Period Space Space: Saturday in the Park

06 May 2025 - Miranda

A picture of water where the fog is so low to the ground that you can't see the bottoms of buildings on the other side. The tops of the buildings are also obscured, so there's basically an inbetween layer of skyline that you can see. There's a ferry on the water in front of the buildings

The days New York City cosplays as the Pacific Northwest are my favorite. Yellow roses, prickly pear cacti, cheese enchiladas, the smell of manure. Most of my favorite things are Texas themed. A prisoner of nostalgia like the rest. Outside is Arc’teryx shell, Patagonia pants, phone screen weighed down with mist. Inside is Telex From Cuba, english breakfast tea dash of sugar dollop of honey splash of milk, weed pen hits. The Fog hovering above the Hudson and the rooftops and the scourge. John Carpenter’s third best feature. After Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China.

Sometimes I get paid to hang out in my favorite. Like today. Right on West, right on Spring, left on Washington, past the UPS garage, past Christopher, Chrome Hearts Margiela boot selfie corner, the now closed second Bubby’s location where Zach, my little brother by half a decade, met my ex, the Tesla dealership really has that fucking robot in the front display, left on 14th, right on 10th, the now defunct 1 Oak where Zach, my little brother by half a decade, and I got bottle service with Clay and his brother before they caught charges, right on 19th, right on 9th, TLounge, take Greenwich at the fork, parking garage mid conversion to 8-unit condominiums, Clarkson, look up.

There she blows. My Polaris. The erect antennae, which must be superfluous if not completely useless, is hidden in the tender bush of fog. The very tippy top floor that holds the observation deck is barely visible. One World Observatory has an overpriced cafe, a team shop, and an uninterrupted 360 degree view as far as the eye can reach. I know this because in January 2017 I went with Zach, my little brother by half a decade. I can’t personally speak to the uninterrupted 360 degree views on account of the fog that day. It was a day much like today. Only thirty degrees colder Fahrenheit. Making it like today only miserable. This was my second East Coast winter and I was still ill-equipped. Monkey trying to fuck a football levels of unpreparedness. I learned that phrase from my second favorite Tom Cruise movie. My dad would say that to me when something befuddling happened.

“He looks like a monkey trying to fuck a football,” witnessing Tony Romo fumble the extra point snap.

“They look like a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football,” whispered at the Corpus Christi Greyhound Track

“He looks like a monkey trying to fuck a football,” after the murdered transsexual appears on Law & Order: SVU.

Yesterday was the old man’s birthday. Sixtieth. I didn’t call. The new tradition, of not calling each other on our birthdays, has trumped the old tradition, of calling on our birthdays, for eight years now.

The ride up to One Observatory Deck is the best part of the experience. The elevator walls are LED screens. As ascension begins so does the show. Bedrock, native flora and fauna, farms, Wall Street, expansion, steel, rail, bridges, cast iron, tenements, government housing, Battery Park City, glass monuments, the 400 year history of New York City wrapped up in 60 seconds. I talked about it for a year. I was obsessed. I watched every Youtube video shot on a GoPro. I would have the videos on repeat so I could sleep to the elevator music. I recommended The Elevator Ride to anybody that would listen. A twenty-four year old with a pressed Xanax addiction doesn’t have much to talk about.

My mom sent me a $30 Domino’s gift card later that day so that Zach, my little brother by half a decade, and I could eat. Spent the last hundred to my name on a sixty of blow and a mess of ladders the night before. Spend It All was my mentality. Still is for that matter.

My Internal Memory Television is interrupted by a FaceTime from Eleanor. God I hate FaceTime.

have you eaten

i’m coming to the city let’s go to a diner

okay, El Castillo de Jagua?

and i want to go to this place called le PÈRE

la pear is french for the pear

God I’m gay.

Fender benders are the best case scenario as far as car accidents go. Perhaps backing into a pole or scraping a guardrail are better. But let’s imagine what would be the best case scenario when two vehicles are involved. Beautiful happenstance that I was on Hudson and Vestry when the front bumper of a Toyota Sequoia aggressively touched the rear bumper of a Toyota Sienna. Toyota on Toyota crime. The crunch and groans of metal on plastic and glass on aluminum are jolting. I yelp, naturally. The Dominican Sandwich at El Castillo was playing on the IMTV. Now the actual retina television is playing angry man gesticulating at a sheepish man. The sheepish man is me on the couch after eating the Dominican Sandwich at El Castillo. The angry man is me texting Magic Man “hey can i get 2 bags of C at XX Clinton St?” after throwing up the Dominican Sandwich from El Castillo.