We are proud of our tree-lined streets. They provide us with shade. We stand in the shade to avoid the sun. The sun gives us life but too much will kill us. Everyone I know is an iPhone that cannot be recharged. My power indicator is at fifty percent. I want to wear a hat that is a solar panel.
You should see these tree-lined streets when it snows. All the trees turn to cauliflower. The sidewalks are opaque mirrors casting inscrutable reflections. The mayor is perpetually presiding over a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. She strings the lights herself, one by one. She climbs the ladder and wraps the tree. She does this every day.
When the tree illuminates the neighborhood, our eyes are pulled up, up, up. Now we should probably talk about how all of this is happening in a small town in New Jersey. How there are hundreds of towns just like it. How this state is wedged between two great cities and an ocean. How the ocean is the greatest city of all.
How all of these New Jersey towns have mayors stringing tree lights all the time, even during this past July, the most humid on record. How the most humid July turned the air to rancid soup.
How many people are desperate even for rancid soup. How we need more soup.
On my tree lined street as a child we hid porn in the woods. We kept it in a big Hefty bag. Some older guys stole the bag and then no more porn. Then we got dial-up so we didn’t need Hefty bags any more. In the same woods at the end of the street we drank sixteen shots of Bacardi in sixteen minutes for my sixteenth birthday. We puked for sixteen hours after. When you put sixteen minutes into a hat, say the right words, and pull them back out, they are transformed into sixteen hours.
There is a lot of magic in the world. Some of the magic in the world is made out of Ferris Wheels. At the top of the Ferris Wheel, we smoked a bowl. The ocean looks the same when you smoke a bowl, but it appears different.
The ocean is rising, getting closer and closer to Lucy the Elephant. People can sleep in her belly. I took the tour once. The most famous person to have slept inside Lucy was President Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland was once the Mayor of Buffalo. Back then, Buffalo had some great Christmas tree lights. Thanks, Grover Cleveland.
There is high tide, there is low tide. When Superstorm Sandy hit, I was scared for Lucy the Elephant. I don’t know if she remembers how to swim. When the next big storm hits, she’ll be elected mayor of the ocean. She will invent underwater Christmas trees with underwater lights. I am learning to scuba dive so I can go to her inauguration.