On this early morning, I find myself on the east side of Sixth Avenue. Like every other city street, it’s riddled with potholes as deep as ditches. Real New Yorkers, even in our ruin, have never called Sixth Avenue “The Avenue of the Americas” despite what it says on street signs.
And no one except traitors who have been bribed ever whispered “Avenue of American Greatness.” Because that title was a construction of the one we call the Monster (His name is never spoken).
I’m old, confused, and can’t remember why I want to cross the avenue. But it’s on my mind that an event approaches and it’s a long time since I’ve performed in public.
At the moment I couldn’t get across if I was promised love, laughter, and unending orgasms (as happened when the twenty-first century and I were young).
Vehicles in various stages of decay, all with horns blaring, are stuck in an unbroken line that no pedestrian, especially one in his eighties, could pierce. Some drivers manage to peel off onto side streets and join smaller traffic jams there. The others rely on their horns.
We’ve lost our glamour and primacy among cities. We’re said to have one foot in the Third World. But through all our trials I never met a New Yorker who didn’t believe that a traffic jam or anything else couldn’t be cured by leaning on a horn.
I’ve lived here before and after the Beast’s dictatorship, endured riots, hurricanes, and, not once but twice, the horror of burning towers.
That first time, falling towers were terrifying and we had seen nothing like them. The second fall was awful and we mourned the innocent. But it occurred in the time of the Horror and there was room for bitterness and cold amusement.
This morning I can’t help but notice an absence of cop cars, fire trucks, or ambulances. This could be a sign that something big is happening somewhere more important in the city—emergency services are stretched thin. More likely municipal government prefers not to notice what is going to occur.
People, mostly young and carrying baggage, get across the avenue by scrambling over the hoods of cars and trucks, ignoring the yells and threats of the drivers.
The bravery that comes with old age is to go on living after everything you’ve seen. I pause, listen, and hear distant maracas, casabas, and hand percussion: music loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of horns.
The sound seems to float down the avenue. Squinting uptown, I can just make out the so-called “Heroes’ Bridge” that sits atop the avenue a half-mile away. His Grand Pestilence had this built as a temporary measure forty years ago. It covers the cavern created by the Christmas Explosion that was intended to blow our inhuman ruler to pieces. Hundreds died but he saw his own survival as a miraculous victory over his enemies. Millions hated the man for a million reasons.
I catch a glimpse of bright orange and blond (His colors) spilling off the bridge and onto the sidewalks. Those shapes are a mob and I touch my cap to make sure I remembered to wear it.
The mob is what had blocked traffic. Because drivers blow the cavalry charge and cars start to roll uptown.
On the other side of the Avenue people haul sacks, push supermarket carts and rolling suitcases. Many are moving marble heads and body parts. A crowd pulls a huge rolling dolly on which stands a headless rider on a life-size horse that’s missing a leg.
At the corners where Sixth and Greenwich Avenues touch are damaged statues of Simón Bolívar and other Latin heroes. These once decorated the supposed Avenue of the Americas.
I watch flocks of people make a pyramid of marble men who stare with empty eyes. They bring back my memories of our city’s crushed rebellions. I can’t be sure the memories are mine. Sometime ago, medics implanted ones that were supposed to turn me onto the Great Excrement’s cause. Now, I weigh cautiously anything I remember and most things that I think.
As I consider this, a familiar voice calls my name and I turn to find Brack hurrying toward me. He breaks the spell of memory, pulls me into the present.
We’ve been close for a couple of decades. His memories got scrambled in ways I can’t imagine. It happened when the Great Infection declared that a “Certain Small Fringe” did not love him as much as the Deluded Thug somehow managed to believe the “Vast Majority New Yorkers” did.
When we first met, I was an over-the-hill chorus boy and Brack was a young rebel in need of a place to stay. Now he remembers knowing me back then but can’t remember the details. Once his politics were dangerous. Now he’s a kind of minor hero.
He smiles his lopsided smile and hugs me. “Great that you’re here. Last night you weren’t sure you’d perform.”
I don’t remember that.
Brack steps out of the way and I see a sidewalk full of marchers. Some are dressed entirely in orange and unlikely blond. And all have ludicrous wigs. I adjust my cap.
There are thousands of marchers, tens of thousands. The mad party engulfs Brack and me. By enthusiasm and force of numbers we cross the street. Drivers actually cheer us on. And a jerry-rigged crane lifts the heroic statue with its most unlikely penis that used to stand outside his tower and places it atop the rest of the rubble of his life.
Next to the Grand Scum’s statue they hang a life-size oil painting of the promiscuous Russian agent known as “The Secret Wife.” Decades ago we mourned the fact that she didn’t kill him.
The shambles in which we live comes down to a Twisted Fool who loved only himself, was Lancelot to his own Guinevere.
As President, the Beast saw California secede from the Union and Illinois join Canada. His madness was outclassed by Del Brio, ex–football player, senator from half a dozen states, movie star handsome, crazy, and also disgusting. But infinitely better organized than our Lunatic.
The Monster’s impeachment was his finale on the national stage. This city where most of the population hated him was his only retreat. But then, despite our bankruptcy, the “Avenue of American Greatness” was created with statues of the Great Infection who whined and cried and slaughtered because not everybody loved him.
The crowd is all very happy to see demonstrators help me up onto the pyramid. Brack finds a way for me to sit on the Fiend’s lap.
All around us are tubs and grills with flames leaping from them.
Looking down on thousands of faces, I remember why I agreed to do this. Standing, I say aloud words I’d only whispered to myself:
“Many of us of a certain age, unlike the young people in this audience, had a small hand in the Cancer’s rise. Some embraced him and paid the penalty when he fell. Many of us were afraid to oppose him, closed our eyes and ears to the rising Plague and just prayed that it would go away. On behalf of all of us I beg your forgiveness.
“Many of you remember when rogue drones tore his tower in two. We mourn the innocent dead as we do in any disaster. But no one with a mind or a heart mourned the passing of the tower’s owner. Thinking of him is painful but we must never forget.”
I pause and then I say the only obscenity not spoken in New York—the monster’s real name.
I’m not sure how this will be received. Even Brack is stunned. I remove my cap and stand for a moment in an orange wig. When I toss it into the flames, a god-awful stench arises. After a pause, they all yell the name and toss their hats into the fires.
I shout, “Unbearable and Nauseating!”
“Just Like Him!”