Suppose we are 17 again and we are chasing our childhood. We spend twenty minutes illegally cramming five of us into one car while our reckless friend helms our journey towards jean jackets and the greasy booths of the mall food court. The first time we did this, we stayed silent so our friend wouldn’t crash on the highway. The last time we do this, we are silent because there is nothing left for us to talk about.

It started with nothing. A whiff of ozone, a burnt electric smell. But there were no fires; the sky stayed cloudless; the reports of planes plummeting to earth didn’t happen, though we all looked upward like we did years before when there was an eclipse. Then, each of us snuck glances toward the darkening sky. Now, we tilted our heads back, scanned the emptiness, and laughed.

Elvis hands me a Ruger 10/22 blued barrel semiautomatic rifle and picks up a Ruger 10/22 stainless steel barrel semiautomatic and we go into the living room to shoot action figures. He has them lined up along the stairs, Flash Gordon and Wonder Woman and The King himself. We shred them. We shred the stairs.

The first sign of trouble was the palm on the table, an emphatic but broken ovation that turned every head. Then the net arcing up and out, a widening web. Lastly there was the slow parabola of the metal bowl, separated from the noodles, catching and redirecting the light, finally landing just perfectly on a spectator’s head before bounding off and hitting the parquet floor with a rolling crash.

By that time they saw her heels drumming on the floor.

You saw him first. Of course you did. Back then, when you were six, you spent most of your time at the window looking down on the street. What else were you going to do when Mama fought with Johnny? The apartment was not that big. It still isn’t. But your room was yours.

If there is a problem, yo, I’ll resolve it, check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.

It has always been about love, seriously, straight up, love of music, love of words, language, telling stories and making people happy, all up on their feets and loving life. And I do love everyone, even the haters, the liars, the disparagers and those big pimpin’ motherfuckers who will do anything to bring someone down the second they get any kind of props.

When I got there, Rob and his law school friends were sitting around the living room playing cards. The TV was on but silent, and some miniature image of The Simpsons was floating around the royal blue screen. Homer was holding Maggie—his arms outstretched—and he had a look of frenzied panic in his eyes. Rob and his friends were playing a game I didn't understand, it seemed that maybe they were making up the rules as they went along. The coffee table was littered with pistachio nuts, and a clamshell that looked like a Japanese folding fan, sat in the center. One of Rob’s friends rested a half-smoked joint in its lap.

laypen.jpg

Exterior shot of the Playpen. A tall dark woman in a top hat and bondage gear is herding the crowd outside into the warehouse. She’s got a bullwhip in her hand. She’d crack it against the pavement to move everyone along. “Come inside and play,” she’d say, “or come again another day.” The police would only bust up the party if it wasn’t contained within the building. There were a lot of noobs that first night, I recall Cyrus complaining, so a handful of regulars rotated as security, breaking up would-be fights, chasing off freaks blasting fireworks in the street.

The return is the most difficult part; the thin membrane that separates the world from the quest is harder than diamonds. The hero pushes, he leans, he tries to reorder his atoms in the shape of a shepherd, a monk, a maiden.