This job at hand.
I have been at the fruit stand for over a year. I have my friendly coworkers. We check in on each other, sometimes when we are not working. I remember when I started at the fruit stand I felt I was being set up. Things were a little bit too easy. And there was still the recovery from the minefield of the oh so sensitive children at Barry McGarry.
This world is 180 degrees from that. And I was so worried I even tearfully called my brother Brian telling how unprepared I was for his gig and conessing my self doubt and lack of confidence. The odd thing about that was Brian is not someone I would go to for a confession or an ego boost. And neither was my brother Frank one to confess to.
No fault to them at all, it’s just not how they were wired to be, at least not with me. I’m sure they were both good with their offspring but with me, it was a whole ‘nother world that they would rather not deal with or know about. And once again, I am not finding them at fault.
And work is still the same. I don’t wake up with the dread I used to have. Even Barry McGarry was OK until the pandemic wound down and the crybaby millennials arrived. I suppose the bitch called Danielle Chieffo was/is a millennial. Not sure if they’re alive or not, nor do I care.
The Bicycle Ride.
Yesterday was Sunday, the last day in May. That means today is the first day of June. It had been a while since I last rode my bicycle. Perhaps September, maybe October. In the interim, I developed an anxiety of bke riding. And a fear of ticks.
The anxiety was overcome, after I got the bicycle ready for the road. Tires inflated, wrist mirror set. The speedometer/odometer was still working so no need to change the battery and the noise making device for the handlebars.
I decided to take my time, not racing down the street. I rode down Coles Street where Mike is fond of taking photos. Mike was not there as he was busy with his beloved Wade.
People are still terrible drivers. Making right turns from left lanes. Bicycle riders aren’t much better either. I’m sure the same could be said about me. I made it into Liberty State Park. A great swath of wildlands had been torn down, perhaps anticipating a golf course or some other eyesore for the rich.
I made it to my friend, Tree, just as a man and a woman and their Australian Shepherd were departing. I took some photos of the park, the wasteland and the back end of the Statue of Liberty, as well as myself jumping in the air. That took a while to negotiate the timer of my phone. Out of quite a few I deemed 3 to be worthwhile.
I got back on the bike, riding through more populated areas which was a bit annoying and I was rusty, in dealing with these pedestrians who walk en masse filling the pathways with elderly people and baby strollers. One good thing was that new pathways were newly paved, perhaps for the razing of the wetlands so that the equipment could move smoothly to the destruction of unspoled nature.
They also culled many of the deer that lived in the area. For those playing at home, to cull means to kill. And the fear of ticks was that the ticks usually attach themselves to deer. Now that the deer have been slaughtered, where will the ticks go?
Then Monday morning PATH train.
Last week, for the second time in two weeks, there was a fire in the AMTRAK tunnels to Penn Station, filling the tunnels with smoke and effectively shutting down Penn Station. That meant trains are diverted to Hoboken leaving the suburbanites to take the PATH train. These people are not used to taking that type of public transportation. Oh, dear.
This morning on the platform I had a good idea where the doors would open which would allow me to find a fast seat. Unfortunately a suburbanite woman was next to me and as soon as the doors opened I swept in brushing past her ample bosom, which I grazed with my hand.
She muttered ‘Jesus’ and I of course replied, ‘I’m not him’. She went to one end of the car and could not find a seat so she turned and walked to the other end. As she passed me I did offer her my seat but she just grumbled looking for another elusive seat.
I hoped she wasn’t getting off at my station and thankfully, she didn’t.
The Google Gemini rewrite as an essay by Luis Bunuel
## The Discreet Absurdity of the Fruit Stand
One does not choose the fruit stand; the fruit stand chooses the man who has survived the bourgeois minefield. For over a year, I have existed among the apples and the oranges—symbols of a domesticity so heavy it borders on the obscene. My coworkers are friendly, a terrifying prospect. We check in on one another. We simulate human connection even when the time clock has liberated us from the obligation to do so. It is an exquisite trap.
When I first arrived among the produce, I smelled a conspiracy. Things were too easy, too frictionless. The universe does not offer comfort without a hidden guillotine. I was still nursing the psychological wounds inflicted by the hyper-sensitive children of Barry McGarry—little aristocrats of emotion, guarded by their modern, weeping sentinels.
By contrast, the fruit stand is a 180-degree turn into the surreal. It terrified me. In a moment of weak, bourgeois panic, I wept into a telephone to my brother Brian. I confessed my self-doubt, my utter lack of confidence, as if he were a priest. But Brian is a stone, incapable of granting absolution, and my brother Frank is no different. They are wired to ignore the abyss. With their own offspring, they play the part of the dutiful patriarch, but faced with my reality, they avert their eyes. It is not a fault; it is simply their construction. They prefer the blindfold.
Yet, the work continues. The morning dread that used to paralyze my limbs has vanished. Even Barry McGarry was a tolerable stage play until the pandemic waned and the crying millennials arrived to claim their grievances. Consider that creature, Danielle Chieffo—a textbook specimen of the epoch. Are these people truly alive, or are they merely poorly wound automatons? I neither know nor care.
—
## The Bicycle, or the Triumph of the Ticks
Yesterday was the final Sunday of May. Today is the first of June. Time passes with the dull, repetitive thud of a grandfather clock in an empty parlor. It had been since autumn—September, perhaps October—since I last mounted my bicycle. In the intervening months, a splendid neurosis had taken root: an acute anxiety of the open road, paired with a magnificent fear of ticks.
To conquer the anxiety, I performed the holy ritual of maintenance. I inflated the rubber tires. I adjusted the wrist mirror—that tiny, narcissistic glass that reflects a world rushing to get behind you. The odometer still flickered with mechanical life; no new battery required. I tested the noise-making device on the handlebars, a futile instrument meant to warn a deaf society.
I set forth at a ecclesiastical pace, refusing to race. I coasted down Coles Street, a stage normally occupied by Mike and his camera. But Mike was absent, entirely consumed by his devotion to Wade.
On the asphalt, the human comedy was in full swing. The drivers are, as always, spectacularly terrible—executing grand, sweeping right turns from the far-left lanes, guided by some internal demon. The cyclists are no better; I am certain the same wretched critique applies to me.
Eventually, I breached the borders of Liberty State Park. There, a vast, beautiful swath of wildlands had been violently razed. No doubt the state is preparing a golf course or some other manicured eyesore where the wealthy can sweat in expensive trousers.
I arrived at the station of my friend, Tree. A man, a woman, and their Australian Shepherd were just vacating the sanctuary. Left alone with the desolation, I took photos: the park, the industrial wasteland, and the distant, cold backside of the Statue of Liberty. I also photographed myself leaping into the air. This required an absurd negotiation with the digital timer on my telephone. After a dozen undignified hops, I deemed three frames worthy of existence.
I remounted my machine and pedaled into the densely populated zones. It was a tedious exercise. I am rusty in the art of navigating the bourgeois masses—the elderly traveling en masse, the young pushing their infant carriages like sacred relics, filling every paved artery. Of course, these paths are newly paved. The state must ensure that the heavy machinery encounters no friction while moving toward the systematic destruction of unspoiled nature.
They have also culled the local deer. Let us not use euphemisms: *to cull is to kill.* They slaughtered them. And here the surreal logic of the universe reveals itself: the ticks, which I so deeply fear, require the deer for sustenance. Now that the hosts have been massacred, where will the parasites go? They will look for a bourgeois ankle.
—
## The Sacrament of the PATH Train
Monday morning. The PATH train platform—a subterranean purgatory.
The previous week, for the second time in a fortnight, a fire had broken out in the AMTRAK tunnels leading to Penn Station. The underground channels filled with smoke, shutting down the capitalist commute. Naturally, the suburbanites were diverted to Hoboken, forced to descend into the democratic squalor of the PATH train. These people are unaccustomed to the raw, unpolished geometry of public transit. One can only look at them and think: *Oh, dear.*
On the platform this morning, I positioned myself with surgical precision. I knew exactly where the steel doors would slide open, offering the ultimate prize: a fast seat.
But a suburban woman stood beside me, a monument to unearned entitlement. The doors parted. I swept inward like a sudden gust of wind, brushing past her ample bosom. In the scramble, my hand grazed her breast.
“Jesus,” she muttered, invoking the deity of decorum.
“I’m not him,” I replied.
She recoiled, fleeing to one end of the train car. Finding no empty throne, she turned and marched back through the aisle. As she passed my seat, I offered it to her—a grand, ironic gesture of chivalry. She merely grumbled, refusing the charity, and continued her quest for an elusive, consecrated space.
I watched her, praying to whatever dark forces govern the rails that she would not alight at my station. Mercifully, she remained on the train, trapped in her own ridiculous theater.