In little more than four months time, I will know what it is like to die. I write not of corporeal expiration, inshallah, though neither do I intend for this to be dismissed as hyperbole. I'm talking above the rooftops. One helicopter-mounted 35 mm camera slowly rising and simultaneously panning out across a great urban expanse into a dissolve. Cue music. Roll credits. End of show.
Or, not at all. Rather than dissolve into the azure blue of the surrounding waters or gritty gray of an iconic skyline, the camera goes....everywhere. Split-screen. Picture-in-picture. Times infinite. We've got barked bartering in Chinatown and sunlit strolling in Soho; exposed chest hairs in Chelsea and construction on the Verrazano. Tens of thousands of dour faces in the subway and enough public urination between all five boroughs to fill one duty officer's summons book in that one moment alone. And what has happened to our departed hero? Nobody knows. And if they did, good riddance they would say. One more tiny room for the next arriviste and their big city delusion. One more vacancy in the service sector. One less occupied seat on the G.
Sadness, there will be some, but even that will be more isolated than queers in Idaho and come with a faster expiration date than dairy. As I imagine the reaction of loved ones some (inshallah) distant day after The Real One, I know it to be genuine. I can feel the Kleenex moisten and see the hands shake, but I also know that among even the most fervent mourners, after the ceremony, after the ashes are spread, there will be a time to eat. And I can only picture their attention on the Burger King drive thru menu board to be total and their deliberations thorough. There is a time to reflect. And then it's time to rejoin the world in its great big damn hurry.
New York will still be New York when I'm pushing southbound to New Orleans and the next of whatever passes for a Phase in my life. That's why we move here. We come from the corners and crevices of the globe, from happy families and broken homes and decide that this inhumane spit at the end of the Hudson will absorb us and make us whole. Eight million attention-starved only children, craving anonymity and locking ourselves behind doormen and padlocks and private wifi and grieving that nobody pays us any attention. Most, if not all, believe that we can leave our mark on the city that has always been under construction and never respected a burial ground. Pshaw. We walk around with the imprint of the tire's tread on our bodies and still believe.
And so to leave is to resign, to admit....well, I won't quite go there. A full seven years and it's too far gone to know what ambitions lurked inside myself upon arrival. I never thought I would ring the bell or cut any sort of public ribbon. I never wanted the Upper East Side and I sure as shit didn't want to discover my full potential at polo. I do know that I didn't imagine myself digging and clawing to get out just as feverishly as I did to get in. There are no medals for endurance on the treadmill.
So when I turn my head and cough, the self-diagnosis is a metastasizing case of Get The Fuck Out. I don't need the charts to know it's terminal. But you can think of my case as an almost lighthearted one, kind of like the guy in the commercial for the retirement fund walking along the beach. It's nearing sunset and I'm wearing a striped shirt, content with the mortal footprints left in the sand behind me. I'm leaving on my own terms. Smiling, laughing, able to remain but electing not to. I make no claims about leaving as king of the hill of these gritty grids, but I wasn't entirely castrated either. New York: let's just call this a draw.
Or, not at all. Rather than dissolve into the azure blue of the surrounding waters or gritty gray of an iconic skyline, the camera goes....everywhere. Split-screen. Picture-in-picture. Times infinite. We've got barked bartering in Chinatown and sunlit strolling in Soho; exposed chest hairs in Chelsea and construction on the Verrazano. Tens of thousands of dour faces in the subway and enough public urination between all five boroughs to fill one duty officer's summons book in that one moment alone. And what has happened to our departed hero? Nobody knows. And if they did, good riddance they would say. One more tiny room for the next arriviste and their big city delusion. One more vacancy in the service sector. One less occupied seat on the G.
Sadness, there will be some, but even that will be more isolated than queers in Idaho and come with a faster expiration date than dairy. As I imagine the reaction of loved ones some (inshallah) distant day after The Real One, I know it to be genuine. I can feel the Kleenex moisten and see the hands shake, but I also know that among even the most fervent mourners, after the ceremony, after the ashes are spread, there will be a time to eat. And I can only picture their attention on the Burger King drive thru menu board to be total and their deliberations thorough. There is a time to reflect. And then it's time to rejoin the world in its great big damn hurry.
New York will still be New York when I'm pushing southbound to New Orleans and the next of whatever passes for a Phase in my life. That's why we move here. We come from the corners and crevices of the globe, from happy families and broken homes and decide that this inhumane spit at the end of the Hudson will absorb us and make us whole. Eight million attention-starved only children, craving anonymity and locking ourselves behind doormen and padlocks and private wifi and grieving that nobody pays us any attention. Most, if not all, believe that we can leave our mark on the city that has always been under construction and never respected a burial ground. Pshaw. We walk around with the imprint of the tire's tread on our bodies and still believe.
And so to leave is to resign, to admit....well, I won't quite go there. A full seven years and it's too far gone to know what ambitions lurked inside myself upon arrival. I never thought I would ring the bell or cut any sort of public ribbon. I never wanted the Upper East Side and I sure as shit didn't want to discover my full potential at polo. I do know that I didn't imagine myself digging and clawing to get out just as feverishly as I did to get in. There are no medals for endurance on the treadmill.
So when I turn my head and cough, the self-diagnosis is a metastasizing case of Get The Fuck Out. I don't need the charts to know it's terminal. But you can think of my case as an almost lighthearted one, kind of like the guy in the commercial for the retirement fund walking along the beach. It's nearing sunset and I'm wearing a striped shirt, content with the mortal footprints left in the sand behind me. I'm leaving on my own terms. Smiling, laughing, able to remain but electing not to. I make no claims about leaving as king of the hill of these gritty grids, but I wasn't entirely castrated either. New York: let's just call this a draw.
No comments:
Post a Comment