The City

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You can barely stand in the subway. You didn’t sleep before your red eye flight, but you had made it. The chaos of the station gave you your second wind, you felt electrified by the swirling maelstrom of people. You needed to go downtown. You remember being acutely aware of how much of a tourist you looked like, carrying your luggage. The tall foreigner walked up to you with an enormous camping backpack.

“You look like you just landed, friend!” He’s holding his hand out to shake yours, and before you can register that you need to extend your arm to shake his hand, you’re startled by a bell and a booming voice announcing the arrival of the R train.

“Are you trying to go uptown or downtown? This train is going downtown.”

The train ground to a halt and the doors swung open. “Uh yeah, thanks, I’m headed downtown.” You picked up your bags and followed him into the car. He sits down across from you and continues to be oddly friendly.

“So where you from brother?” He is grinning so hard and it is upsetting you immensely.

“The south.”

“Oh the south huh? They still ride horses there right?” He laughs. You were using every ounce of your concentration to be friendly and not fall asleep.

“That’s the crazy thing about the city. We’re all immigrants. We’re all strangers here. Sometimes the best option is to just try to make friends wherever you can. Like right here on the train!”

You just nod. He continues, “My girlfriend is studying finance at the university. Do you want to see a picture? I’m staying at a hostel so I can have enough money to take her to dinner at Bleeding Edge. They hired a geneticist, and they’re splicing different vegetables together in these crazy ways. They made a tomato that has twice the natural MSG as a normal one! I can’t wait to show her.”

Next stop: central terminal. He’s fiddling with the giant backpack at his feet. “You got a girlfriend?’

As you pull up to the massive terminal platform you see droves of people. They’re running from your train. Then you spot soldiers. They’re sprinting with weapons towards you. The friendly foreigner's enormous smile has faded into terror. He's trembling. He unzips the backpack as the train stops. The doors explode open and three soldiers have guns on him, others are swarming towards the other doors.

“GET AWAY FROM THE BAG DROP THE FUCKING BAG”

He’s not listening. His hand darts into the bag.

“FIRE”

Three deafeningly loud gunshots blow an enormous dark splash of gore across the back of the car. The foreigner’s chest is torn open; bewildered he stares wild eyed at you. With his dying breath he’s choking on blood with tears in his eyes, “I’m running late.”

The bag falls over, three milk jugs full of black liquid spill out. The caps have wires and radio antennae sticking out of them. One splits open as it lands, and the thick black substance begins oozing onto the floor. You hear a hissing sound as the substance begins boiling and eating through the floor of the train car. It smells like gasoline and rotten meat, smoke is starting to rise from the hole. You’re already on your feet, holding your bags, shaking from adrenaline. You help a businessman kick out a window, while the soldiers are yelling “SEAL TERMINAL EIGHT WE NEED AN IMMEDIATE LEVEL 4 QUARANTINE”

You’re running. Soldiers are tackling people left and right, you and the businessman slam through the emergency exit next to the turnstiles. Your lungs are burning as you sprint up the stairs with your luggage. Finally you exit the subway, the sunlight is blinding. You didn’t plan it, but you were standing in Central Square. Back home people told you, “It looks just like it does in the movies, so big and bright and full of activity.” You’re about to vomit. The buildings are all lit up and moving, the streets are choked with people dodging you and the business man, and you can feel vertigo setting in as the whole city begins to tilt forward. You sit down on your bag and try to concentrate on your breathing. The businessman looks at you, and wipes blood off of his shirt with a handkerchief, “I JUST fucking had this suit dry cleaned. Fuck.”

…

You finally wake up in the dining room.  The sommelier was pouring sparkling Nerello Mascalese and complimenting you on your choice. You had landed almost 36 hours ago. You pick up your phone, the battery is low. A text from your chef. You drank a lot last night. Were you hungover? How did you get to the apartment?

Your phone beeped again.

Chef: Make sure you don’t look down.

Your friends are talking about their jobs. You’re barely listening, instead relishing all the sensory input creeping into your periphery now that you were finally cognizant. The dining room was chilly, white, and sterile. A team of servers swoop in, and drop plates in unison. The sunlight felt good against your face in the cold dining room.

“Sweetbreads with pickled peaches. Please enjoy.” You noticed the clear squiggle of a concealed earpiece. The cute one in the glasses places two fingers on her earpiece, befuddled by a message she just received. Behind you, you hear a server quietly swearing into a concealed microphone in his cufflink.

“Confirm hold fire on table eight, they are eating slow as fuck… What do you mean how slow? There will be peace in the Middle East before this asshole is done with his sea urchin. Sorry.” He glides in front of you to face your table, and smiles warmly.

“How is everything tasting, ladies and gentlemen?”

You can barely contain yourself as you search your mind for the most pretentious reply. “Tremendous. Decadent. Exquisite.”

Later, the mignardises were presented. A weary server pulled a rope of fresh marshmallow out of a crystal jar with sterling silver tongs, and cut them with a pair of thick, polished scissors. He meticulously placed them on a tiny dish, and put them on the table. You joked, “I really want to steal those scissors from you.” He looked at you like he was about to burst into tears, and you wonder if perhaps he would prefer you stab him with them instead. The thought grew in your head as you chewed: how many of these people could I take out with the marshmallow scissors before I’m subdued?

Your visions of blood-spattered marshmallows were interrupted by another conversation, “I heard they hired a magician for their front of house.”

…

On the subway you stared at the wall of the tunnel through the window. You thought you saw something. Movement. Human figures in the darkness. Staring back at you through the pillars as they rushed by. You heard someone ask, “How many calories are in a hit of DMT?”

At night you went to the bars. You went to Death & Co, Callsign, and Wetwork. You walked to them, using navigation software on your phone. A gorgeous woman at Wetwork was wearing a white t-shirt and had a tattoo on her shoulder of a skull vomiting blood. She ordered a wild weasel and a bouncing betty. “You can just close me out. I’m going to a party after this in the garden district. Takashi Murakami will be there.”

In the city everything lit up, everything moved. Advertisements, political ideologies, and art crawled on everything. Not like at home, they were aware of you. They scurried away when you flicked on the lights. They followed you to the train. They read your texts when you held your phone too far from your body. As you stared into them, they watched you back, more closely. They studied you.

Your phone beeped:

David: Don’t look down.

You: What does that even mean?

David: There is reality to that place that you have to absorb while you’re visiting. Don’t look down, you’ll miss it. Tell Kitsune I said hi.

Past the cellphone, you see the sidewalk beneath your feet light up with an advertisement for diapers:

THE GENETICALLY PRIVELEDGED DESERVE TO DIE

You board the subway, wasted. You sit down and look to your left. A SWAT team in full combat gear, assault rifles and all, is sitting and chatting. The young one takes off his earpiece and reaches in his pocket. He pulls out a box, opens it: a diamond ring. “You think she’ll like it?” The older one smiles weakly, “It’s one hell of a beautiful coffin nail, son.”

As you walk off the train, you notice it’s 4am. You pivot on your heels to face the other side of the track and see construction workers and soldiers working around on the other side of the tracks. You see a construction worker throwing something in a wheelbarrow: bones. On of the soldiers looks at you sternly and motions for you to move on, explaining curtly, “Repairs.”

…

On the patio at Box Nasty the next morning, Kitsune is smoking like a chimney. “I’m leaving early. You’re more than welcome to crash in the suite, it’s all paid for.” She takes her sunglasses off and rubs her eyes, perpetually hung over, “On one condition!”

“You have to bang some hot girls in the suite. It’s got a rad balcony. For banging.” You rolled your eyes.

“That’s what I need. Some hotties. I need to go get some chicks. Just get them, like at the store. You’ve always got the answers Kit. You’re a genius.”

“I swear to god you better! I’m gonna have the bellhop go check on you. I’m gonna be like ‘If you don’t hear fucking, kick him out!’” A family eating in the next booth was visibly annoyed at Kitsune’s candid request.

“I don’t do that. I’m not here for that. This is my vacation.”

“Oh you’re going to a bunch of restaurants and bars huh? Doing a little research and development are we? When you’re dead from working too hard, you will look back on your life and think; I should have devoted more time to getting laid. I should have been more like Kit.” Kitsune has a tattoo of an AK-47 on her forearm.

“Look, this is your first time here. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you. You’re dealing with some shit clearly. You need some good old-fashioned sex with a stranger to clear your mind. I know you haven’t done that before.” The dad from the family is getting up, presumably to tell Kitsune to stop yelling about fucking. She holds her arms out to the sides like a TV prophet, “What better place to do it than your first visit to the center of the world?”

Outside you see a telephone pole light up. Rolling text in glowing blue lights drips down the pole with an advertisement for bottled water:

VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY UNIVERSAL CURRENCY

Your eyes follow the lights to a storm drain. You saw fingers interlaced into the mesh that disappeared as quickly as you spotted them.

“I can get you a reso at Fulcrum if you want. I ate there last night. 75 courses. Did you hear they hired a theoretical physicist? They’re the first restaurant to use a particle accelerator. ”

“I’m sorry Kit, but I think all my funds are tied up in getting hot bitches now.”

“That’s the spirit! My flight leaves in 4 hours. Make me proud by Tuesday or I’m disowning you.”

…

In the city everyone has a phone. To play music, to read books, to play games. The tourists and the locals both use their phones to find directions. When there were fewer satellites, they would triangulate the position of the receiver. Now, there are over 500 at any given moment hovering over the city. Navigation service is slower from a glut of conflicting data.

The people who remember life before phones are getting old.

On the subway, a man who smells terrible tells you, “The first Predator program just read emails. The newest one is called Predator X. It reads everything. It pulls information out of the air, and maps out reality. From cameras on the street, satellites, radios. And of course cell phones. It goes way beyond facial recognition software. It tracks the forces acting on most molecules on the planet.” He pauses, “The military sold it to a soda company for a trillion dollars.”

More bars. You went to The Stanford Prison Experiment, Rikki Tik, and Stop-Loss. Outside, the bouncer spots you immediately, “You’re with Kit. Come in, any friend of hers is a friend of ours.” Inside, the bartender hands you a menu. “You just missed Damien Hirst.” Next to you, a man in a suit asks “How many calories are in a Colombian Necktie? Can you make a low-calorie version?”

You ordered a Diplomatic Solution. “We don’t have the ingredients for that.”

On your way out through the patio at Sleeper Cell, you run into one of the bartenders on accident. You pull back and notice she is gorgeous. She smells like burnt matches and you can smell absinthe on her breath. She has a tattoo on her neck of a switchblade. Slowly she looks up at you and blinks, drunk.

“You’re tall.”

“You smell good.”

Back at your suite, she’s annoyed. “You’ve never done this before?”

She’s just wearing a tank top, and you’re just wearing jeans. You’re both smoking on the patio. It looks out into the city, which goes on as far as you can see, a nightmare kaleidoscope of lights and movement. There’s a cool breeze that carries the smell of a match to you as she lights another cigarette.

“I have a boyfriend.” She seems pleased with herself. “You don’t talk very much.” Why do her matches smell so good?

You collected yourself, “I actually talk all the time, for my job and otherwise. Its just that I’ve never been to the city before, and I guess I’m trying to shut up and pay attention.”

She gets up and walks inside, “fair enough.”

“But don’t worry, I have a boyfriend too, so I’m certainly not judging you.”

She jumps back outside “Really??”

“Just kidding. Sorry to disappoint.” She was definitely disappointed.

“I’ve always wanted to fuck a gay guy. Lame.” She’s back inside, rooting around in the bathroom. “So what do you mean you’ve never done this before? Do you have a girlfri-“ she pauses, “Why is there a steak knife in the bathroom?”

You were washing your face that morning when you accidently pressed the stopper into the sink. It wouldn’t come out. The sink was almost full of water, and you thought to yourself, it’ll drain slowly. But it didn’t. The hotel had a “pillow menu” of different sizes, covers and fillings. But it didn’t have properly functioning sink drains. In a fit, you took a steak knife from the dining room and stabbed it into the drain, and it actually worked. For the first time since you arrived you felt in control of something.

“Oh uh, I was going murder you, but you seem nice so I’m going let you live.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a joke!”

 Your phone beeped:

Kitsune: Fuck or get out.

You: I don’t like girls. Just alcohol.

Kitsune: DO NOT SQUANDER THAT SUITE. Be a man. That’s an order.

You: “Be a man” always means, “do something stupid or reckless”.

She’s back on the patio, wearing all of her clothes this time. “So you’ve got a girlfriend then?” You pause for a long time.

“Not really.”

“Well it sounds like you have something.”

“She is definitely not my girlfriend. I think I’m done with girlfriends for a while.”

“Am I the first woman you’ve ever slept with that you weren’t dating?”

“Yep.” Her eyes widen, “Oh wow. You really are new at this.”

“Do you feel bad about cheating on your boyfriend?” She wrinkles her nose.

“He cheats on me too, so no. I guess we have an open relationship. It’s complicated, as they say.”

You look at your phone:

Kitsune: That is exactly how I meant it. Be stupid and reckless. You might learn something.

When you look back up, she is sitting on the edge of the balcony. Your stomach turns as you remember vertigo in Central Square and the smell of that poison on the subway. She looks over her shoulder at you, “How do I look?” She put her hands in her lap and pouts dramatically.

“You look like a pinup. You look like you’d be a painting on the side of a fighter jet.”

She looks genuinely flattered. She pats the edge next to her, “Come sit out here with me.”

“Not a chance in hell. I haven’t been sleeping, and I’m really uncoordinated. If I look down I’ll probably fall.”

She looks out into the city. The streets are groaning with yellow cabs, police cruisers, and sports cars. The streets are full of people, and it is 530AM. You can smell hot dogs cooking from rows of food carts, even from 30 floors up. She strikes a match on the bricks, and lights another cigarette. “A pretty stranger is asking you to sit with her on the end of your fancy balcony in the largest city on the planet. I’m visiting too. We’re never going to see each other again. Come sit out on the goddamn ledge with me.” She inhales deeply, and as she blows smoke, you can smell her, plus the cigarettes and those matches. You imagine that this must be what hell smells like, and you want to live there. She whips her head back around,

“It’s simple, just don’t look down.”

…

The next day you went to the park. You walked for hours. It was beautiful, and the people were great to watch. A kid eating a soggy sandwich in a fountain. A sweet old lady walked a massive wolf with horrible grey eyes. It seemed happy, content with the knowledge that it could kill just about anything around it. It must have weighed 250 pounds. You watched strangers kiss, and you watched one guy pick three different peoples pockets, he was really impressive. You counted a dozen musicians, hundreds of people jogging in stylish workout clothes. You walked past a beggar who pleaded, “I need tickets to the 530 seating at Access Granted. Please.”

You saw soldiers relaxing in the park. Overhead you spotted an Apache helicopter hovering over the lake. You overhead a conversation between some teenagers still in their school uniforms, “Beer doesn’t make sense in a tasting menu format, plus it just has so many calories, why do sommeliers keep trying to sneak it in?”

You went to the last bar on the list, Texas Sunrise. It was a mezcal bar modeled after a fallout shelter. The doorman told you smugly, “I’m good friends with Mark Rothko. No big deal.”

In the city everyone has to work harder just to stay alive. They have to move quickly, and stay focused or they will be trampled underfoot. They have to keep up with the latest trends in fashion, food, drink, and music. The city gets everything first before the rest of the world. People in the city have suspicions about what really happens below the surface, but they are too busy to really look for the answers. This is how the city keeps it’s secrets: by dazzling you, and drowning you with work.

When people visit they feel obligated to fit in. You walked as fast as the people you assumed to be locals, even after you had blisters on your feet. You felt charmed by the easy individualism the city promised you at every turn.

On the terminal platform, an advertisement for toothpaste lights up:

MORALITY IS RELATIVE

You rummaged through the suite for your stuff. You took the steak knife.

As you walk down the street with your luggage, you admire the enormous rats perched on the endless piles of garbage in the street. They looked healthy and confident. Back home the rats were smaller, and they feared you. Not these rats, they meant business. You hung your head, weary from everything. You had just enough money to catch a cab to the airport.

Your eyes met a grate in the street. You thought, if this thing collapses, I will fall 12 feet and probably break both my legs. Then you saw her, a little girl staring back up at you from the sewer. She was filthy and covered in rags. You panicked. She was standing in black water full of garbage.

“Oh my god, do you need help? Do you need me to get you out of there?”

She stared back, emotionless. She stood perfectly still, the streetlamp barely illuminating her. What were you supposed to do? What could you say? She wasn’t looking for help. You were both watching each other, bewildered by what you saw.

You calmed down, and took a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”

She raised her hand and pointed at you. She spoke clearly, enunciating each word.

“Don’t. Look. Down.”