satans laundromat

…then we went, to Times Square
and ever since i’ve been hanging round there…

The first time I was in Times Square I remember my father said, “You’ve never seen anything like THIS before,” and there I was, impossibly small with my stuffed dog, Macro and my cherry lollipop. Looking up; spellbound. I don’t remember what it was that I saw, how it was that the place first appeared to me, but I do remember being so distracted that I let my lolli fall against Macro where it became stuck, and I—alarmed--gave it a tug, pulling off a patch of synthetic brown “hair” and being sent reeling from the effort. I fell backwards into a wonderfully soft wall, a warm, alive wall topped with an immaculate piling of blonde hair and wrapped in a shiny, full-length black fur coat. So shiny in fact, that it glistened in the theater lights, and gave off flashes as bright as aluminum.

Whoever it was, our collision barely broke her stride. It all happened so fast—a New York minute, as it were. I remember the sudden horror and hilarity of realizing that the lolli was out of my hand and traveling on its own down the street, red as a stop sign on the back of that rich bitch’s coat.

It was a statement—regardless of the lack of conscious intent, I like to think of it as my first real interaction with the crowds and lights and marquees and pickpockets and break dancers and shimmering penthouse suites that make up Times Square.

The unrelenting white light from the electronic billboards...the Saturnalia promise of a midnight sun…

I still have that poor old stuffed dog called Macro.

I can still get his nose to squeak, if I squeeze it a certain way.

And he still has a bald patch the size of a quarter on his back.

“Do I dare disturb the universe?” I think, as I feel the spot with my thumb.