he told us he could teach us.
his face was goofy-cruel.
i said you are, by beating us at pool.
was waiting for us after school, smirking in the smoker’s pit.
assumed he was a friend of friend, but no one else remembers him.
his black cape, a calf-length overcoat—calf skin?
he followed us to Pizza Time, observed us unimpressed as we battled thru our quarter roll, then took us up to Level Two, a billiards hall.
the clank of balls rolling on the glowing green oblongs
a nod from the gent watching silent from the bar
we put on pause the improv act we ran all day, our air guitar
this older, what—friend?
he came into my home, once.
hung me by my ankles in the entryway, flipped me in a single smooth move. he twisted me to giddiness & girly-gay shrieks, with my face pulsing red, swinging low to the concrete.
it drew her from her book-heap, my Mother soon a skeptic of this older, what—friend? her Pedagogy rival? was not impressed when this one boasted
Dante, it's been proven—is ten times deeper than the Bible.
brahs Wester
the Lord of the Arcade: whom Naz & i were brought to by a hustling young Khan, a chatty tag-along who led us thru the drug trade.
had marked us as we came into the Day from a stripper’s den: college-bound & virginal, bachas in the City for a summer stay, parent-paid.
the Lord of the Arcade: who filled a whole loveseat, ensconced low & broad in the back by the condom box—a mutely flashing Love-Test—a video strip poker that a lanky dude was cursing at.
tricky Mo took his fee, a Finder's fee, in smoke-up. took us on a Need For Speed rip along the ocean in his hotrod hatchback, pounding out some EuroHouse whose chorus stays in mem.1
we ended in his walk-up, knocking till his roomie/Uncle came to lift the latch.
ah, your little friends again—eyeing us, his smile set.
we smoked some more & Mo got on the twin decks, scratching over sickly-slowed 80s pop, a sickly slowed ogre vox.
another pod where u're P1
Owen, Naz, hear me out: this may be a Divider Sim.
the Lord of the Arcade: he chaperones a split-stream, a split-screen we're friends within.
a Sim we've gone in, long ago: we entered an Arcade, they called it Pizza Time or Fun Time, or Pizza Time Fun Time. you went into one pod, a glowing green Star Wars, & i went in another, what i now call the world.
here, in mine, i'm the Player; yet that implies another world for u—
can u hear me there?
i saw u on the bus, you were twenty-three and holding in a genius discovery. holding in badly, cuz your smile nearly smarmy, grinning slappably at what was on your headphones, your awesome own movie pitch or Beckett skit.
your eyes slitted winky in the Wind of your discovery, so all the ride i stared at you, all the way to Bloor & Ossy. seven feet away i was, but doubt u ever saw me—i was out of Time & Space, i was a ghost come by to have this Sight: a young Picasso grinning as he's whispered at by Graces.