Day 249 (God Wielding a Revolver)

The first floor is the alcohol station, the loitering station, the place where Jamil the Honduran distributes affection like a bristly puppy.

The second floor is the dance floor, where people sway after the band has gone, the promise of funk and soul lingering in the air unfulfilled.

The third floor is the pool room, a square of couches near the stairs, lines of people leaning against the walls, and in the square, the members of the band, with two sets of bongos and a cajón, a mini-maraca and a paintbrush on an empty beer bottle, create a rhythm and jive off it in tempo that keeps going up, up, quicker hands on the bongos and the accelerating firmness of the clicks of the wood on the glass, the whole room beginning to channel into the energy that the rhythm is, conversations pacing themselves off it, then ceasing, in a fade into the enveloping height of a unity that keeps getting higher and higher, and higher, will it ever stop?

Day 116 (Buon Natale)

Heaven is where you serve yourself rice casserole, steamed vegetables, french fries, mashed potatoes, fried chicken wings, turkey, cranberry sauce, and rolls, times four.

A lofty earth is where you are served free wine and beer, at least until eleven o’clock.

An earth as we know it is where you sit on a wooden patio talking, soothing your achingly filled stomach, and gazing at the pleasantly lighted bridge nearby until its lights are shut off.

A squat earth is where you drift unclearly from person to person as the night winds down, and in the end mount your bike to make the long scramble down the sidewalks to your apartment.

Hell is where you can’t think and so collapse on your bed of clothes and climbing gear, sans reflection, sans the signs of a day’s finish, to wake up in nine hours with a sense of having not done.