Father Demo Square

The Trouble With Apartment One — Chapter 22

More late-night rumination in Apartment Number One…

Bowling Green Subway Station at the Battery — 1992 — B. Späth.

FATHER DEMO SQUARE

In the isolated hours of the early-morning, half-stoned and weary of my own opinions, I found myself trapped in Apartment One, poring over a copy of the Gospel of Philip...
It seems that Christ himself was in the curious habit of infusing two hundred and fifty shekels of Kaneh-Bosem into six quarts of olive oil, along with extracts of cinnamon, myrrh, and cassia. This unguent would then be liberally applied to the body of an initiate. Since we are in possession of the original formula, what prevents us from performing a modern-day baptism, I ask the ceiling.

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As the days of June unfolded elsewhere, I lingered in the tenement—obsessed with the approaching Summer Solstice. During this feverish interval I happened to acquire a considerable amount of a pungent Cannabis Indica.

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It was when I reached Clarkson Street that the cobblestones awakened beneath the wheels and set the bicycle rattling. At length I came to a halt at the edge of a deserted loading dock. As I petitioned The Plant God and awaited the familiar benediction, I instead received what felt like a dull blow to the inside of my head.

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However, a single rotation of the globe is enough to erase all recollection of this experiment gone awry at a loading dock on Clarkson Street.
Yet the next morning, as I stepped onto the pavement, I found that overnight—while I wandered through poisoned tenements and Theoretical Parks—a suffocating heat wave had taken possession of the city…

★

Upon entering the shrouded underpass on Houston Street, I linger in the dampness for an unconscionable span of time. And there, in the clandestine embrace of the tunnel—at odds with common sense and given license by the gloom—I once again consort with The Melancholy Sacrament…

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As I ride along the Greenway—that melting ribbon of tar that parallels the waterfront—I find myself besieged by a telepathic grief, as if I were hearing the anguished prayers of a multitude of petitioners.

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Upon arrival at a swollen promenade, I indulge in The Dreadful Offering once again. It will be different this time around, I assure the skeptics.

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Anchored to a bench at the Terminus of the Battery, I stare uncomprehendingly towards the harbor, as the last boat of the day unloads its cargo of agitated tourists. A multitude of goblin faces writhe before me—but two figures slowly emerge from among this dreadful gallery: a plaintive couple who approach with measured steps. The man at last produced a camera and asked if I could take their picture. No, I replied, and gazed out into the harbor. They turned away with a mortal resignation—and disappeared into the heavy air of misfortune that pressed down upon the Battery…
An unnatural tide began to foam and fulminate out in the harbor—I felt flushed and overheated—as I pondered the implications of my crime…

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As I awoke, I found that overnight—while I drifted through a temple of Sumerian inspiration—an appalling summer fever had seized me and turned the tenement into jelly. The Solstice was upon us, I assumed.

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A rumor of the sun’s existence found me out through fever, brick, and tar—and carried with it an image of the Battery.

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And so, once again, I come upon a triangle bounded by Carmine and Bleecker Streets, and the surging traffic along the avenue. And once again I settle into the quiet discontent of Father Demo Square…
The fountain rises and falls, people mill about in ever-shifting tides, and every street seems charged with its own obscure attraction.
And at length, its spell at last uncertain, Father Demo Square fades into the heedless afternoon—as I turn my mind to other matters and Contemplations of the Battery…