In the Chalk Circle—Part 4

aturday, March 19, 2010

10:08—In the Giant Bagel
I had a singular dream last night: I was given two small diagrams of Washington Square Park: one of the old park, and one of the new park (after the dreaded renovation). They were only about 2 or 3 inches long, almost like oversized postage stamps, with an antique brownish color. I was fascinated by them and I don’t know if I dreamed the following or if it was a conscious embellishment: using the maps as a guide, I secured the end of a rope to the exact center of where the old fountain had existed, and affixed a piece of chalk to the other end, and traced the circumference of the fountain’s original location on the flagstones! Marvellous! A thing of beauty!

Wednesday, March 23, 2010
8:29—Giant Bagel
I have an appt. with the WTC Bellevue Group on Monday at 8:30—scheduled for a chest X-Ray, blood test, and a pulmonary function test. It’ll take 4 1/2 hours! It ain’t gonna be fun, but I’ll go through it just to qualify for any possible benefits/compensation/treatments, etc. I was 2 blocks from Ground Zero and I got that f*cking dust in my lungs and around my heart! A God-damned time bomb! Christ.

11:25—On a Q-Train heading to 14th Street

Oh, no—wait a minute! I’m on a f*cking B-Train! Christ! Where should I get off?

1:21—WSQ—On a narcoleptoid bench
Skittish, irritable, and paranoid. It’s just a bit too chilly out here and I may have to relocate to the Albatross.

What am I gonna do? A job would solve most of my problems—but are there any such things as jobs anymore?
I should try to convince X to apply for WTC benefits also. Too cold out here—I gotta duck inside somewhere—perhaps the Temple over on Thompson...

4:37—

Debt collectors calling, calling, calling...vultures circling everywhere in the Poison City. 
Trying to conjure the Springtime into existence. Park cooling off as the sun goes down one more time. Phantoms pass by, sit for awhile, and then move on into the oblivion of the late afternoon. Fear is ascendent! I am afraid all of the time now—it must be a result of weakened kidneys. Maybe I do need some kind of medication—nah!—that stuff never worked for me. Heading to Barnes & Noble...

4:50—Barnes & Noble—4th floor reading area—

I’m sitting in the 3rd row all the way on the right side with a view of Union Square West out of the front windows. It’s cloudy—a gray, swirling sky—overcast, spooky, funereal. I have a terribly creepy, paranoid sense of doom swirling around me. It must be the debilitating effects of the last poisoning coursing through my system. I wanted to take a walk down to Mosco Street, but it was too cold. Sinking into junk-food narcosis...

6:00—In the Phó Viêt Hu’o’ng Restaurant on Mulberry Street

I haven’t been here in ages—one of my old haunts. The Temple has closed! Another one of my favorite places is gone forever! Dusk down in Chinatown—always a melancholy undertaking. A thousand memories down here.

6:45—
Ancient insults torment me—why did I put up with them? Number 52: journal of a burnt-out, half-animate ghoul trying to hang on in the toxic soup.

Monday, March 15, 2010

7:13—In the Connecticut Muffin
My biological clock says that it is actually 6:13, because we are on Daylight Savings Time.
Dark and spooky out—rainy and overcast. Heading to Bellevue for a 5-hour physical.
8:45—In the wilds of Bellevue 
Waiting to be interviewed by the psychiatrist—the first stage of the WTC intake procedure. I hope that I am not delivering myself into the jaws of Moloch—after all, how trustworthy can they be?  Christ! Be alert!

Now I’m waiting to see Dr. Y—but she has disappeared somewhere and I’m stuck here in this hallway. Getting sleepy.

2:32—In the Goodburger on B’way & 16th, right on the north end of Union Square Park. 

Came to $9.25, and now I’m broke.
Still reeling from my day at the WTC Clinic—I can’t even write about it yet—too much information to process.
 
5:33—In the back room of the Albatross


A strange clear light reflecting from the back courtyard and patch of sky. I guess I should amble down to the park again—no sense in returning to the hell-hole of my apartment too soon. Every hour I stay away from that place is an hour added to my life!

6:04—WSQ—on a non-committal bench—
The past flows and tugs all around me in the Cathedral Park. I am deeply saddened by the loss of the old park—all the magic has been drained out of it. There is almost nothing left of the old city... I move among its ruins... lost and mourning its demise.

I have devolved into a complete sputtering, useless idiot! Damn! I smell chemical toxins in the air—gotta move to another bench. Now the damn asphalt-cutter has resumed! Bastards!

7:27—Shuttling back & forth between B&N, WSQ, and the Albatross—

Lost on an unnumbered day. Ill from too much coffee.

#52: Book of Cliff’s Edge Prayers and Silent Screams.

8:54—WSQ—

Circumnavigation of the Fountain in a Season of Dread and Dislocation.

I just had an unbelievable encounter with a man on 14th street right across from Union Square: I’ve already forgotten his name, but he was a 911 first-responder: eleven months in the pit! Homeless, poisoned, ill, hallucinatory and reduced to begging for change on the street. He told me he periodically goes crazy from the poisons and hallucinates snakes and mice crawling on his skin, and he cuts himself with a knife to try and get rid of them! He is a slightly built man of indeterminate age—maybe 40?—his teeth are loosening and falling out as a result of the toxins and he sleeps on the street. He is enrolled in the Bellvue Hospital 911 Program and also went through the Bellevue intake process, but he says that they don’t help him—welfare gives him $60 a month and he is turned away from any further compensation! It was one of the saddest encounters I’ve ever had. He even asked me if I needed a roomate. I wish I could help him in some way, but aside from sweat-lodges and detox diets, there’s no way I can think of to help him except to give him $5.00 when I see him on Wednesday. He told me he used to own a gas station before he got sick—then his wife left him. He sleeps on the streets and eats out of garbage cans. The horror!

“The poison moves around—it goes up into my head and then I see the snakes and the mice on my skin and I have to try and get them out! When the poison takes over, that becomes the reality! The 911 system is no good—they won’t help you—you’ll see!” He told me he was from—where was it? Kashmir? I can’t remember. He actually has an e-mail address and he gave it to me. He seemed to know a lot of people on the street—he must have waved hello to a dozen people in about 15 minutes. I’ve already forgotten his name, but he gave me a card that says: NADIR PETROLUM with an e-mail address.

Is that his name—Nadir?

A strange and luminous evening as I exit the park..          


                                    TO BE CONTINUED


///   Washington Square  ///  911  ///  NYC  ///

In The Chalk Circle, Part 3

FROM JOURNAL NUMBER FIFTY-TWO 
Saturday, March 12, 2010
9:06—In the Giant Bagel [Now gone forever—and I can find no photographic record of its existence—lost to us!] near the train station on Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn.

This dump always seems to be functioning at a minimal level, and appears to be designed to repel any potential customers. The place is laid out all wrong somehow—unclassifiable, anecdotal architecture—depending upon where my eye falls, I may alternately feel that I am in a dime-store casbah, an abandoned minimalist luncheonette, or perhaps the stuccoed coat-room of a run-down Greek restaurant. Smell of rancid grease—only two or three tables—there’s usually no one else in here—oppressive music—most of the staff can be won over with a few convivial remarks (which I’m normally not capable of).
Melancholy view of Cortelyou Road from the window table that I normally manage to secure.
The best thing about the place is the large white sign outside, with the huge orange type announcing “Giant Bagel”.

Feeling a little better today. Ah!—a fresh journal—a new start. I am slowly starting to lay the groundwork for my disability/compensation onslaught! I have been on the run for over ten f*cking years—ever since the attack—and I’m still not out of the woods! The dust from the pulverized towers is still in my body: microscopic slivers of asbestos, coated with deadly chemical compounds! Ruined my health! Bastards! I called up the WTC Compensation Center (or whatever it’s called) yesterday and started the ball rolling. They are supposed to call me within seven days and then I can come in for an appointment. Meanwhile, I’m gonna get all of my medical history together and write down all the names, dates, addresses, etc.
The music in here is cutting right through my head! Who needs this screeching early in the morning?

Thursday, March 17, 2010
1:01—In the Albatross Café off Union Square

In the crepuscular confines of the back room—air is always stuffy—odor of garbage, rotten food, and ammonia—a hidden generator hums and vibrates at a nameless pitch—windows look in/out onto the pale yellow brick of the interior courtyard of the apartment complex: a strange view, as if looking through the glass of an aquarium—people pass by, but rarely turn to look into the interior of this lost wedge of space, but when they do it’s always a shock and fills me with dread—a small patch of sky visible—horrid radio noise pumped in and giant tv screen bolted to the wall at the far end of the narrow aisle makes the room feel even more claustrophobic—commentators bark furiously, as if aware of the competing radio—sounds commingle—tuned in/out conversations—all add up to sonic disconnect and burbling tide-wash of uncertainty and distraction—the whole raised to a penitential frequency. Why do I subject myself to it? Because the quality of the bagels is unmatched, and the coffee is borderline acceptable. I return, again and again.
Someone from the 911 Benefits called me and took down some info. He’ll be sending me a package with a whole bunch of forms and stuff. I think I better wait until I hear back from them before I call anyone else—I’ll just get all confused. I’ll probably hear back from them next week, hopefully.

3:48—WSQ—North-West quadrant, on a bench facing North.
Afternoon settles on the Park, ghostly and with a gentleness...
For some reason, the renovation has seemingly come to a momentary standstill, and consequently the noise and pollution is at a minimum.

I just got hit with a huge ball of pollen buds or whatever they’re called—it fell off a tree and landed right on my head!—hit me hard—and it burst into a million bits of fluff and fibers! 

It was about the size of a ping-pong ball—all heavy and moist—and now it’s all in my hair, down my neck and back and in my shirt—all over the damn place! Now I’m all itching, and full of microscopic, asbestos-like fibers! I had no idea those things were so nasty. It was almost like someone threw it at me—or the tree threw it at me! I don’t like this—it’s a curse of some sort—what if those fibers get into my system and mess me up somehow—what if they somehow begin to sprout inside me?

I consider this a bad omen...

TO BE CONTINUED
/// supernatural fiction  ///  Washington Square Park ///
lucid dreaming  ///  911 ///

The Loadstone

he Loadstone buried under the South West Quadrant of Washington Square, and how I dug it up one night in a dream and discovered a partial explanation of the Chess Circle

A slowly rotating afternoon . . .

Irrelevant postulations and dire jottings.
Aphasiatic conjectures under a lowering sky as the Poison* slowly wears off.
Circumnavigation of the Fountain in a time of utmost dread and dislocation.
Fountain-thoughts trail off with the spray . . .

4:21—
Chess Quadrant as seen from a distance of approximately 30 yards—enveloped in a yellow-green haze of pollen and particulates . . .
South West Quadrant as fed by waves of Historical Discontent.
Fulminating bismuth and churning conjecture.
Masks catch fire and spin wildly.
Loud-Mouth Meridians as madmen scream obscenities all day and deep into the lantern night.
Molten jive and hairy palms.
Sulphuric Death\Chant
Threats and insults linger in the air long after their authors have departed.
Strident lectures aimed at no one and everyone.
Verbosciterium!
Murder is in the air!
Criminal potentates incur infinitesimal advantages on checkered squares.
Clocks stopped at precise moments.
Small islands of Kindness and Peace amongst the raging battles.
Hot-spectrum experiments at End-of-the-World Park.
Third eye locked onto artificial satellite.
Pineal gland park-quiz.
The Great List of Atavistic Excuses.
Sleeping Souls of Old Telemetric Park.
The Periodic Table contaminated during a game of chance.
Dissolute Fountain/Miasma—falling off the edge of the Imploded Solar Calendar.
The Geometry of Despair and Dissolution.
Estranged in Echolalia
Stasis at the periphery . . .

Shadows grow longer across the Circle as the afternoon rotates out of existence at the behest of colossal and incomprehensible forces

6:03—
Pulled over onto the cool end of the palette now as celestial forces exert their mighty influence. Park Circle and Fountain are pulled into impending darkness as they are whirled through time and space . . .

I walk dejectedly along one of the oblique meridians as I exit the Park and turn onto Serigraph Street where it merges with Inquisition  and head north to Little West Colloquy.
Then along the tracks that twist and turn and dive and rise again through dank and odious tunnels of electro-spark toxins and moldering dust and dirt—bursting to the surface once again, through the charred and rusted stations and soot-filled buildings of the Substrate City, and then down Subliminal Street and Arcane Avenue, towards Teleport and Scepter.

Then:
Posthumous longings in a bio-chamber of regret and bitterness.
Toxic delirium amid night-sweats and chem-soaked pillow.
Dreams colored in obscure hues and revelations in a vague language . . .

Under the sway of a murky and dreadful constellation, and oblivious of any moral codes, I re-enter the now-deserted park under the cover of night and pry loose several of the flagstones in the Chess Circle in the Southwest Quadrant and claw through the dirt and sand until I find a large stone of singular qualities buried in the exact center of the Circle: the Loadstone! Imported from Magnesia itself, and doubtless responsible for the frenzied aberrations of that charged quadrant! 

Hiding it under my shirt, I steal out of the park without bothering to cover up the evidence of my criminal excavations. As I move through the damp and yellow phosphor of the night-streets of Abscondia, I become aware that I am dreaming. Even so, I still feel a tremendous sense of guilt and fear of punishment.

*  *  *  *  *   *

Upon awakening I feel no less guilty and am troubled by a singular worry:
What if I am to be held accountable for my theft even though I merely dreamed it?



*Methylene Chloride

/// Washington Square Park /// lucid dreaming /// guilt ///

In The Chalk Circle, Part 2

FROM JOURNAL NUMBER FIFTY-ONE:
Tuesday, September 8, 2007
1:45—WSQ—In the west end of the park, on a bench facing the chess circle.
The last days of the Old Fountain. The whole east side of the park is closed off for the renovation—its all fenced-off, and torn-up.

Everything will be ripped out: fountain, monuments, chess circle, and all the odd little corners and eccentric spaces that gave the park its character. To be replaced by what, exactly?

There are some kind of nasty chemical fumes blowing in from the west end of the park—getting sick and I gotta move on—but to where?
 

Re-located to a another bench up on the north end, but the fumes are still swirling around—too much poison over here—damn them and their f*cking “renovation”! My scalp is even itching—a sure sign of poisoning!

Wednesday, March 9, 2010
12:00—Battery Park—On a bench facing the Hudson
Opposite the old Colgate Clock across the foaming river. Gray haze and thin yellow sunlight illuminates the harbor. 

 

I hadda flee WSQ! It’s a total toxic disaster inside and out—dust, chemical fumes, debris, and the clang & clatter of heavy machinery all around! The dreaded renovation is in full swing. My battered immune system can’t handle the pollution. They’re destroying the park—half of it is closed off—everything is ripped up! The fountain has been moved so that it lines up with the arch! Why on earth did they need to do that? Why did they have to re-design it—why couldn’t they just leave it alone? That’s supposed to be my hangout—my home away from home—and now it’s ruined forever! Damn them!

Thursday, March 10, 2010
2:12—In Ostropoler’s on Avenue J [Now gone and I can find no trace of it anywhere! It must have been there since 1950—at least!]—
Wedged into a narrow booth way in the back of this old-style cafeteria. Strange layout to the place—I can make no sense of it. Ancient, filthy... noisy... tumultuous... and the absurd notion that I am not wanted in here... that I shouldn’t be here... a mistake... but still, it reminds me of a certain period of my life back in the early 1960’s somehow... elusive...
Just ordered scrambled eggs & home-fries.
Poison hangover. Listless, paranoid, wobbly, and dispirited—have I left anything out? 

Something has gone wrong with my order—where the hell is it? I’ve been here 25 minutes already—I fear that the waitress has it in for me for unknown reasons. It’s sickening in here! I have a craving for a late breakfast, but there isn’t a decent diner within ten f*cking miles! Why is that?
And now it appears that my last month’s rent is in arrears! At least that’s what it said on the ticket that they stuck on my door!
Where is my damn order?

12:35—Jeezus, what hell: even worse than that Mexican joint yesterday!
And there are screaming brats climbing all over the place. I feel that my mission to get breakfast has totally failed!
Gotta get out of here right now!

12:43—Leaning on a parking meter across the street from that hell-hole. I feel compelled to make a journal entry right here on the damn street amid traffic fumes, screeching brakes and assorted stares from the passersby. Gotta finish this book right here and now! I can’t wait and let it drag on.
I think that I should go into the city. I am quite ill and hung-over from yesterday’s poisonings! Gotta simply get out of town! For the rest of the day, anyway! I wanna take a fresh book with me into the city and attempt some writing.

One and a half pages to go in this suffering tome! Lord!
It’s fairly warm in the sun, if a bit breezy.
There are pains in my stomach that concern and worry me.
On the corner of Avenue J and East 13th street. 

The intersection of Dross and Dram! Whaat?

I am oppressed by memories that I don’t have—of an Avenue J that I’ve never seen before, as hopeless storefronts stretch though this turmoil.

The psychic debris of an avenue...

I’ve made up my mind: I’m heading into the city forthwith! K will understand.
The whole block-long string of cars is honking their horns! This is sheer hell!
My head is all jammed-up. I pray for success this week with my exploratory efforts at getting some kind of help/compensation/etc. My brain is clouded by poison/fear/aggregate-conglomerate!

12:54—Staggered under the weight of a dozen or more atmospheres—Orthodox tumult surrounds me!

Journal #51 staggers into oblivion—another hell-book mercifully done with and thrown on the slag-heap with the rest of them!
I give thanks for all my blessings! And they are many!
I conclude this book on a note of gratefulness and optimism!
Amen and goodbye to Book #51!




/// supernatural fiction ///  Washington Square Park /// lucid dreaming

In The Chalk Circle, Part 1

ately I’ve begun to notice something extraordinary: as I begin to drift off to sleep each night, I have been increasingly able to pinpoint the exact moment when sleep begins. I become aware of the distinct line between waking and dreaming thoughts. The key to achieving this is to be acutely attentive to the nature of the thought: a dream-thought is readily identifiable because of its irregular and irrational nature. As an example, a few nights ago I dreamt that I was in the vestibule of my grandparents house—the old one, that used to stand way up at the top of the hill—and my grandmother was speaking to me. Aha! Impossible! Because I know that she is dead, and the old house was sold decades ago—therefore this was clearly a dream-thought! 

    The impact of such a realization often causes me to snap awake immediately, triumphantly proclaiming to myself: “This is sleep!” But the next step is even more extraordinary: the trick is to not let yourself be jolted awake by the revelation of the initial dream-thought, and to continue to dream, but with the conscious awareness of doing so! This is a kind of inner alchemy—a discipline—that should be practiced and cultivated in order to unlock the mysteries of each nocturnal flight. The dreams can even be influenced and controlled with this method, and extraordinary powers might become available to the practitioner of this occult method.
    I will begin an experiment: I will keep my journal by my bedside and try to locate the thoughts that occur directly on either side of the sleeping/waking divide, and then try to hold on to them in my memory and write them down when I awake the next morning.

FROM JOURNAL NUMBER
FORTY-EIGHT:

Wednesday, July 8, 2007
3:46—Washington Square Park, NYC
On the rim of the Old Fountain: High Summer in the park—beautiful afternoon in the Sunken Amphitheater—my thoughts trail off with the fountain spray...
 

Then...
The pen moves hesitantly...waiting for instructions from it’s master, who has succumbed to the dissipations of the mighty Doldrums. The Great Torpor has me in its grip and the Fatigue stretches for miles, coloring the sky and trees and faces, while holding me motionless...
    On certain days, the Fountaineers have been known to pump in water from the Sargasso which then sprays up from the old fountain and disperses into the park/crater, bringing with it the spirit of the Doldrums: of ships’s masts standing motionless and perfectly perpendicular in the dead calm—of sailors sprawled on the bleached decks under a monstrous sun. On other days, perhaps on a whim, these same Fountaineers will divert waters from a tributary of the Congo, and bringing with it all the characteristics of that terrifying and mighty river...

TO BE CONTINUED


/// supernatural fiction ///  Washington Square Park /// lucid dreaming

The Great Book of Indigestion

Still-frame from "WSQ", 2011
 
JOURNAL #52
March 8, 2010—

4:37—WSQ—
Debt collectors calling, calling, calling...Vultures circling everywhere in the Poison City. Down to a single bar of “charge” on my cell-phone battery.
 
Trying to conjure the Springtime into existence:

Still-frame from "The Conjure Stone", 2009

Eating compulsively—out of pure neurosis.
 
Park cooling off as the sun goes down one more time...

Still-frame from "Orb Descending in Park/Sepulchre", 2011

Phantoms pass by, sit for a while, and then move on into the oblivion of the late afternoon.
I suppose I’ll be heading up to Barnes & Noble pretty soon—it’s too cold and windy out here now. Fear is ascendent! I am afraid all of the time. Maybe I do need some kind of medication—nah, that stuff never worked for me.
Heading to B&N...

Tuesday, March 9, 2010—

8:28—In the C-Muffin—

Connecticut Muffin, Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, NY

Fear, fear, and paranoia—too many things conspire against me—I almost choked when I read that article yesterday about how American Grid conspired with Con Ed and Morgan Stanley to rip off customers in an elaborate scheme that netted them millions! I guess I shouldn’t be shocked or surprised, but I was—the lawlessness and corruption are out of control—it filled me with fear and disgust. This country is absolutely doomed—the depravity is beyond belief! I knew that that American Grid was f*cked up when that psychopath started yelling at me over the phone last year—I felt like I was talking to the mafia or something!

Book #52: Tales of Fear and Disgust!

 
Wednesday, March 10, 2010—

11:25—On a Q heading to 14 St.—oh, no—wait a minute! I’m on a B! Christ—where should I get off?

1:21—WSQ—

Still-frame from "Lost Fountain Observances", 2011

Trying to decide if I should call that debt-collector scumbag back. I probably shouldn’t, but maybe I should at least call them once—I don’t know what to do. I’m really in too fragile a state of mind to be bullied and interrogated by some thuggish debt collector. The back is hurting a little bit but not too bad—where is my PT? I ought to hear from them this week—gotta get that ultra-sound going...

... and I’m sitting in WSQ on a chilly day—not really that comfortable. It’s too fucking cold! I gotta duck inside somewhere... I’m tempted to seek refuge in The Temple... or perhaps... the Albatross...
 

The Albatross Cafe off Union Square West

4:13—Clocks stopped at inconvenient hours.
Endlessly repeating fragments of myself in a spectral Union Square

 4:50—B&N on the 4th floor—I’m sitting in the 3rd row all the way on the right side with a view of Union Square West out of the front windows. It’s cloudy— a gray, swirling sky—overcast, spooky, funereal...

 I have a terribly creepy, paranoid sense of doom swirling around me. It must be the debilitating effects of the last poisoning*** coursing through my system.

Still-frame from "The Periodic Table Contaminated in a Dream", 2010

I wanted to take a walk down to Mosco Street*, but it was too cold.
Sinking into junk-food narcosis.
Everything is rapidly coming to a head: the looming implosion of America and the descent into chaos/police-state/breadline anarchy! Lord!

6:02—In the Faux Viêt Huang Trang Restaurant on Baxter Street.

I order #194** from the menu—I always order #194. But that waiter has begun to anticipate my order every time I come in here—"194?" he asks. And do I detect a slight smirk when he says that? I may have to stop ordering #194... that's the only way to break this vicious circle...
 
The Temple has closed! Another one of my old haunts is gone forever!

Dusk down in Chinatown—always a melancholy undertaking. A thousand memories down here—perhaps I should walk over to Mosco Street just to take a look. 

This part of town reminds me of my stay at Fulton Street, since I often used to amble down here since it was fairly close by.

6:18—Just finished eating my #194—it was half rancid! Bastards! I have calculated that I run a 50-50 risk of getting food poisoning every time I order food in here (or anywhere)—but that those odds are favorable enough for me to keep on ordering.  

Just like old times, yes. The decor in here makes no sense to me whatsoever—Liberace on foodstamps...
Now I have the mother of all indigestions! Christ! What a mistake! Horrid filth! This could take all night to die down...

6:32—I am totally pissed off at this f#cking place—I’m ill!

I am really in an angry pissed off mode these days—all I do is walk through the streets cursing to myself like some old beggar-idiot! Lord! The drooling baby family across the aisle is in for the f#cking long haul—they’re making a whole night of it! Of course! 
My stomach is totally rebelling at the filth I just shoveled down it!
The problem with indigestion is that it overpowers everything else!
 
6:45—Should I jump on the Q train and head back to Ditmas Park?

Ancient insults torment me—why did I put up with them? 

The unnatural lifespan of an insult...

* Mosco Street: the last remnant of the old Cross Street which ran through the Five Points.
**  Chicken with Ginger and Scallions w/White Rice
*** Numberless poisons commingle in our innermost dreams. 

A Tale of the Old Chess Quadrant

Washington Square Park, NYC, south-west entrance. The ruins of the old chess circle lie beyond the fence during the time of the renovation.

From Journal #52
Thursday, March 18, 2010—

5:31—WSQ—Entering the defunct park by way of an oneiric meridian. Staring in disbelief at the incredible sight of the torn up Old Chess Quadrant, as the sun retreats behind the buildings, pulling all the colors with it, and as the surface cools, the destroyed park, like some barren asteroid, rotates helplessly into evening, and then night.

Under the Orange Glow of the Lamps

The old globe lamps are still in place (precariously!), high in the air, ringing the circle and illuminating this tableaux of destruction and carnage, despite the fact that the quadrant has been torn up and gutted: the old benches gone—all the concrete ripped out—mounds of earth piled haphazardly in the sacred circle. As if by phantom decree, the lamps still miraculously receive a flow of electrons: somber punctuation marks that glow deep orange. Scattered all around are cables, pipes, rotting chunks of foundation, ancient concrete, black earth, and strewn all through this violence, the new sections of pipe and stacks of tile that will be utilized in this great desecration.

Deep into the Lantern Night: I am pulled along a glowing path into the perimeter of the circle, drawn towards the magnetic Load Stone buried deep in the exact center of that charged quadrant. Voices past and present ring out: “Hey, chess player! Chess player! Over here!” Ghosts move through flagstone and turf as re-routed meridians spark and flicker. Crepuscular games of chance are played out under the memorial globes, figures huddled over the filthy squares—drunken threats and boasts echo all through the blasted circle—ancient games played out to their conclusion. Conflagrations flare up spontaneously—ever threatening to escalate into outright violence: boasts, threats, war-whoops, and pure jive, as shadowy figures move around the edge of the ring of lights. “What-choo lookin’ at? Get the fuck outta here! You’re throwing off my game! Get the fuck outta here!”

The oblique diagonal entrance at the southwest corner of WSQ offering a dramatic entrance and exit: a runway for tourists, drug-dealers, crazies, and actual residents of Greenwich Village, as they made their way in and out of the park. Potentates hold court—barkers endlessly repeating and recycling the call: “Hey, chess player! Chess player! Over here!”, trying to assign an identity to passing phantoms disguised as tourists. Menace grows as blackness blossoms like ink-stains under the orange glow—not quite enough light to illuminate the fractious battle plans.

Historical Matches Enter the Chess Books

Certain mad and luminous nights spent in that charged circle swell up in my wavering mind: A celestial vendor of spirits materializes from out of the darkness beyond the low cement retaining wall—with a cache of bottles that are available at very reasonable prices which are eagerly scooped up by thirsty clients as deals are struck under the pulsing orange globes. A shopping bag filled with bottles of wine, whiskey, and beer—clinking and clattering, circles the table—a voice hawking the stolen (?) wares. Deals are struck: $5.00 for the wine, $6.00 for the whiskey. The spirits are uncorked and flow—a paper cup filled with rum is knocked over by a drunken hand and a tidal-wash spreads over the filth-laden squares, mixing with bits of discarded food, crumbs, burnt matches, cigarette butts, perhaps a few stray noodles from a Chinese take-out, and nameless substances coating the pebbled surface—the whole wishing for the cleansing rains to wash the tables and urine-soaked concrete beneath it. “Hey, chess player! Chess player!" Another hand hastily pours beer into a paper cup which fulminates and foams over onto the checkered squares, mixing and commingling with the rum. A thin film of booze coats the board as a Rook is loosened from its moorings and is observed floating diagonally in violation of its strictly prescribed powers of forward or lateral movement! Marijuana joints, smoked down to a nib, fall into the eighth of an inch of booze on the board’s surface, and extinguish themselves with a hiss.

Chess Traps, Pitfalls, and Swindles

Filthy, chipped and broken chess pieces—mismatched queens, scarred bishops, wounded knights, and pawns replaced by pennies, or bottle-caps, are marshaled amid drunken shouts and rasping coughs. And all around us the roiling ocean of crazed hustlers and psychos keep up a steady cacophony of threats, insults, and propositions. "Smoke? smoke?". Grizzled prophets in wild, flowing garb, who look as if they had stepped right out of the Old Testament, pass by our table, preaching at the top of their lungs, to everyone and no one. Sometimes it may have been the influence of a full moon, or perhaps some peculiar planetary configuration—or maybe it was nothing at all that had set them off on their mad tirades and speeches and squabbles—who knew? And no one was at all concerned—it was just another evening in the wild old chess quadrant in Washington Square Park.

Pungent smoke originates from obscure points around the charmed circle as the spirits are ingested—the whole is lifted into a cacophony—a pageant, as costumed actors play their parts—all building to a frenzy. “Hey, chess player! Chess player! Over here!”. Where are the cops? They have seemingly abandoned the absurd bacchanal—a revolving theater, a spinning top.

As night would descend on the circle, the level of danger and criminality would increase—black ink-stain patches of darkness would swell all around this criminal outpost. Minor disputes over infinitesimal quantities of drugs or money would escalate into beastly rage—99% of the time it was harmless posturing and braggadocio, but you were never quite sure when the posing might lead to spilled blood. Deep into the ink-black void, the hustlers played on, with hardly enough light to play.

And where do they all go when they leave the circle? To what obscure haunts and hovels?

Brotherhood of the Circle

Driven out of my home across town, I naturally gravitated to WSQ and particularly to the chess circle. The concentration required to play a game of chess had the wonderful effect of driving all thoughts of homelessness and poverty out of my head: I was free in this circle! The fiery world within the circle represented hearth, home, and a piratical sense of fraternity. When it was at its absolute zenith, and was really cranking, the circle was the very center of the world, complete with its own hierarchy of potentates, warlords, overseers, and court clowns, jesters, musicians, and entertainers. In my perilous circumstances, it was the world outside the circle that held the true terrors. While inside the boundaries of that modern day Tortuga, that pirates cove, I felt a sense of gravity, of brotherhood, it was a privilege to be a part of this rogue’s gathering. Thieves, hustlers, escaped mental patients, angels, devils, friends, wonderful people, and men of great learning have all assembled over the decades in that electric quadrant. There were perhaps a half dozen personalities that would reappear year after year—but aside from these stalwarts, an ever-changing cast of characters would appear mysteriously in the early Spring, solidly establishing themselves for a season, taking up residence at a particular table, creating their own fiefdoms, and holding court in a most conspicuous and ceremonious manner, as if they had been there all their lives, then departing in the late Fall when the weather got too cold, never to reappear again. No one knew or cared what had happened to them—maybe they were in jail, shot dead, or perhaps just moved on, or maybe they simply disappeared off the face of the earth, never to be seen again. Where they all went in the winter was a great mystery, and I gave up asking.

Destruction of the Circle, and Banishment to the North West Quadrant

A few of the old regulars, now transplanted to the North-West Quadrant, appear almost ridiculous among the new polished-stone tables and antiseptic environs of the new WSQ. Vague echoes and crackling flashbacks of the old buccaneer zone haunt the park—a great New York institution now in limbo—gutted, transplanted, and uncertain of its future—the only certainty being that nothing will ever be the same. The Old Park swirls around me and through me—“Hey, chess player! Chess player! Over here!”