RPM

78

I start with the cashews. There're never enough. Watch this—how the waiter steps onto the turntable, off of the dance floor we're circling, a little skip. The DJ's got two turntables. The bar's parked around back behind. We'll come back around. The waiter has to watch it, stepping off of the stationary dance floor onto the moving floor at our feet. It's all relative. We are on a moving floor but when we are on it, it seems solid enough. The waiter negotiates the dimensions, bringing our drinks. We'll start with the Screwdriver. It should take us one revolution. Out there, over there in the shadows is Henry Ford's village. He collected houses, stores, outbuildings, even outhouses, and such from before there were cars. I've been there. It's the thing about cashews. They're never in the shell. Why is that? Poisonous, I think, the shells. It's better after dark. We'll see the lights come on all over the city below. The sunset's behind us. We'll pick it up again as we head to the west. There's downtown Detroit. The downtown's a ruin. Of course, I felt safe. Nobody's down there downtown. They have this train. It's fully automatic. I was by myself. I rode from stop to stop. It's all automatic. The doors of the train slid open at each stop. It has a canned voice. "Hotel Cadillac," it says. The place is a ruin. Not enough money to tear the place down. There were pigeons and birds. They flew out the windows. "Step back from the doorway. The doors are closing." The train slides on. Stops at the next ruin. And so on. You want to dance? That floor isn't moving. It's Motown all night. Every night is Motown in Motown. Though that sound's like the Ink Spots filling the room. Don't get around much anymore. Victor. His Master's Voice, the spotted dog hypnotized by the twirling disc. Up there's Superior. That's where they grow the famous cherries. You want your orange slice? I eat them by sections. You forget that you're moving. The trees, there, are turning. Here comes the sunset. Orange like the drink. Out there's the rest of Michigan. I bet that's Indiana. I do this a lot. Come to the top of tall buildings. That this top spins is gravy. San Francisco's tall buildings. A Hyatt. One panoramic window is all of water. The elevators there are glass. The cable cars there below. They turned them around right there. Another turntable. Everyone gets out and pushes. Cashews, don't you think, prove the existence of God? They're that good. Have the last one. You can't even feel it, the moving. But you know you are moving if you just pick a point in the distance and stare. Before you know it your whole head has been turning and you are looking away.

45

Next, come the filberts. There're always only a few and you have to poke around among the peanuts and the almonds for them. Hazelnuts, filberts, I think they are the same. Whose idea is this anyway, to have this saloon keep moving? It seems so '70s, so disco, and, look, there's a disco ball there over the dance floor and it is moving too, or is it rotating the other way, against the way we are going? Or the mirrored ball standing still goes backwards as we go forward, not fast enough to throw its sparks. It's as if the lights are being plucked off, square-by-square, plink, plank, plunk. Silent wind-chime. I swear the DJ must be spinning old Platters' platters. "Twilight Time," "Only You," "The Great Pretender," "My Prayer." They have that sound. Mercury, Mercury Records, a red diamond. There was that plastic gizmo that popped into the big hole in the center of a 45 so that the record could be played on the long-play spindle. It looked like legs running...