Leaving New York

Today’s soundtrack: Your sister Lucille said she wanna go
Today at 11:02pm: gassing up in parts unknown



On Thursday Manhattan was cold and work dried up early, around 2pm. I took the six home and packed for Montreal, then sat around until evening listening to Django Reinhardt and putting important documents into an envelope labeled “In the event of my death.” The fact that I anticipate my demise every time I leave the city can’t be a good thing, but what are you gonna do.


Tony and Lam showed up at my place around 7pm and we hopped into the whip. We picked up some Vietnamese sandwiches and I wolfed most of mine down somewhere in the Holland Tunnel, pausing only to shift.


On Route 87 we had our usual scatological discussions (would you eat this person’s asshole out for a million dollars, etc.) and then digressed into a lengthy conversation about politics. I never used to have an interest in politics but George W. Bush has scared me into taking an interest.

At the end of the day I’m glad to be American, but I hate when my ideas of what it means to be American and the President’s begin to diverge. I dislike having to feel reluctantly, apprehensively American.


The border cop in the booth was a Chinese-Canadian woman. I was hoping that since we were all Asian we’d just be able to give her the secret handshake or a chinky wink and enter the country, but her supervisor must have been watching because she asked us all for IDs. Sellout.


At the end of the day--and this time I mean the real end of the day, or 2:30am, to be precise--I was an apprehensive American on Canadian soil. After roughly seven hours of eighty miles an hour I at last rolled my Golf across the cobblestone streets of Vieux Montreal, and this was the first thing we saw:

An hour later we were asleep in hotel beds.


Every time I sleep in a hotel, the first thing I do is circumnavigate the bed, pulling the edge of the sheets out. They always tuck them in so tight I wonder how the hotel maid pulls her hand back out. I bet more than one has gotten her hand stuck in the three nanometers of space left between the sheet and the mattress and has had to call for help.

Remember The Sword In The Stone? If medieval England had hotels I bet the true test of The Man Who Would Be King would have been, Who can pull this maid’s hand out from the mattress.


VASSAL
He did it! The boy named Arthur pulled the maiden’s hand from the mattress!

ARTHUR
She’s a maid, not a maiden.

VASSAL
How did you free her hand, milord? Many men have tried and failed!

ARTHUR
I simply used a petroleum-based lubricating agent I invented. In honor of you, I’m going to call it Vassaline.


Anyways I don’t like going to sleep feeling like I’m strapped into something, it’s bad for your dreams.