The Adventures of Ibn Opcit

II. I Been to New York. Once.

27 II I Been to New York. Once. ❒ ❒ ❒ America? It’s a carve of a continent, a land so vast, between de surge eternal and de surge eternal, de clocks cannot agree. Where gathers of basalt de size of mountain chains and plains de size of serious seas—whole flats of a map— cause us to say, Here was a gravity estoppel. (Imagine a turmoil of topography where a couple of crustal plates really go at it: One hit de other a glancing subduction, de other answer wid a roundhouse 6.7 on de Richter.) Imagine a land before de borders are etched: De blue fumble of de mountains of de Nevada Dissimular keep their distance, hold their snow like a gathered skirt. They do with the late sun what they will, lay claim, with a kind of oracular Oh See, to be a region. Out of dere extreme exotics, rivers find by a sidelong slide to gravity the flat lands— basins of black soil, the long reach of fields 28 toward alfalfa, toward the brushed hair of oats— where columbiads of cottonwood follow the deep reversals of their getting there. Big dams are little in the hoot and holler of the valleys of the North where blown mist, sideways rain give rise to greves of Englemann spruce, where glaciers in Spring fail like riverine patti-melts under skies cause us to say, Here is an afford of possibility. Under the eraserless sun of the South, in a clamor of heat dat pass for India, hurricanes clear like one more grimpen bombast, and swamp gas gather in hollows ready for the match. One of the world’s richest biotas, cause us to say, This place miss its dinosaurs. This land still working on becoming coal. De country laid out in Bakelite strips, edged with Gas to Go, Motels to Stay. Off road, de countryside retain with difficulty its capacity to glitter after rain. From sticky pantoons and outland flats rise Dallas like a glass salute, rise Chicago like a seat of phosphorescent dreams, rise towns with names like lamentations. Omaha with its defrequented stockyards, Oshkosh imprinted with alleys, Kenosha with sad swept streets cause us to read “Minnesota Town Requests Right to Die.” A land where factories de size of Michigan discover over and over dat humans don’t make good machines. Cause us to say, Here was a destiny made manifest. People of de Southwest reduce to squeezed-down expectations. Southern folk stay mad. Midwestern folk, knowing dere place an acquired taste, strive to love the dirt between dere toes. (All along de border farms in Iowa we hear dem mutter, We half in Illinois.) People of the Northwest I am told do not exist and California live in Japan. 29 America? A country bathed in the trade winds of humanity at its most. Huge in the feeding, in the grip of its sensation hugely impatient, on to the next—WOP—thing in a was of doing. A country of Whoops and Waitaminute where no one take time to find good footing and the ambulances all spell backwards. Land of diseases dat do not communicate but dere will be an extra season of contagion for living in zones of improbability. A land wid no expertise of poisons in dere culture but road kills are always acceptable. A country of impacted traffic where toll collectors, before they take their station, take a leak. Cars emerge from oily berms, forge forward in the holy hope that green will find its light. Patrol cars pursue dem wid a glitter haste. Troopers standing in the rain write tickets out of certain deeply-held beliefs. Dey are trained in de arts of violent response. A motorcycle triad idles by potato potato potato on a mix of leaned gas, missed opportunities. Angels from Hell, dey are looking for the dark crumbling overhangs of de Palisades where dey will splash messages of love, their particular hatreds and de year. America? Home of Costa Rica Étan, whose arms be garnished wid tattoos, whose bodyguards all had their throats cut at least once. As a young man starting out, throwing acid, he find about himself he cast a radius of fear. Étan determine to make his career in the business of fear: its inspiration, cultivation, management. On de kind of sullen anger dat blow up powder trains 30 he ride the creative curves of imbalance down...