Under an arch yawning over a veined marble stair in the Metropolitan Museum…

“You bastard…”

“Come on, babe, it could be fun…”

“Don’t give me that.”

“Live a little…”

“Don’t touch me.”

“All right, fine. Suit yourself. Why not just forget I ever said it, hmm?”

Then she smacked me across the face real hard, didn’t expect it, though I should’ve. Would’ve got her right back if she hadn’t run off like that.

Goddamned woman got me lost in the biggest art museum this side of the Rio Grande. Ran off like that, no word of direction, no “see yourself out, go left, go down” sort of trip, just a smack and ran off like a goddamned burglar.

Tried to navigate the signs, but I don’t read too good, never could see no reason to before, never did make much of a difference to me, but lost in this dump I began to pray to all the saints I hadn’t dropped out of grade school.

About a half hour of this, and the funniest thing happened, let me tell you. Came out of ancient Greece and walked into France, and I started staring at this one drawing on the wall, and I bent down to tie my shoe and rest my knees, and my pin fell off my shirt – reached over to nab it and out of nowhere all the sounds I was hearing and smells I was smelling sort of gone away, and everything got louder and I smelt distinctly what was like a thousand horses’ backsides, and I got knocked back off my feet and the sky turned black, and everything was real black for a while, and then it started fading in, and there was like a pink filter over things, and it was all grainy like, like I was in an old moving picture.

Dah-dum, dee-dum, braaah braaaah braaaaaaah, horns and bugles and saxophones blasted through me as I struggled to get to my feet. Wanted to ask one of the folks who was standing around if I was hung over real bad – “‘Ey brotendo, is this the quad?” – but I stopped myself just as I was about to ask, because I knew something weird was up, and that I never tripped so hard before in my life and I fell back on my back. Guy looked at me, was about 5’2”, trimmed mustache, bonobo nose, bowler hat, rolled cigarette and started laughing in French. Waved over some women in frilled hats and fancy garters to help me up. They were all so pale, and their faces blurred and indistinct.

I got up and did my hardest to run like hell out of there and get some sleep, because I never tripped so hard in my life. But the crowd was so dense, there was no moving no place. I noticed everyone was staring up at a bandstand – felt like it was right up against my face, but I knew I had to be further back (look at all the people between me and the stage, wouldn’t make sense for it to be so close). There was a lady up there dressed up like a Klansman, but in black, playing a trombone, and mist was all around her, but I could see she had some guys in bowler hats behind her playing these strange clarinets that whirled around my head, music like stripes of dust. A man stood in a pose like he was about to let one loose, and it was like there was a struggle behind him to get him off stage, but no one really cared, everyone was yucking and snorting and stomping and having a grand time, not really knowing what was going on. Never tripped so hard in my life, let me tell you.

While I was in this sort of half-asleep state, struggling to find my footing, one of that little man’s women approached me, obviously peddling something unspeakable. I looked at her wide-eyed, like I was looking at everything else, and she started laughing in French like that man, and guffawing like the rest of them. It was intense looking at her in that state, I couldn’t help it, I joined in and started snorting like one of those Frenchmen, 5’1”, bowler hat, absinthe on the breath. I bent over to her ear and in perfect French I asked her what I’d asked my girl back in New York, 125 years later (or maybe, I was starting to think, that’s not really how it was with time), and expecting a smack I ducked away, and after a couple seconds I looked up and she was blushing real hard and laughing in that French way, and I knew I was in the right place. Never tripped so hard before, let me tell you.

Parade de cirque, Georges Seurat, 1887-8.