A love supreme

 

To put it in simple terms, New York is part of me. How that came to be is a long story. Long but not too long.

It was the summer of 1968, or 69, it was the summer Coltrane died. I was there seeing it all happen and I told myself “this is the time” and “this is the record of the time”. It was a hot summer, hot like hell, hot like a kitchen, hot like myself at that very moment.

Then i saw him standing at a street corner. I was sitting on a bench and he passed by and stopped , waiting to cross the street. And so I fell in love. I knew it was an illusion but i didn’t mind. I did and that’s the important part of the story. He waited a bit too long and then I followed him for less than a block. Then i saw him stop, look for a too long moment at his cell phone and start walking in circles.

“i usually talk rather than walk in circles”, i thought.

Then he disapperaed and I never saw him again. He was slim and tall, maybe slightly taller than myself, which isn’t precisely a point of reference.

I put my finger just above my upper lip and started moving it from one side to the other, barely touching the skin barely covered with what people call “facial hair”.

People were passing by walking their dogs. People with small dogs. People with bigger dogs passinsg. That’s how my usual love affair ocurred, every step of the way, back in those days. The usual inital rush of passion with blood and sperm leaking, bursting, and doing other things.

That’s what was special about New York. That’s what i liked about it: when things were meant to happen, they happened, of their own accord, without the necessity of you doing any moves. I always felt so anonymous. The people were the same as everywhere. The gays were gay and the heterosexuals were castrated little kids always wearing short pants and polo shirts. From time to time you would also see one of those dangerous eunuchs. And people would come and sit at your bench without the slightest care. They would also chew things and make noise while doing so and piss you off.

I’ve always thought people are just as ignorant everywhere, in every country, rich or poor.

People in New York weren’t different. That’s what i liked about it, that people there were just like people anywhere. And so i felt at ease. So i felt on a common ground.

One problem in New York in the late 60’s was the lack of public bathrooms. If you happened to be sitting on any particular bench in, let’s say, St Mark’s place, or for the case, anywhere else, and you were defeated by the uncontrollable urge to urinate, you had no choice but to control youself even longer.

Even women carrying small children in their arms, most surely sleeping, or else, would come and sit on your bench. And people would pass by walking surprisingly small chihuahuas.

Back then people would tell you “Jesus died for your sins”, and i was like “who’s Jesus?”, “why did he die?”, “are you positive he’s dead?”, “did he suffer?!?”. They, no wonder, had no answer.

All things considered, 1969 was O.K.. Then came 1970, and it was boring, which is as much as can be said about: 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974.

1975 was different. Two doors were closed that year. Coffee tasted better. Summer was warmer, no too warm. Rock ‘n’ Roll was more conceptual. And it was the year I met this guy again. I was at a coffee shop reading in a green sofa and he was at the sofa right accross the table. So we met face to face. Face to face in every way the expression can be understood. Face to face in the deepest, most abstract, purest sense. The mirror in the mirror so to speak. I saw him and numberless mes relfected in him. He saw me and countless hims within me. And i said: So anyway, how are you doing?

His answer was far too long and too complex for me to give an accurate account, or an account that could be understood anyhow. There are, indeed, certain ideas and bodies of ideas, huge, obscure and intricate concepts that can’t be told in their integrity. It becomes impossible without the lacking words, the missing words. This is why his answer contained no words at all. I sipped my coffee and he sipped his. He sipped his drink and i sipped mine and our discourse went on taking the most astonishing shapes, forms, unexpected turns and mutations. A lady said she didn’t want milk on her coffee and we understood, if even partially, what she meant. We took notice of every simple gesture performed around us. A girl rubbing her ankle, a guy impatiently skaking his right foot. It was as though someone had knocked rational understanding out of us and thus, necessarily, magnified our senses. We therefore reached a deeper, more subtle comprehension of the smallest details, such as we never dreamed of. Blood and sperm spurted. And all this while, our selves persistently disgorged a never ending stream of reflections which energetically joined in an incestuous, touchingly vulgar, yet incredibly aesthetic emotional intercourse.

Anyone could have predicted we would see people pass by walking big dogs and small dogs. And so it was.

I never saw him again but the taste of his sweat stayed in my throat for years. The feeling of his blood in my hands.