We woke up today, and all of a sudden, people could no longer be swayed by mind control. It happened by our innards, too, our inner cataloguings of the noise the garbage truck made as it passed by, of the pallor of our aging mother as she rested her head back, in her night gown, in the dim light.
So we were fully coherent. And with this, came a humility. It was dark, in a way. It was like all of the talk shows got turned down. The finger pointed inward.
I woke up wanting to buy opium. I walked down the street to the cafe where my guy usually hangs out, and I burned a hole through this poor venue maintenance guy. I looked up at the buildings, and knew that the sun was poring in on all the rock and roll artists of time, like they still had something in them inexpressible, their thoughts were stacked up in their lake cottages like hermitage cloaks to condense in the day. Everybody was now like porcelain, though, they’d already been broken by America. Above the day loomed thoughts of G.I.’s, little green men hard as a rock marching though desert.
I saw my friend sitting over in the corner table. He looked a little eager, but worried. He had this black girl with her, just a friend, or more than a friend, I wasn’t really concerned. We all end up running back into each other again and again, and again, nowadays.
“Whassup, man,” he said.
“Hey. What’s the good word.”
“Just chillin’,” he said, smiling and shrugging, like any true salesman would. Three out of the five people in the cafe within earshot grew suspicious of us, and of the other two, one had on earphones, the other, well, we’ll never see them again, now will we.
“Yo what was up with that black stuff?” I asked.
“Haha,” he laughed, pretending like I was making a joke. “Totally.”
“You know how to reach me,” I said, and left. It was another sunny day. Too good to be true.
And to think about it, it was really good to not be in school anymore. I’m talking about high school. I’m not talking about college, because I don’t remember any of college.
I thought of how it was in other towns. In Philadelphia, there were little men who looked like Danny Devito, buying periodicals at the street smoke shops. In Chicago, on the north side or in Hyde Park, there were so many smiling hot girls, it was ridiculous, it was like Puerto freakin’ Vallarta, except they had clothes on. At least for now. Eh, whatever. With enough charisma, discipline, you can coax the truth out of the large, buxom babe who’s always working at the cafe. Every night she plays shoot-em-up video games by herself, and when you look at her with your manic, homicidal eyes, her face opens up a little bit and gains hue, and everything is forgiven in the manic insanity of the moment.