underneath my friend, I call Tree, he’s a very nice tree or she’s a very nice tree. I don’t know sexuality never enters the picture, gender is fluid, it’s a tree.
So yeah just like I said, I’m really high right now, dictating into my phone. I’m about to resume my cycle after sitting under a tree for about 15 minutes, drinking some water, taking pictures, and listening to Bjork singing Isobel.
Thank you I’ll get back to you.
Now I am sitting opposite the Harborside light rail stop in Jersey City. I sit in the shade and I’m smoking the rest of the joint that I started smoking under the tree. A child is about to scoot by so I’m trying to be discreet, although I’m sure the area smells like weed.
It is a pleasant Sunday afternoon, June 28th, there’s a couple on another platform, and they seem to be looking directly at me. But in my mind’s eye, they abide, and it’s like they’re talking about me; “Did you see him? Is he the one? Yeah, he looks like he’s the one. I don’t know but you know he smokes that joint, and he really smokes it like he’s the one, cuz I have doubts. Yeah but I got this general vibe that he’s the one. You know if we ask him, he’ll deny it, which is what something the one would do, don’t you think? And now it’s the potheads’ dilemma wanting to relight the joint but can’t find the lighter, and having said that, I found the lighter.
A young man and a woman walked by or approaching, actually, a light rail pulls up into the station, it’s going north, it’s on the south southern track, what the hell is going on. It’s going to Tonnele Avenue and people don’t know because of the waiting for the train that’s supposed to be on the track that they’re standing next to, not the track that just pulled open up.
They’re not the type to ask anybody for help like a conductor or something I don’t know why am I getting involved with their lives instead of my business God damn it
In any event, the couple that I thought were looking at me and talking about me are no longer doing so since they were thrown off by the train that did not arrive. I’m crazy like that. I thought earlier about feeding this dictation into AI and saying what comes out. I did enjoy the Andy Warhol rewrite, and I’ll see what I come up with next?
That was written on Saturday, June 28th, and today is June 30th Monday. I spent yesterday, June 29th Bill’s birthday, with Bill and Mike at the New York City Pride parade. It was a magical day, everything seemed to work out nicely.
I had given Bill his gift the week before, an Apple Watch. Yesterday I gave him a nice shirt and a gift card for a store that he likes. Mike is supposed to start a new job at Jeff Bezos company, but thanks to artificial intelligence, it didn’t work out that way. But the pride parade was quite nice, it was Mike’s first visit to the Pride parade and we sort of experienced it for the first time through his eyes, though Bill and I have gone at least a dozen times together.
Whereas Mike was focused on the parade, I was focused on the people on the sidewalk that were walking back and forth in front of us, it was like a fashion runway. All different sizes, shapes, fashions, personalities, and whatnot, all walking by.
Bill and I wore T-shirts that read “I can’t even think straight,” which got a few chuckles and reactions. It was a very good day. We came back to Hoboken a few hours later, had birthday pizza at Grimaldi’s, and then came home for a quite lackluster Carvel ice cream cake. I ate it, Bill ate it, and Mike could not get through it.
Yesterday, there were thousands of people here, and today, there’s maybe a hundred. I am at my usual spot smoking a mini cigar. Yesterday, I was in the same spot smoking a regular cigar with Mike and Bill. I showed them the building where I worked, but not the office where I worked is which would have been silly. I mean, I am still a new guy, still on a 90-day probation of sorts.
I remarked yesterday that the sidewalk it was like a runway, a very gay, a very LGBT runway. Today, it is not that it is quite heterosexual, which to some means boring, and though I used the word earlier in a sentence, I think the proper word is lackluster.
It is a 4-day work week this week since the 4th of July is on Friday. Already I look forward to sleeping in till 9:00 a.m., it’s a low bar.
There was an older woman who sat next to us with her dog, and we tried chatting, but the music on the floats going by was much too loud, so I just nodded in the affirmative whenever it seemed like the thing to do.
Well, walking up 5th Avenue, I passed a man wearing a mod shirt. I stopped and asked him if he was a mod, and he said yes, and we chatted for a moment. His name was Rico. I believe his wife or his girlfriend or just a friend was with him, and he came flying over thinking I was going to hassle him, and we just talked about mod music as well as 2 Tone music, which was the connection.
The day in the office is quite quiet, though I am keeping myself busy. Marcus is, as usual, not very communicative as he eats his Chick-fil-A without any guilt.
Like I had mentioned at the beginning of this post on Saturday, I smoked a joint and noticed how high I had gotten, whereas I usually smoke at home and never realize how high I might be.
On Saturday, I smoked a joint, initially smoking one half and then smoking the other half on my way back to my crib in Hoboken. Yesterday I smoked a whole joint and was somewhat overwhelmed. I kept it together as nicely as I could and enjoyed the day as it unfolded in front of me, watching Bill enjoy himself and dance, and watching Mike erase the festivities going on before him.
And at work today, I completed the tasks that were asked of me by the agency that has placed me at the company where I am working.
The body was discovered on Thursday morning at the harborside light rail station. It was a Harborside Homicide; it wasn’t the first, and it sure as hell won’t be the last. I should have this rewritten in a hard-boiled mystery style.
And so Gemini AI…
The rain was coming down in sheets, a real gumshoe kind of rain, washing the grime off the streets of Jersey City but never quite reaching the soul. I was holed up in my usual spot, across from the Harborside light rail, nursing a half-smoked joint. Been 44 years since I first tasted the sweet poison back in ’81, at some Beatlefest with a character named Perry Dedovich. Nowadays, my world had shrunk to the four walls of my apartment, a dusty mausoleum of forgotten days. The only time I left it was for these brief, stolen moments under a benevolent tree in Liberty State Park.
Just yesterday, or was it the day before? Time blurs when you’re mostly living in your head. June 28th, a Saturday. Julio Lopez’s birthday, though he was a ghost in the machine, nowhere to be found. I’d sparked up half a stick under that tree, a wise old dame I called “Tree,” gender-fluid and full of silent wisdom. The ride back to Hoboken was a long, pleasured blur. Bjork’s “Isobel” was the soundtrack to my descent into the urban sprawl, a twisted lullaby.
Now, sitting here, the second half of that joint burning low, I watched a kid on a scooter, a blur of innocence in this city of shadows. I tried to be discreet, but the air hung heavy with the scent of my vice. A couple on the opposite platform seemed to be staring, their whispers like a distant siren song in my addled brain. “Did you see him?” one seemed to say. “Is he the one?” The pothead’s dilemma, a timeless classic: lighter gone missing, the craving a fire in your gut. But then, there it was, nestled in my palm like a forgotten promise.
A light rail pulled up, going north on the south track, a testament to the city’s chaotic logic. People milled about, lost, waiting for a train that wouldn’t come. Fools. I had my own demons to wrestle. That couple, their eyes burning into my back? They were gone, thrown off by the train’s misplaced journey. Sometimes, the city played tricks on your mind, made you see things that weren’t there. I’d even thought about feeding this whole twisted narrative to an AI, see what kind of distorted truth it spit out.
—
Today was Monday, June 30th. Yesterday, June 29th, was Bill’s birthday. I’d spent it with him and Mike at the New York City Pride parade, a kaleidoscope of humanity. It was Mike’s first time, and seeing it through his eyes, fresh and untainted, was like experiencing it all over again myself. Bill and I, we’d been a dozen times, but yesterday, it was a new parade. Mike was fixed on the floats, the spectacle, but I saw the real show on the sidewalks, a runway of defiance and celebration. All shapes, all sizes, all walking their truth. Bill and I wore shirts that read, “I can’t even think straight,” a cheap gag that still landed.
We’d grabbed birthday pizza at Grimaldi’s, the grease a comforting memory, then went home for a Carvel ice cream cake, a sad excuse for a celebration. Mike couldn’t stomach it.
Today, this same spot was a ghost town. Yesterday, thousands. Today, maybe a hundred. I was smoking a mini-cigar, a weaker brother to the full-bodied one I’d shared with Bill and Mike yesterday. Showed ’em the building where I worked, not the office itself, of course. Still the new guy, still on probation, still trying to keep my head down. The sidewalk, yesterday a vibrant, queer runway, was today just a sidewalk. Hetero, some might call it boring. I preferred the word **lackluster**.
Four-day work week. July 4th breathing down my neck. My aspirations had dwindled to sleeping in till nine. A low bar, but a bar nonetheless.
At the parade, an old dame with a dog had tried to chat, but the music was a wall of sound. Just nodded along, a silent agreement. Later, on Fifth Avenue, I’d seen a man in a mod shirt, a rare bird. Stopped him, asked if he was a mod. Rico, he said. His woman, or friend, or whatever, looked like she thought I was trouble. But we just talked mod, and 2 Tone, the threads that connected us.
The office today was quiet, a tomb. Marcus, my usual companion in silence, was devouring his Chick-fil-A, utterly devoid of guilt.
—
That Saturday, the one under the tree, I’d felt the full force of it, the weed hitting me like a fist. Usually, at home, it was just a slow fade. But out there, in the world, the high was a revelation. Yesterday, a whole joint, a little too much, but I held it together, watched Bill dance, watched Mike soak it all in. And today, I just punched the clock, did what they told me, another cog in the machine. Another day, another dollar, another drag on the mini-cigar. The long ride continues.