Today’s soundtrack: It shall be rough, rough and tough
Today at 5:02pm: Left foot searching for a clutch that isn’t there



Reality catches up with me somewhere around 33rd and Park Avenue, when I come out of the tunnel and back into the sunlight.

I’m gliding through Manhattan traffic in a large and shiny Chevrolet sedan. An Avis key tag dangles from the ignition. I’m wearing a cheap suit, a cheap tie and the eyeglasses I now need to wear when I drive. In the backseat is a dual-processor G4, a 23” Sony flatscreen that I couldn’t afford in a million years and, you know, my hopes and ambitions and all that.


So The Corporation where I currently work, like many GloboCorps, has their world headquarters in midtown Manhattan and a large Tech Center in Jersey. The Tech Center is where guys with big, paunchy stomachs, hair in their ears and a propensity for math do all the technical shit related to The Corporation’s products.

Travel between Headquarters and the Tech Center used to be by means of corporate helicopter, but a few years ago the chopper ended up sideways in the East River and one of the executives died at the bottom. So now you’ve got to rent a car to get to the Tech Center.

Tomorrow I have to go out there to give a presentation, hence the Chevy and my work computer loaded into it. I have to leave around 7am so I’m bringing the car to my house tonight. I told my boss I already have a car, but Corporate Policy demands I rent a car with Corporation-Sanctioned insurance. I got a full-size.


After dinner (chicken sandwich) I hoof it through Chinatown to deposit a check and get more green paper from the ATM. On my way back I run into my roommate Shady, my ex-neighbor Annie and Sandi, whom I used to hang out with back in the day. Back in the day meaning 1999, when we’d still go to clubs and party like it was, well, you know.

I get “Heyyyy” in stereo from the girls and a “Whatchup to” from my roommate.

“ATM,” I say. “You?”

“Just finished dinner, now we’re gonna go check out Annie’s new apartment. Wanna come?”

“Yeah, I’ll drive us there,” I say, explaining the big-ass Chevy I’ve got sitting in front of the building. It’s novel having a car this large and it’s not like I have to pay for gas.


Back at our building I stop by Mike’s studio, where he’s working on shit with Thomas, another photog. Mike shot Uma Thurman earlier today and he’s retouching her image on his machine.

“Put it down,” I say. “Take a little break. I got Sandi, Annie and Shady outside, we’re gonna go check out Annie’s new place.”

Five minutes later the six of us are rolling down Houston, comfortably seated even though we’ve got four in the back. American cars are basically a big-ass engine towing two couches.


Annie’s apartment ain’t bad for the East Village, meaning it’s slightly larger than a jail cell. It is of course comfortable--gotta love a single girl’s apartment--and the six of us can sprawl out without overlapping. The seating devices are random--a a leather easy chair, a school-room chair, a weathered loveseat, an ottoman for aformentioned easy chair, and a large Pilates ball.

“We have to get up to a rooftop,” says Sandi, holding a rolled-up copy of Time Magazine. “It says in here you can see Mars tonight. I heard it’s so close it’s going to be the size of the moon.”

“Oh, I saw the weirdest thing with Ezra,” says Annie, referencing a friend of hers. “Down on 1st. We saw a True Mirror. It shows you what you really look like.”

“What’s a True Mirror?” asks Shady.

Though I’ve never actually seen one, I’ve heard of True Mirrors. “It’s like this,” I say. “Every time you look in a mirror, the image of you that you see, is not what other people see. You know what I mean? Like the part in your hair is on the other side and shit.”

“So?” says Mike.

“Well it goes beyond that. Most people, their faces are not truly symmetrical. Take me, I got one eye that’s bigger than the other if you look close. My bigger eye is on the left, but in a mirror I see it on the right. So the reflection of you that you’re accustomed to, and the You that other people see are two very different things.”

“So this mirror, what, it’s just sitting out in the street?”

“No, it’s in a store window,” says Annie.

“Let’s go check it out,” says Sandi.


The six of us put our shoes back on and head outside. Thomas, Mike, Shady and I haven’t hung out in the East Village in like forever, and we’re surprised by how much it’s changed.

“Hey,” I say, on the corner of 1st and 1st. “Like ten years ago there was this little joint right here, this tiny-ass one-room restaurant where one woman did everything. She’d take your order, then go in the corner and cook the meal, and afterwards she’d do the dishes.”

“Oh shit that’s riiiiiight,” says Shady, suddenly remembering. Me, I last ate a meal there in 1992 with a girl I was dating in college. I have no idea what happened to her and vice versa.


After half a block or so we come upon the store, which is called “True Mirror” and dedicated entirely to selling the things. A True Mirror itself sits in the window. It’s a glass box that, through clever use of multiple, angled mirrors, presents you with your true image.

I’m the first person to look into the thing, and it’s jarring. The initially weird thing is that you raise your right hand and see your reflection raise its left. After that, as you look closer you see a face that looks very similar to yours, but something is definitely...off. The eyes are all wrong. Birthmark on the wrong side. Jawline not the shape you remember it.

“S’fucking creepy,” I say, backing up.

The others take turns looking into it, and narcissistic though it sounds, it becomes sort of mesmerizing. You see this person who looks so, so much like you and yet they are not the person you know. An almost exact replica, but one sure to be sniffed out by an expert. A near-perfect doppleganger who could charm his way into your friends’ kitchen, but an accidental cut while making a sandwich would reveal the green alien’s blood within.

Before we leave I take one last look in the mirror. It’s depressing enough seeing my normal reflection--eyes not as bright as they once were, little lines forming where the skin was once smooth--but something about the True Mirror draws it into sharp relief. It’s the visual version of hearing a recording of your voice and recoiling at the unfamiliar tone.

When I spin completely out of control and lose the rest of my senses, I will run right out and buy one of these mirrors. Subsequent purchases will include a ski mask, latex gloves, unfriendly-looking knives and perhaps a pistol.


Afterwards the six of us push three deuces together at a sidewalk café. It’s been so long since we’ve done this it’s almost awkward. Half of us order wine, the other half, ice coffees.

We used to hang out at these things all the time. Then again I used to not have to wear eyeglasses at night or a suit during the day. I would show up at work and memorize the specials and note which wines we’d run out of and make sure I had extra pens. I had a bed in Brooklyn, a girlfriend living in a dorm and my head in the clouds. Twenty-five was far away and thirty-two seemed unthinkable.

Tomorrow I head out to the Tech Center. It’s my first time; I never did get to ride in that chopper before that guy died and ruined it for everyone. At least I got to eat in the one-room restaurant.