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The Grand Central
by Max Davidson
Yes, the ceiling is tall. Yes, a universe is encapsulated here from
the view of God—love him as He sees Us/ bless Us from His holy
vantage. & there, the Aquarius pours his mighty jug & the Taurus
stampedes with coal iron fury & the twin Carp are united by a winding
umbilicus. Below & above, I lean on a marbled rail and watch the
black-suited, black-skirted collide in an elapsed time. Most have
urgent neck-tied purpose & runwalk accordingly. But some are still,
some are wandering. Some will wait at the base of the many-faced
clock staring in more directions, than even four eyes raised on a
gilded post could see. I see it now. The flood of man on man is not
unlike the human circulatory system. The bustle = the pump.
ComMutants = red blood cells. They move as they would through
capillaries. Yes. This is a cross-section of plasma placed under a
great microscope, (bodies within an enormous—no, no.) Bodies Within a
Grand Whole! Paul Cesar Helleu, The Scientist stands next to me,
pulling graphs & charts from the many pockets of his tweed stitched
laboratory coat. The papers match God's map of the universe, only
organized; broken into the finest, most complex series of algorithms,
geometric shapes & off-peak fare notices. He shakes his great bushy
beard; three stars fall from the domed sky in a rain of plaster. The
cracks of a flat universe show the old façade, stained black not by
plumes of smoke from Diesel, but the tar of human breath. Truth. The
scientist is frustrated & begins to eat his research, shoving it down
his gullet with a closed fist. "I will digest this," he says as he
chews, "you will write what is left." He shoots three raw oysters,
some of the gooey membrane sticks to his gnarled beard. "I prefer the
way they taste when I have historical context. That's how you know a
true gourmand, one that can taste history!" I sip my beer, it tastes
like beer. "Look, wooden boats!" he points, & I see that We have
wandered to the tiled catacombs, to the room of vaulted ceilings. The
tables are "L's" where Japanese businessmen nod, adjust their
glasses. & through the swinging doors of Ye Olde Saloon, Jerome
Brody, The Jerome Brody, proprietor extrodinaire, enters like The Red
Stone Rocket, chanting "U—S—A," much to the behest of the Japanese
businessmen, who politely finish their oysters, bow & leave. A drink,
he offers. A drink, I take. "Been here since 1913," he says as he
pokes me in the eye with a gigantic pretzel rod. "Good year, Good
Year" says the Scientist, "tastes like Wilson & Ottoman." "Indeed!"
answers The Brody, eyes bulging from his bulb head, "I see you have a
time-trained palate. Probably never misses a train," he says, elbowing
me in the ribs. The Scientist blushes, "Aw shucks." "We certainly
gave those old Penn-cil necks hell didn't we?" questions the
proprietor, "never much fuss after this The Grand Central"—a
statement of fortitude, the period at the end of the universe. "It
took balls, great big New Yorkian balls!" says the Scientist
shattering his pint against the cherry wood. I raise mine and
purpose a toast. "Let us thank the Vanderbuilts, without whom none of
this could have been Van-Der-Built" 40% of the World's population
stops running for a moment to scream HUZZAH! into cupped hands. Ye
Olde Saloon catches fire with song as Ye Olde Dancing Blackman
merengues into the room, tipping his fedora as he introduces us to an
invisible partner, who curtsies so no one can see it. Then comes Ye
Olde Playing Whiteman, strumming away on his dan Electro with a quiet
mutt in tow—the mutt sings a round of "Everybody is a Weirdo" and
Everybody joins in:
(Set to the tune of 'New York, New York')
Minerva laid in Tiffany Glass, watchin' as the buses pass
How does she see the city sprawl, or does she see it? Not at all.
How does she define Somebody Else, when I don't got the eyes to see myself?
The chorus now all starts to sing, underground from rainy spring.
'Campbell's loft is for rich, the floor all laid in Persian stitch'
Meet me by the clock at three, got tons of time because it's free.
I'm sure we'll find somethin' to do, in this place where old is new
old is old, made bright with gold, dancing shoes worn by the bold
In the ballroom homeless sleep, where forgotten tracks run dark and deep
Everyone is weird I guess, and so I make this one request
Take your time to see it all, walk a bit before you crawl
People ain't just what they are, buy em' a round at the Oyster bar
Everyone in such a rush, slowing down won't hurt you much
Forever may seem long away, but take a breath and live today
The center of the world is here, and though it seems a little queer
Drop your briefcase, shout it out! Undo your tie and flail about!
Everybody is a weirdo
(Repeat X Infinity).
We Conga through the Concourse. We Shimmy past the Shoe Shines. We
Pock & Lock by Plain Clothes Cops. We Go Go at the GrayBar. & We all
Veneese in the Vanderbuilt. The Scientist has gone crazy with it, his
moves stop making sense, two stepping as he mash potatoes, pirouetting
as he jives. "He's gone to free!" says The Brody ducking for cover
beneath a stack of stale hot dog buns. The confused Scientist meeps
twice like an electronic bird, & in mid-Hucklebuck, combusts in a
shower of Metrocards. "Wow!" says An Old Friend, "he's one with it.
He's become part of the Universal Period—The Grand Central! Now
they can put his portrait up in the Gallery of Missing Persons! What
an honor!" An Old Friend is sitting at a checkered table, around her
two rail ties intersect, behind her is the American Flag. She is
picking at a Catfish Sandwich. "How is the writing?" I ask An Old
Friend and An Old Friend answers, "how am I supposed to eat this
without tartar sauce? I keep eating the coleslaw and I don't even
like coleslaw. In New Orleans we had tartar sauce when we ate a
Catfish Sandwich, this is bullshit. Oh the writing—the next piece
will be in a historical context of course." "Of course," I answer.
"Did you know," says An Old Friend, "that actresses were once
waitresses, & the other way around?" A waitress walks up smiling with
a bleached mouth, she is followed by a midget cinematographer cranking
a motion picture camera. The waitress hands me an Amstel Light,
recites an Oscar acceptance speech, (in which she uses the words
Darfur and Jesus 7000 times interchangeably), until the music
crescendos & she dips behind the flag, drying her eyes on a corner.
"Actresses?" I tell An Old Friend, "I never would have guessed." I
see the edge dripping with snot: the white stars set to blue, the red
stripes set to white, & the green mucus camouflage set against a day
in mid-September. Helmeted, diligent, they patrol the cruel city that
dies by degrees inside of this marbled monument to Trumpian ingenuity,
arms raised & ready to strike down all the burners, the terrors. In
the splotches between green & brown I hardily see their leather necks.
They blend the terrain perfectly. Is this the beauty that will
inspire our children? Not Zeckendorf's Tower of Babel nor Supreme
Court Cases that die gasping preservation and the names of Kennedys on
the Eastern Steps. No one dances anymore, they have been scattered by
bullet spray and fallen from the beat of this subterranean pumping
heart. There is no rhythm but forward. Alive but, impersonal—flowing to the body of steel boxes inside of glass boxes inside of
steel boxes inside of—A time when time wasn't. Do you see it in the
ceiling yet? The universe dances in ways we couldn't imagine, because
no traveler could send their essay from the curved hourglass of being. It would ruin him, shred him into the very string frequencies of
which this "being" is composed! Thinking of it ruins him, makes him
spontaneously combust! & so to bolster our importance we latch to
what histories we can invent, to touch that immensity we build
monuments to ourselves in the most grotesque of scales only to raise &
resurrect them with new faces attached, (this is the 3rd coming of
this very place). We give names to the stars, place them on our flags
& ceilings so that they too might become a commodity. Something that
belongs to us, to the uniformity of what we are, even on an
interstellar scale. One day, (when the word 'day' no longer has a
meaning) the verges of space will cease to grow and all that is or
ever was: life, art, human relations, police dogs, Whole Food Markets,
The Harlem Line, The Hudson Line, aquatic life, the meteoric drifts,
the Omega Board, Mugler's Shoring, and so on, will converge. & what
will be left? A period at the center, filled with stars, stripes and
automatic weapons. The Grand Central, the sum total of all, the face
of God—&—
our final station stop. |
