Saturday, August 30.
I’m in Tribeca. In the same spot I used to spend my lunch break on Thomas Street, once again, I sit and smoke a cigar. No anxiety that used to occur back in the day.
I was hoping that the Pixel 6a microphone would work. So I sit and type and smoke.
Mike is out of the picture due to things that he has to deal with.
Bill is preparing for the afternoon matinee of Postal Madness.
I am going to the Pleasure Chest.
The line for the Oasis pop-up shop is around the block
It was just said that I’m a ‘smooth nigga‘
Santiago Cohen
I knew you
35 years ago
For less than an hour
Yet your flame burns
In my heart
As I pass
Your former residence
It was a four day work week for me, and since I took a personal time off from work, I also did the same for writing. Yet, today I found myself somehow wanting to write. Or as Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac, ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing.’ Perhaps in that sense, I am akin to Jack Kerouac.
I walked about 10 miles, though one or two miles was spent being transported on the ferry from the mainland to Manhattan. The PATH station is closed this weekend in Hoboken, and the ferry was just $3.00. I call that a bargain.
I walked through the neighborhood of Bratty McGrotty and I was tempted before heading out to make some anti-Joselito Semana stickers but I thought better of it and continued to think even less of it.
I saw an AVL3 post on social media smoking an Oliva cigar and decided that I, too, would enjoy an Oliva cigar. I lit up outside the store where I used to sometimes buy a cigar at lunc,h and walked to Thomas Street where this post started.
It was a leisurely walk through some former stomping grounds. No emotional attachments, just memories of jobs and shops where friends used to work 40 years ago. I strolled and enjoyed my cigar, not sticking around long enough to see if anyone was bothered by the smoke. I myself was a bit concerned with looking like a tourist, of which there were many.
I made it to the Pleasure Chest just as I was finished with the Oliva cigar. I walked in, it was narrower than last time I was there and I was certain I was there before, possibly with dear Pedro whom I am fondly missing today for some reason. Oh, the hard time he would give me for associating with Mike.
The Pleasure Chest did not have what I wanted, and their suggestions were out of my price range. I did find an item which might have satisfied my curiosity, but only time will reveal that.
40 years ago, or even 30 years ago, walking around Manhattan on a pleasant summer afternoon would not have been too much of a big deal. Today I am feeling it.
Gemini rewrite as a Jack Kerouac essay
I sit on the curb of Thomas Street, the same spot where the ghosts of lunch breaks past linger in the summer air. Tribeca is a quiet beast this afternoon, the sun slanting down between the glass and steel canyons. A **cigar** burns between my fingers, a silent companion to the hum of the city. There’s no frantic drumbeat of anxiety in my chest like there used to be, just the slow, steady rhythm of smoke coiling into nothing. I’m just typing, the **Pixel 6a microphone** a broken promise in my palm. My fingers tap out words on the screen, a **mad jumble of thoughts** and observations, and the sweet, musky smell of tobacco fills my head.
Mike is a memory now, a silhouette against a far-off horizon, swallowed up by his own private storms. Bill, the great, forgotten tragedian, is preparing for his matinee, a **symphony of postal madness** and forgotten envelopes. I, on the other hand, am bound for the **Pleasure Chest**, a pilgrimage of sorts. I passed the Oasis pop-up shop on my way here, a line of hopeful souls snaking around the block, a monument to fleeting moments and ephemeral pop songs. Some cat just called me a **“smooth nigga”** on the street, and I smiled, a little surprised, a little pleased.
—
It was a four-day week, a brief, beautiful respite from the machine, and I let my writing fall by the wayside. My fingers grew stiff, my mind went fallow, but today, something stirred. I felt that familiar itch to put words to the page. Truman Capote once said of me, or someone like me, that **”That’s not writing, that’s typing.”** Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m just a glorified typist, a chronicler of a half-remembered world, a Kerouac without the frenetic energy, a ghost on a street corner, simply typing.
My feet are tired. A good **ten miles** they have covered, though a few of those were spent on the ferry, the Hudson a shimmering, indifferent highway. The PATH is closed, a weekend hiccup in the city’s endless flow, and the **$3.00 ferry** was a gift, a small victory of logic and luck. I walked through the domain of Bratty McGrotty, and for a second I thought about making some **anti-Joselito Semana** stickers, a small act of rebellion, but the thought withered on the vine and I let it go.
I saw an **AVL3** post on the internet, a man I may or may not know, smoking an **Oliva cigar**, and I was struck by a sudden desire for the same. I bought one from the store where I used to go at lunchtime, where the air smells of old leather and forgotten dust, and lit it up as I walked away, a column of white smoke trailing behind me. It was a beautiful, leisurely walk, a journey through the past without the weight of nostalgia. No grand feelings, just ghosts of jobs and friends and a life that was. I walked and smoked and tried to look like I belonged, tried not to look like one of the **many tourists** that crowded the sidewalks, lost and looking.
I finally arrived at the Pleasure Chest, the last puffs of the cigar trailing off into the twilight. The store was smaller than I remembered, or maybe it was always this small, just the memory of it that had grown. I was sure I was here before, maybe with dear **Pedro**, a ghost of a friend I miss more than I care to admit. Oh, how he would have laughed at me, at my association with **Mike**, at the ridiculousness of it all. They didn’t have what I wanted, and their other suggestions were too expensive, a world away from my tired wallet. I did, however, find something that might satisfy my curiosity, a small bauble, a whisper of a promise. Time will tell if it delivers.
Forty years ago, thirty years ago, a walk like this would have been nothing. Just a simple stroll on a summer afternoon. But today, the years are a weight on my shoulders. I feel every one of those **ten miles** in my bones, a slow, aching reminder of time and its relentless march.