“Stand clear of the closing doors please,” and off we went,
leaving Ben and Jenny behind in the heart of it all, the financial core, where
seldom, if ever, money is found, and oddly enough it is sometimes king, but
more often whore. Where people pass and
hardly glance, but are always rubbing elbows with “who knows who,” and we
headed into Bleeker Street station. And
on we went, and on and on. And crossing
Astor Place a man coughed, and the rest of the world fell silent as we waited
for the doors to close, and they did, and we were off again. And I remember I sat in that small cafe and
said, “What's holding this place together?” Two hundred coats of paint, the
last of which turned an old East Village meat market into a trendy French
cafe.
And he passed like Peter Lorre in
“Casablanca,” hair parted, hair separated, and that little black mustache like Jose Ferrer in Lawrence of Arabia. What a strange cafe, what a strange place,
what a strange day. If only we knew
each other a little better. When the
sound of voices could travel no further than an empty city block. And I walked a lot, and never really talked
to anyone.
