it's my day off and outside, it's like march, or even deep april, the mindless, sweltering april of my childhood island. it's yet three hours from lunch time and already, i've got this parched throat and this burning desire to go call a friend, who i know is sweating right now at his cubicle in a pre-war manhattan building, so he can drive me, on his hour long break, to a nearby beach - orchard beach, perhaps -so we can go for a cool swim, with this blues guitar riff of a mos def track on our head, and then to break after for a hurried lunch of take out pastrami sandwich smothered in spicy mustard, a potato knish and a sour, garlicky dill pickle on the side and some really, really cold beer. unlike the beer we had the other weekend, when we went to surf city in jersey, and while he had gone to the water, i stayed behind in our mat, guarding our assorted treasures: unbroken flip-flops, paperbacks still plastered with discount price stickers, dark, smoky glasses and an ipod with sand sheltering inside its neoprene case. then, when it became really too hot for me, thankfully, a man went by, lugging a chagall blue coleman excursion cooler that clanked like a librarian's bell. "ice cold beer," he yelled, as he footslogged barefooted in the sand. i beckoned him and bought two, and off he scurried away after i paid him, screaming to the top of his lungs again, "ice cold beer." i yelled out to my friend and waved the bottle of beer, and then, without waiting for him to come out of the water, i chugged my beer and it was hot and so i yelled after the vendor, "dude, this beer is hot," and he yelled back, without looking back at me, "so, drink it fast, dude."
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changeling
at seven or six, perhaps, i remember thinking i must have been a changeling. in my mind, my true self ran away and hid under the mossy rainwater cistern behind our open air kitchen, not to be found again by my mother too taken by a striking dress cut in the latest issue of her preferred ladies magazine. then, a giggly pack of imps put me in place of my runaway me.
until now, i could not recall anybody introducing me, ushering me to the tall tale world of malevolent spirits wont to baby switching. but there i was surmising that my true self had been held hostage by a ring of baby snatching trolls. for what i was then — rangy and so hard to make friends with my neighbors — i thought wasn’t the real me. i was certain my authentic self was a sparkly golden boy, so easy to love by the gaggle of foul mouthed neighborhood boys and especially by my remote mother.
