Dear Tasha,
Yesterday I found myself on the rooftop of a twenty-two-story building in the Lower East Side. From what I could see, it was the tallest building in the neighborhood. From there I could see the entire New York City skyline, from Midtown to Williamsburg, & further. Suddenly I became terrified of something resembling heights, but not exactly that. Feeling how fragile things ca be at such a height, I stepped away from the ledge & cowered, holding my stomach.
One week ago, I crept up the fire escape of my friend's twelve-story apartment building in the West Village. Beyond were faint, blinking bridges. The walls of the rooftop were curved like an abandoned swimming pool–I imagined Crater Lake; there is a subway poster that advertises it as being deep enough to stack six Statues of Liberty. Really, though, I've been looking for a lake that has no end, or a statue of similar properties.
Tasha, my dreams have become different. I can call them back, for a time, some mornings. Or when I wake up, I will look about in a stupor, at the strange peeling walls & jutting wood panels that create state lines across my floor. The wall outside my window, & the morgue rack on which my clothing hangs like stacks of headless, horseless, horsemen. "How did I get here?" I call, almost aloud. In the dream, this life was a dream. Am I crossing?
In Williamsburg, the toddler walls of the rooftop made homes for a Cannery Row of leashed satellite dishes looking up to the distant heavens like J.C. on the cross. It was a converted factory building that hipsters call their home. I waved to the East River like we were meeting on a first, blind date. But no, we've met before.
I hope that soon you'll be able to tell me about the sea. Are you taking care of yourself, by some definition? Have you found a way to live with Minnow?
If you do set sail, put a good word in for me, with the sea,
Love,
Otis Pig.
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