VI

Naublus eventually tumbled into the train tracks, still rhythmically blurting out, "Wassup! Wassup! Wassup! Wassup!" His head jerked back and forth, and green, foamy pus started to ooze from his ears. He jangled uncontrollably on the tracks, like a Parkinson's-ridden hand, until his companion Snazy took charge of the situation.

"Alright, everyone, make a chain of four.
We'll pull him out of that dungeon horror!"

A 40-something year-old man in a red bandana, a 19-year-old girl, and a seven-foot giant who seemed to span all ages, joined hands with Snazy. She dove into the tracks, still hanging on to the chain, and she jostled her way to Naublus' scarred arm. She grabbed hold, and up and out they went, back to safety. It was such a close call that Lady Liberty almost shit her pants. Which would've made the situation worse because she would not have been able to rescue Naublus.

But Snazy was there, and she was all Naublus ever needed.

She skipped away to find her love. She never came back.

Naublus forgot all about her, and he went back to his spinning -- his mental spinning, that is. Down he went, riding the grey, rusted-iron spiral that moved up and down, like a cow-milking machine. Oh Naublus, why again? Why this needless anguish that only shreds your heart? Naublus began to sob. He went on for the next three hours, until about 8:00 p.m.. His head shrunk a couple of inches because of the sadness draining out of him. A smaller head, but feeling oh so much better.

Tap, tap, tip, tap, tap, tip, tip. His ears deceived him, Naublus thought. No, it was not rain. Diamonds. Diamonds! Naublus had not bathed in a diamond shower since he was a little girl in his homeland. He ran out, giddy and slobbering with excitement, into the United States of America. The diamonds tapped on his skin, stuck to it, didn't fall. On his shoulders, diamonds. On the tops of his feet, diamonds. On his tongue, diamonds. He needed more. He slid into a puddle, filling his whole being with the glimmering beauty. Oh, the satisfaction, the satiation, the fulfillment! The grey sun's light made the diamonds look like demon-fairies. They had come to rescue him from his depression. They lasted a lifetime.

Five minutes. One second. Three half-seconds. A century. The diamonds flattened out into cardboard circles. Covered in them was Naublus. Drowning in cardboard was Naublus. He thought about the murdered trees. Slashed trunks, branches made into dust. Sap spilling everywhere, baptizing the forest with the sins of industry. He flailed his arms outward, grunting a scream, ripping the cardboard off his body (it was everywhere).

"What the hell? You did not just bump into me! You did not--just bump--into ME!" A woman with a sun dress and an expression to match it was clouded by Naublus, a cloudy man himself. It was time to rain on her little parade.

Feverishly, gone mad, Naublus asked the simple question:

"Where the diamonds went?"

V

"Flicker, flicker, the lights always flicker."

"Never, never, shall I sing, never."

"OK, OK, my lovely sweet babe, OK."

A big flashing neon sign reading "WHAT THE HELL?" flickered in Naublus' mind. Consequently, he veiled his posied scalp so that the radiation didn't reach the outside world. You see, the outside world is plotting against him. He never knows when they'll pull his big toe out or make his eyeball into jewelry. Oh, how he feared the use of his body parts! Of course, the material with which he covered them was newspaper, old, yellowed newspaper. On his feet, a pristine Caribbean beach with cannibals. On his head, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor doing aerobics in a pink sports bra. (Naublus loved sports bras -- he stole one three years before, and he's never taken it off since). On his left hand, an advertisement for men's shaving razors. On his right, Christy Brinkley advertising the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Naublus was proud of his attire. He thought it a testament to his creativity and eclectic taste in aesthetics. Naublus remembered the temple frescoes of his native land. The forests seemed to extend their arms to embrace him. The dizzying patterns reminded him of his mother, and the shiny turquoises, burgundies, and terra cotas matched the sprightly movement of his feet.

Naublus liked to spin in place. Often, in his corner of the SMARTA station, he would spin uncontrollably constantly yelling, "Wassup! Wassup! Wassup! Wassup!" to passers-by. The passengers thought him a mentally-ill man from the third century. Naublus kept on spinning regardless. "Wassup! Wassup! Wassup! Wassup!" As he spun, always with his left foot planted, he never got dizzy and flailed his arms up and down.

It was 5:45 p.m. Rush hour. The swarm of squirrels invaded Naublus' station, nobody looking to the side, everybody focused on the prize -- where they needed to be next. It was quite a prize, but Naublus didn't get that. Like a solo autumn leaf, a twenty-something year-old girl skipped to Naublus' corner, grabbing his hands to strike a waltz pose. She joined him in his spinning. She sang, dazed, "It's love! It's love! It's love! It's love!" She filled the half-beat that Naublus "wassup's" left blank.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Naublus mind flickered, as street lights do in the apocalypse. This girl, naive as a moth, crushed his solitude, stained it, made it bleed. It was a new life for Naublus. People could in fact exist.

Snazy and Naublus spun until the end of time.

IV

Naublus felt empowered. His grey sun shone once again. His psyche was illuminated. His tread was sure and strong, and he stepped up into the United States of America.

"Oh, America the Beautiful!" Naublus exclaimed in a whisper. Ming Ming's: the immigrant builds a better life for himself. Washington Heights Apartments: Industry heralds an era of enlightened understanding. Oh, and the cars, the cars! America, speeding on its racetrack of glory.

"I love America," Naublus said, frowning. A gust carried the smell of fermented ginger mixed with gas. Naublus tipped over on his side, giving him a chigger's view of Washington Heights -- it looked majestic, grand, and surreal. Or was this all in Naublus' head? He scratched his head to find out, eventually ripping his scalp off.

"Naublus, Naublus, Naublus!" Lady Liberty, Naublus' precious ho. "What have you done to yourself? She sucked each jut of her crown like a popsicle, at which 55 crimson demon-fairies fluttered in. Each carried a hair, which they planted in Naublus boily, pimply scalp. As if baptized by Miracle-Gro, Naublus' crown of cell phone-black hair grew.

"There, there, Naublus my dear." Out of the grey, a huge, tornado-looking shape dropped from the sky, covering Lady Liberty. Up into the heavens she was sucked. Naublus breathed easier. Lady Liberty confirmed his love for America. Suddenly a flabbergasted tourist, he went sightseeing.

A grizzly bear of a man sold newspapers on the curb. Entrepreneurship, gotta love it. All-American.

Ahead of him, on the sidewalk, a Red Mustang jammed in a light post. The aftermath of a car crash. The diamonds on the driver especially caught Naublus attention. The high life, Mustangs and diamonds. God bless America.

Naublus could breathe again, the smog scrubbing his lungs of SMARTA air, which is really dust mixed with air.

III

Naublus isn't creating his story. No, society is doing him the favor. Society is etching, carving, scraping, scrawling his mess of a story on a grey concrete block. Naublus isn't aware of this. Or maybe he is? "Urban blight" isn't in his vocabulary. He doesn't even know the word "city." He doesn't even know the word "I." 

Everybody in Washington Heights knows the world "I," but they've never heard of "O." O. Peer into it. Dive into it. "O" is Naublus, his imagination, his day-to-day life. O is the tunnel Naublus' alarm clock bullets through. O is the sun whose milky light Naublus can't quite grasp. O is soul. An empty soul? O is Naublus' yawn. O is society's yawn. 

"A, E, I, O, U." String them together and sound them out, and you get a drawn-out, punch-less sneeze. Naublus' life is sort of like this. After gorging himself on the Mongolian beef he picked from the bamboo tree (this is what he thought), he couldn't have felt more unsatisfied, more inadequate. And then this woman came and gave him a sandwich? He said thank you, but he really didn't mean it. "What else am I supposed to say?" he asked himself. He slapped himself mentally for accepting the sandwich. 

"What good is food anyway?"

"Why did I eat that Mongolian beef?" 

"Why can I not think?"

Naublus' thoughts tumbled into an abyss of confusion and melancholy wallowing. He almost drowned, but the rush of commuters pouring out of the SMARTA train brought him back to the surface. As in a rehearsed musical number, they opened up their umbrellas - bright magentas, somber blacks, lively greens, sensual reds. Naublus hadn't feasted on so much color in a long time, and he was sure no one else noticed what a feast it was. Urban blight - of the brain. Back to life he was! He lay on the beer bottle- and cigarette  butt-specked platform, below a "Clean Up, Baltimore!" advertisement. In the super-sized picture, a black woman with dreads and sparkly white teeth held the hand of a freckled, chestnut-haired boy of about ten as they walked through a M&M-green park. It was a little surreal, a little twisted, but it reflected Washington Heights' biggest selling point - diversity! That's right, diversity! Strange wonder why more middle class white liberals didn't move in.

A stubby but strong pink-skinned man lagged behind, holding hands with a Swedish woman twice his height. She donned a patterned bonnet, and Naublus recognized it as Swedish. It looked like they were on a date (or had come back from one). A dance, perhaps? Naublus thought they should've looked happier if they'd come from a dance. 

"Where did y'all come from?" Naublus asked on whim. His Southern accent was also on a whim.

"It's none of your business, granny!" the pink-skinned man forcefully  replied. He wasn't particularly hostile, just angry.

Naublus was above gender insults and meanness in general, so he let the whim slide. Naublus was living again, and he had no time for "fussing and fighting, my friends." He proceeded to carve a picture of a Swedish pastry on his veiny forearm with a beer bottle shard. This is living, he thought. The blood spilled onto the brown and grey platform. The drops shook and whizzed until forming the words, "Hello Naublus!" He knew it was Lady Liberty again.

He talked to her. "What you want, ho?" Naublus couldn't control his offensive slang.

Lady Liberty condensed into being, this time hanging upside down from the "Washington Heights" SMARTA sign.

"I don't appreciate your language, Naublus." Lady Liberty tried to hide the fact that she couldn't speak clearly because of the blood rushing to her head.

"Pardon me, madame," Naublus bowed his head, "sometimes I can't control myself. Lady Liberty sighed and smiled. She was right again.

Naublus then blurted out: "But you know what? You are a ho!"