Visions warp, and names sour, so for the sake of this exercise I need begin again. The name Elnur Karimov I hereby abandon. That man, resident alien and tenant of 720 N. Levana, now stands, departs. A stranger enters. Smile and greet him. He bears the name Christopher Hawks, or perhaps Christopher Dawson, something along those lines, charged and erotic, yet stoic, which a beautiful woman might whisper beside the twinkling embers of midsummer bonfire or flitter in fancy pink script between rows of dancing hearts and blue-striped diamonds. A name that imbues vigor and mystique, its letters simply begging for a mousy Jewess to decrypt, aligning names, stars and destinies eternal. She could even discover through some novel combination of Yahudian numerology and pagan skygazing that ours augur a single destiny, a union of divine and celestial sublimity, as God and Moon and scheme-crazed Stars had intended. A name like Chris Dawson, perhaps?

I, Chris Dawson, live alone, ensnared by malevolent forces, harassed by petty authorities, my tenuous asylum maimed by the wounds of prejudice and perjury. State officials conspire to hurl me back. They keep me here to break my mind and spirit. This wretched city, where strong odors, “giddy youths,” and asymmetrical faces, all sources of terrible affliction, abound. The slamming of doors, the brutish whisperings of ugly neighbors, noise my weary mind cannot endure; vibrations zap nerves into dull coils, even the leaden hum of a dying housefly circling from kitchen to bathroom, as one presently makes, tears through the soft tissue and lifelong embeds. The world inspires fear without remedy. Physicians, psychiatrists, power-mad hags hellbent on my subjugation all crane their necks, whine, plead and ponder – but enough about those meddling freaks. My diagnosis? I am a man possessed by love, the pinkest plague, for which I starve and subject the flesh to desperate medicine: cold September rains, midnight walks to the river’s edge, fights with strangers, brutal beatings, bloodletting without avail. The consumption takes all. Even hobby offers no escape, for in free time I can only think to dabble in the soft and experiential sciences: say, the anatomy of the bleeding-heart, or the chemistry of corrosive Eros. I weep at the sight of spinsters, mourn nightly for the Havishams and Hazel Shades of the great human story. Passion pours from my every scrap and fiber.

The fly returns. I mark his course, distract myself with a census of undocumented gnats, noting residence (half-moon scrape, left ankle), race, and occupation. I swat and twist my leg and listen as the baying wisps rise and fall. Now, dear reader, our struggle begins. I shall sketch the scene and pose our options, here goes: The cries of women seep under splintered rails and pool beneath my bed. August sun lights the way, warms the skin, as lovely sirens call, and we 1) shall plunge, embrace the churning wine-pink waters and succumb to merry oblivion; or 2) remain, just remain. Law and its ugly twin – neurotic, fat-faced civility – demand the latter option, but to live as a free man, a man for himself, dear reader, just imagine! Besides, only decay can blossom from the still and shadowed life. To tarry any longer here, the vision would warp into a demonic haze, strangling through the grip of idle fantasy, and, nearing forty, I have lost all patience for a life delayed.

Decision made, I rise (Come along, friend!) and abandon that lonely place, leaping down steps in fours and sixes, and emerge radiant among the dark and whining vagrants, when the officer crone, this foul, swarthy, slant-eyed Serb, who doubtless has been monitoring my presence since morning, emerges from her black sedan, marked with token scowl, and there summons me. This gray-pink sow – Officer Wells, she insists – inflicts a policy of strict surveillance and casual harassment and all for the crime of seeking beauty in this our sick and pock-marked world. The interrogation follows this curt and familiar course:

“Sir, sir, where going?”

“Oh, just out for air.”

“What path you take?”

“I simply go where the Spirit leads me.” (She does not laugh. Bitch.)

“University prohibit you…”

“Yes, yes, I am well aware.”

“Sir, I must inform…”

Song carries over the pained interrogation. I listen, my sighs heavy. She has posted an officer before the arena gates.

“No more you coming.”

“Yes, great, fine.”

The block well circled, the hero returns to his empty room and waits for nightfall. He paces in curbed step, sits before his desk, shuffles his papers, rises, counts the many hours wasted and waiting. He listens to an hour of Doomer Jazz, red lights flickering as DeNiro Wojak floats above the gritty streets of old Manhattan. Alone his thoughts turn to reckless self-destruction, waiting, still waiting, and then, their voices, like fraying threads, creep once more through wind-whipped frames, for to bind and lash his tender heart, and carry him home through August night. I must go, but the Sow! The Sow! Desperate, stupid plans form. I consider, reject, reappraise. Minutes pass. The chorus cries, “Act or die!” I rise again, gathering up trash and trinket, and take to the roof. I cross onto the edge of the Licata, and, finding several targets, chuck tattered sneakers and broken bottles at the idling shadows there below. A woman shrieks; a crowd gathers.

Woooooooo, Pig! Sooie!

Here she comes, and as I reach the final circling steps, the joy overtakes me, and into the glistening purple alleyway I leap.

***

Cicadas chirp among the distant birches, their acrid grind swallowing up my gentle choir. I take another path, beyond the sight and survey of howling swine, now lost as the final shreds of purple light melt into dark horizon. Defeated? Hardly. Hopeless? Never. I am a zealot for this caressing faith. Visions shall carry me, and memories charge the cold flesh. Those Aprils of perfect blue, I watched from behind a curtain of silver elms, kindly Earth concealing her phantom son, my girls tossing and tumbling before me, sometimes they even called out to me, chanted softly my name, and this sweet memory sustains me still, carries me through so many cold and gray-soaked nights.

Rabid passion takes hold. I glide between night and blacktop, sucking down air before the pain finally overwhelms. Agitated, exhausted, with terrain fully scoured, I see only endless white rungs, all directions leading into darkness, no angels to follow in ascent. I am lost, gripped by despair, turning and turning, when a dome of light springs forth.

Heaven, the turf of angels, awaits.

I reach the edge of the field and cling to the cool wire mesh. My neck aches, gums burn, but finally I arrive home. My ladies, thick and virile, nourished by the black earth of the American plains, scramble across the green. Some rush and fall, others waddle in the rear, struggling into formation. A hulking Swedess grabs the ball. She leaps over her pursuers, charging the field to cries of Chelsea, or perhaps Kelseigh, sweat dripping through her flashy blue-white uniform, dazzling this crowd of one. These women, daughters of Boudica, with their sharp faces and broad backs, stir my soul from the depths of concussed sleep, a life hemmed by heartsick days of dread and melancholy, when tender thoughts of suicide…

Forty-two now loses her shorts. Panties of robin egg blue. An ass of sparkling ivory, my God. Sincerest apologies, dear reader, but I cannot paint this bright and buxom scene out of curtesy to my girls. The story must pause here, however, so I may heat and meld memory to mind forever…

Their pale arms adorned with roses and Alephs, locks of lime green and neon pink, these proud Amazons defy the idiot fancies of the common man. I alone can love them. Although they grunt and pant like beasts, their cries, shrill and desperate, reveal their true divinity. I adore each of them, even the pudgy one who looks like Paul Dano – no, especially the pudgy one who looks like Paul Dano. I scan the field, pluck and carry each of them into the night. The world around us fades. Heavy gray light pulsates through the darkness. The Moors bubble and form. They hold my arms, tearing off clothes, fondling me, pulling me under the putrid bogs of Suffolk, their ancient homeland, the broads of The Broads. They toss me into the frigid muck. I am but a humble peat-cutter with a tiny dick, why do they bully me so? These beetroots of women, bred for the twin yolks of childbirth and fieldwork, they grope me, caressing every patch of my cold eczematic skin. I rub and pull and squeeze. I am near.

A cry echoes across the parking lot. They stand before me. My girls. My angels. The fair horde looks at my naked erection, pointing, screaming. One woman demands my name, others shout and jeer. I lurch toward the darkness, but their chief, a surly bull-dyke named Margot, shoves me to the ground. I cannot speak, and suddenly they descend upon me, kicking, spitting, slapping my face and chest. Tears begin to well, and I mutter the words sorry and please over and over in a pitiful refrain. How vile. How pathetic. How – arousing? I am hard again. No, I will not enjoy this! I have violated a sacred feminine space. I have frightened these fragile, delicate behemoths, who, like the elegant Holstein, nourishes mankind with her sweet milk, which I cannot drink because I would suffer severe gastrointestinal distress. I must stop, but alas, denial deals in diamonds. I twitch and tremble. My dick throbs with the bloodguilt of my ancestors. My God, I have never been this hard. Crush me, finish me, I say, but my rapture only frightens them, my attackers, my lovers, who evaporate into darkness just as I reach climax. Even my beloved Paula Dano vanishes, leaving me bruised and exhausted in a pool of sweat and blood, my essence dripping on the pavement.

My heart pins to the earth, the cool ground where powerful women once stood and fought. How wonderful it must feel to join the shrill mob of sisterhood, the rush of righteous indignation, the thrill of seeing a worthless scrote bleeding in the dust, teetering on the brink of death. How I envy them. You go, ladies! Women amaze me. I am bound to them forever.