Go Pawn It on the Mountain

Waternova

Responding to a ‘possible shots fired’ call an NYPD squad car floats down the darkness visible of 23rd Street—a harsher than harsh spotlight swiveling from side to side, side to side across Manhattan’s unrepentant underbelly. On the look out for that one extremist thief, or that one antiestablishment cannibal, or that one symbol-trafficking drug lord who could and would and I say like definitely should bring the Island Kingdom to its numbered knees . . . With a flicker of suspicion the searchlight stalls and lingers over ten turdlike tippy-toes . . . the tippy-toes twitching, twitching away from the light like bashful roaches. The patrol car pump-a-pumps the breaks. Waits for the spotlight to creep-a-creep up the frozen sidewalk. Up the ankles and shins. Up the superlong legs . . . And curled up in an alley tunnel, underneath a leaky dumpster, what else but a twisted homunculus, a broken spider’s lamb—a girl in a white and blue striped sweater, greasy scarecrow hair, totally ripped jeans, frog eyes the size of eight balls, lips darker than the darkest dingleberries . . .