unfree

Today’s soundtrack: it’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away
Today at 9:02pm: Bypassing party at X-girl (the shit was packed)


On the Playstation I drive a Lamborghini to the recording studio and slay drug lords. In real life I drive a Volkswagen to LaGuardia to pick my father up. He’s been coming in and out of town a lot lately.

Tonight he came out of the American Airlines terminal at 10pm on the dot. He’s more impatient than I am so I hardly stopped the car to let him in; he threw his bag in the back, clambered into the seat and I hit the gas.

We hit the Grand Central (Parkway), I was supposed to ferry him upstate. But he needs a lift back to the airport on Wednesday afternoon, and I have to work.

“It’s okay, I can just take the train to Grand Central (Station), then take the shuttle to LaGuardia.”

“That’s no good, dad,” I said. “I want you guys to stay out of Grand Central. On the news they keep talking about the terrorists.” So on-the-fly I decided to give him my car for the week.

The new plan is as follows: We pull over and I take the subway back to Manhattan and he drives himself upstate. On Wednesday he drives the car back to Manhattan, drops it off at my garage downtown and hops a cab to LaGuardia, problem solved.

We pulled back off the Grand Central and detoured into Flushing. In front of a 7-train station I put the hazards on while he told me how he and my mother are worried about my little brother. I told him not to worry but he wasn’t having it.

I got out of the car and he got into the driver’s seat. I told him where the gascap release and the seat adjustments are. Asked him if he was okay with driving a stick. He laughed, and I remembered that he was whipping a stickshift Karmann-Ghia through NYC traffic before I was born.

Then he pulled off, and I headed into the station. The sight of my father driving my miniscule little hatchback was kind of weird.

Still, it’s not the first Volkswagen he’s ever driven; like I said he used to have a Karmann-Ghia. That was back in 1969 and he was younger then than I am now. Weird. I picture the young him and the current me driving our VWs along the Grand Central, oblivious to the passage of time and traffic. Back then he was worried about eating; Me, I’m worried about eating Anthrax.

On the 7-train I settled into my seat and started fishing around in my bag for my MD player. I was psyched to spend the hour train ride listening to music--I just burned some new Cody ChestnuTT shit and goddamn is it hot.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring headphones. I brought the MD player but no goddamn headphones. I was glad Seiji wasn’t here to see this--“Now who’s tech-retarded?” he’d say, holding the MD player close to his ear to see if he could hear the music.

I sighed a Charlie Brown sigh and stole surreptitious glances at the other passengers to see if anyone was worth watching. It was your typical panoply of New York immigrants, most of them from provinces you’d have trouble finding on a map. Across from me were two cujine girls, yapping on a cell phone and all dolled-up for their big night out in Manhattan.

At Junction Boulevard the train doors opened, and I saw National Guardsmen walking around the platform with AR-15s slung over their shoulder. Goddamn. The assault rifles here look much bigger than they do in “Vice City.”