Plyometrics
Underneath the city of Detroit, a vast exchange of energy is occurring. A similar process is occurring in Baltimore. Ever wonder where all that steam comes from? Most people go their whole lives not noticing. They think: a trick of the light. A cloud of fog rolling in. Some piece of the sky. The exhalation of a city bus. Things that will move an urban planner to tears: unused bike racks, underfunded school systems, rusting subway cars, empty office buildings, empty streets, body linen hanging from project balcony railings, a museum that’s actually a discount jewelry store, a discount jewelry store that’s actually a mob front, a mob front that’s actually just a bad Italian restaurant, and a bad Italian restaurant that’s actually every restaurant. Billy Joel would never sing about this. Energy can only be exchanged. The myth of generation pervades us at every level. Underneath Detroit they are seeing to this. Underneath Baltimore they are seeing to this. Underneath Philadelphia, too, I have just been informed. Breaking news: All the money’s run out. The banks are asking for loans. Everything is invested now in the exchange. Every last cent. Where do you think the pennies went? Test the water; test the air. Find out what’s going down underground. I can’t explain it all. Just know this: The Exchange will occur whether you want it to or not. It’s like everything; you just need to decide which side of the equation you fall under.
The Knocking Leaves a Hollow Sound
I’ve just been told that there’s a city made of bones being built out in the desert, but I do not believe it. I’ve seen photographs, videos, engineering drawings, architectural plans, blueprints. I’ve seen all the blueprints, and still I don’t believe it. I’ve seen a man with the face like the one my father used to wear when he would come home from work after dark in the cold with the wind whipping snow off the front of the stoop and it gathering up around the hem of his coat—that kind of face, long and lined, with a weary, drunken, wan expression, whites leaking out the corners of his eyes, streaking the coat and the floor where my mother had just cleaned, just twenty minutes ago, fifteen. Anyway, the man with this face that my father used to wear—a borrowed face, Dad’s a happy chap now—that man came on the screen (it is all one screen, isn’t it?) and told us that the city of bones was definitely real. Believe in it. I still didn’t. He gave us a tour. There were dozens of us—literal dozens—watching. He knocked on bone doors, walked down bone streets, went in and out of bone houses, took a trip to the bone city hall, met the bone mayor, the bone city council, the bone rabbi and the bone pope. All world religions were represented. All local religions were suppressed. I won’t get into the politics of bone city, not at this juncture, but buddy they are brutal. That’s if you believe in it. On second thought maybe I should. The desert is clean, as a great man once said; the bones are clean. The man with the face like my father et cetera, he said there were houses for all of us. Bone mansions and bone bungalows. It’s one big club—and you might just be in it! I still couldn’t believe, though. It’s all just too good to be true.