la nuit dernière

my yin and i spent last night carousing two counties in pursuit of art, sustenance and libation, and our search led us to a gallery opening across from the city bus terminal, where a sad white girl with her head in her palms under a lonely halide light attached to the station wall. i imagined what troubles brought her there and heard the sound of the train in the distance, while three black men sat under a tree in a vacant lot across from the station, sharing their impoverished camaraderie and sipping from brown bags. the crescent moon shone, silent, through the cloudy gauze of regret.

(i talked of Memphis and the bus station terminals i saw in the summer of 1994).

our goal hovered within reach as we watched a woman pour five buckets of water into a container built for only four. there were rumors that it was supposed to burst, a shattering testimonial to impermanence, but instead the pot sprung a leak and dribbled water onto the white rectangle constructed around the exhibit. i left, wondering what art - if any - had been lost.

we stopped at a 7-11, and inside there was a half-crazy woman buying $5 worth of lottery tickets. the clerk knew her name and flirted some, but the woman ignored his advances in favor of the scratching penny promise of easy money. the slurpy machine was spilling over onto the floor and a man stepped up to the counter and bought a $6.08 pack of Newports. he was on his way to the club, and i stepped in line behind him. i paid $1.38 for my (diet) soda, and on the way out i passed a tall red hair with boots, making a quick stop before going to dance for the man with the Newports.

we arrived to find the Avenue packed with men who smelled like women, women who looked like mannequins, and mannequins with sculpted breast impacts in the store window. there were three drag queens dancing on the sidewalk and i ate red snapper on a bench, feeling half-spacey. i saw a guy i used to know walk past with two other men, (all steroid and cologne), but it was the skinny red headed boy from New Jersey that walks in the center, a half step ahead of the others. i hardly recognized him and felt like Jack Kerouac in Denver, totally and completely lost in the great expanse of time. i plagiarized him the morning after.

this is the Plastic Peacock Parade of the first Friday night of Season.