A MINUTE TOO LATE
Understanding doesn't always
match cognition, and they are
quite two separate things. My
friend Jim used to say something
about a momentary excess that
redeems an entire life. He seemed
always to know what he was
talking about, even when he
was drunk. Cognitively barren
but still always right on the
money. Jim used to work at
the Cafe Bizzare, at the corner
of Bleecker and MacDougal.
I never knew a soul - all these
out-on-a-date geeks, slumming
the Village, either on some
pussy-patrol or just out with
some newfangled babe from
the suburbs and willing to earn
her keep, as it were. Jim would
bring me in and set me up by
the wall, in some forlorn and
forgotten corner, and feed me
good things left from those
tables. He waited tables drunk,
and expected maybe I would
too. That part never happened,
and once when some girl saw
what he was doing she grimaced
at the leftover foods being given
to me. Jim turned and said, 'Get
over it sweety; the food is good
and there's no waste allowed! And
anyway, what's it to you? Probably
in two hours some guy in the men's
room right now pissing in a urinal
will be in your mouth and you'll
not even think twice. There's some
germs for you, sweetie.' By two
in the morning Jim usually could
hardly stand up, some nights
anyway, and either I'd walk him
back to 8th street or he'd get there
after me with some floozie just
as drunk as he was. I'd find them
in the morning, huddled on the
floor in the sculpture room he
was then calling home.
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