under the big black sun: a fable
That early man was now thought a scavenger rather than bold hunter and slayer of giant mastodons, a figure perhaps a little ridiculous, was totally in keeping with Martin's forebodings. He puts the paper in a sidewalk trash bin and walks on.
A familiar amber Toyota passes. Martin watches as his own girlfriend drives by without seeing him.
After crossing the tracks he does not go to the Coney Island. He walks back toward the river. Down DeSiard he longs for something nameless within the blocks of abandoned office buildings, portents among the gaps from demolished edifaces. Is it possible that there's nothing new at all, anywhere, any time?
He glances for any overlooked establishment down the lower numbers of DeSiard, only halfway hoping. And then there is one. A bar. In the traditional narrow-building fashion, neon-windowed, the murmur of voices, talk, from within. The street is absolutely deserted. How had he missed this place before?
He pulls the door open. Friendly voices call out his name, indisputably glad to see him. How can he not know these people, and so many of them? There's one empty barstool, and that's the one he takes.
Gayle and Kelly banging on the apartment's locked bathroom door; "Martin? Martin! What are you doing in there?" The only sound is that of waiting, the expectation of sound when none comes.
