As/Is







8.15.2017


from Something Solid: Aughts Philly: September Heat


Sultry September: we warily followed this bar-hopping
party back to a twin near City Hall, under
an aegis which was not for us, & which
included our enemies. Thus, dirt & grime came
down, settled on our backs. Now, I blame
a sense of excess which was just the Aughts;
I got used to knowing a step up on a Philly
ladder could be a step down. They were
snorting coke in a room upstairs at this
party, and, it was rumored, playing Russian
Roulette. The pistol (I saw) had a silencer on it.
I looked upstairs again, from the landing, at a greasy light.
September shadows cast an eerie glow of nowhere—
someone pushed past me, frankly, to join the affair.