I had a couple of dreams before waking up this morning. One involved Jim Mastro and I on a rooftop talking about a fiddle player we both knew. I was removing a belt from the hole of a guitar, carefully since it was Jim’s guitar. I remarked that the fiddle player was not very dependable but can be relied upon when needed.
Another dream had me trying to get a book about an episode of Saturday Night Live with Billie Eilish into the hands of Bob Huff who was visiting Hoboken.
At the fruit stand today, things that were set up yesterday have been altered to the point where there is nothing to do but think about getting lunch. The woman who has to corral the guests and whatnot is here, and I remember when she was genuinely nice. Now, not so much.
That frees me up to be able to perhaps get some halal food. The timing is right, I just need to get away when no one is looking.
In some ways the timing was right. In other ways, not so much. I came back to find a woman near my spot the fruit stand. She was there in response to an email that sent her, on June 9, 2026. Today is October 14. I sometimes assist with passes to the belly of the fruit stand and in June there were a few dozen that I initially assisted with these things.
I did what I could to help this woman, but it to no avail really . She had a digital card on her phone which does the same thing. This woman works mostly at home and is in the office maybe 2 times a year. I had to walk her our and in the elevator I mentioned that it might be in her best interest and everyone’s best interest to respond to emails sooner rather than later.
She did not take that advice well. There is always a possibility that she will complain that I did not bend over backwards enough for her liking.
The path train promises to be a bit difficult again for the commute home tonight. Last night, I was at the start of the line and able to get a seat. Tonight I will be at the middle of the line and the Hoboken train will more than likely be crowded. I am considering taking the train to Journal Square and getting off at Newport and walking home from there. It’s a 15 minute walk from there to Hoboken and then15 minutes from there to home.
All this to avoid being crowded. I suppose it would all depend on how crowded the Hoboken train will be. And I sit all day, so standing up for 15 minutes is not so bad after all, is it?
Listening to D’Angelo, “Voodoo “. Hard to believe he died one year ago today. He was something for sure and gone way too soon. Devil’s Pie indeed. He was a sexy and talented man.
I foolishly took the Hoboken train getting tonto a very crowded car which was going to get even more crowded with the next 2 stops. Young male twats too self involved to take off their backpacks. Tomorrow I will return on the Journal Square train because this is ridiculous. Five weeks on this. They could have done this in the summer, less people, more commuters on vacation or working from home. But no. Let’s do this in the fall…
The Google Gemini William S Burroughs essay rewrite
Dream tape plays backwards on a rooftop over Hoboken. Jim Mastro standing in the cold gray light while I fish a leather belt out of the soundhole of his guitar. Careful now. Don’t scar the wood. The control room sends down word on the fiddle player: *Undependable, yeah, but he shows up when the line goes live.* Cut to the next reel. Trying to slip a manuscript about Billie Eilish on *Saturday Night Live* into the hands of Bob Huff, floating through town like a ghost with an expired passport.
The Fruit Stand—that’s what we call the office, the Control Center, the whole bureaucratic apparatus—has been reorganized overnight. The spatial coordinates shift while you sleep. Setups altered, desks moved three inches to the left, protocol rewritten by unseen desk-creatures. Nothing left to do but make a run for lunch. The Warden of Guest Relations is stalking the perimeter. I remember when she had a human face, back before the virus got her. Genuinely nice, once. Now she’s just another agent of the Machine, enforcing dead regulations with a cold eye.
Timing is a weapon. You gotta step through the seam in the security mesh when nobody’s looking. A quiet fade toward the halal cart.
The escape works, but the temporal feedback loop catches up on the return leg. Found a woman waiting at my station at the Fruit Stand. She’s responding to a signal sent down the wire back on June 9, 2026. Today is October 14. Four months of radio silence, now she materializes in the flesh, hunting for a pass to the belly of the Fruit Stand. I used to process these clearance codes by the dozen.
I try to route her through the system, but the machine rejects the input. Turns out she’s carrying a digital card on her screen that does the exact same thing. A ghost worker. Inhabits the home zone, visits the central node twice a year. I escort her to the airlock. In the elevator, descending through forty feet of concrete, I drop a piece of word-virus in her ear: *“Might be in your best interest—everyone’s best interest—to answer the wire a little faster next time.”*
Static. Cold refusal. The look of a low-level operative preparing a complaint report to Supervisory Control. *Subject did not display adequate deference.*
The evening transit grid is jammed. The PATH train is a subterranean cattle car controlled by hostile forces. Last night I boarded at the terminus, secured a perimeter seat. Tonight I’m caught mid-line. The Hoboken car will be a crushing mass of flesh and suit-fabric. I calculate the alternate route: board the Journal Square train, drop off at Newport, hit the surface, and walk the fifteen minutes through the cool dusk to Hoboken, then fifteen more to the pad. A thirty-minute drift to buy an inch of personal space. After eight hours sitting under the fluorescent tubes, the legs want to move anyway.
Headphones on. D’Angelo’s *Voodoo* pumping through the wire. Hard to process that he stepped off the planet one year ago today. Gone into the silence way too soon. *Devil’s Pie* heavy in the eardrums. A sexy, brilliant cat trapped in the human image-cannery, dead at the hands of the Great Clock.
Then the routine breaks down. Panic or fatigue—I make a wrong move and board the Hoboken train anyway.
Instant regret. A tight, suffocating vault jammed wall-to-wall. Young male twats, completely absorbed in their personal hallucination, refusing to shed their giant nylon backpacks. Taking up double the spatial volume. Parasites of the public transit system.
The Transit Authority planned this track work for the autumn rush. Five weeks of total gridlock. They could have run this operation in July when the city empties out and the commuters fade into the beaches. But the System doesn’t work that way. The System thrives on maximum friction, maximum density, maximum psychic wear-and-tear.
Tomorrow I take the Journal Square line. Tomorrow I cut the cord.