Lunch. Naked.

Enter the sanctuary in darkness, movie reel spinning and muffled silence as people find their seats. Scratch footage and 50's aliens. As the lights come back on, everyone looks around to see who they're dealing with. Who are the originals? Who are the posers? Do I look like I belong and know what I'm talking about even though the Beatniks were old by the time I was young.

They read, they tell stories and reminisce, jazz saxophone trickling in the background and we will never see centipedes the same way again. If Allen were here, yes it is simply Allen for these people, he'd be sitting right there, asking Old Bull Lee questions about his sex life even though it made him uncomfortable. The distant suddenly so clear, in this little church of the east village.

Beat reading turns into saké on ninth. Graffitti on the walls and long talks as another bottle is helplessly ordered in. Counting down the hours until the alarm goes off. How to manage, think about it later. Walk home to find that around NYU the city truly does not sleep; delis, pizza places, tattoo parlors, smoke shops stay open, wait for the next youngster to tumble in and demand services. Consider offering to take that girl home because she couldn't walk straight to save her life and the city isn't always kind to those who stumble in the dark.

Burroughs speaks of such a dirty world. His imagery, his madness, I am tickled. But, I think fondly, I love Jack more. Where Burroughs revels in the filth, Jack drools after cream puffs and meats in the restaurants, smiles at the flowers. It may be naïve, but I think it's not a bad thing, naïvété. I hold on for dear life to the precious, the pure. Tomorrow, when I take the A train uptown, I will remember that he stood there, and nothing will look quite the same.