i woke up 9 years ago

i woke up 9 years ago (today) in Washington Heights and walked to the subway station at 181st Street. it was the most beautiful morning i ever saw in Manhattan, and i heard De Niro's voice in my head, promising that "someday a real rain will come..."

the previous day a tremendous rain storm had shut down the MTA, and i left work early, maudlin, and manic. i saw the soiled, sopping mattress of a homeless man who lived on the steps leading up from the station, with only a lonely bottle of beer to serve as sentry against the pigeons, and their penchant for chlamydia. he was gone.

i never saw the man again, and i could not help but wonder if the rain had washed him away. but this is besides the point.

the point is that i walked into a hardware store that Thursday afternoon and purchased a pint of red latex semi-gloss. i spent the afternoon covering my wall in aluminum foil, and trying to paint away the premonition of Westchester infidelity. at night's end i was covered in paint, and i documented the artifact in 35 millimeter before collapsing in a sweaty mess.

but the infidelity came to pass.

[lapse]

last fall i saw a new wall created in paper and pastels. it tells a different story, and i never even knew what it said until the sun was rising, 6am Saturday morning. Mardou picked up a red Sharpie and wrote: [she] was here '99-'08. it all came crashing down, and the book i thought i was writing was really only Part 3.