The last thing I expected today was to be able to set up shop. It seems we got off a lot easier than everyone around us. The only real problem in NYC was driving in the early AM. When I left the house at noon it was foggy and warmer than it's been for a while. I didn't even have to scrape any ice from my car. I headed to the viaduct. Water was flowing briskly into sewers. I didn't have any luck selling, but there was a highlight. A dude waiting for the bus asked why I didn't hang out near the train station. I told him it was off-limits and I wasn't about to test the cops out in this ticket-happy era. He nodded forlornly. He'd recently spent a night in jail for littering, leaving a coffee cup on a train. He's on parole and the officer had no choice but to arrest him once he ran the guy's I.D.. The officer apologized and said the charge would quickly be dismissed. "I just did ten years, I told him, beggin'," the guy said. Talk about bad luck.
I'd like to thank my old buddy Dom, who ordered all three of my books - my first sales through paypal. Dom's family moved to L.A. in July of '67. I went to college in Kalamazoo, Michigan in September. I hitchhiked to California in 1971 and was treated like a king by his family. Don't ask me how I did it. I was in a sort of auto-pilot fog back then, completely baffled by life. I remember one phase of that trek as if it were yesterday. On the way back I figured I might as well check out the Grand Canyon. Two sisters, looking for security, I guess, picked me up. We set up camp at the bottom of the majestic site. There was a girl nearby, sitting up in a sleeping bag, a dreamy look in her eyes. Soon after we had all bedded down for the night, moans erupted from the direction of the girl, whose man had returned. The older sister sprang awake, tense. I'll never forget the way the moonlight struck her face.
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