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Periodically R’lyeh sends forth a hollow, tooth-aching, atonal song that echoes across the whole city. The song’s a problem; listen to it for more than a few minutes and you start thinking Mexicans and birth control are what’s really wrong with the world, and maybe a nice mass shooting would solve both problems.
I carry within myself the hopes and hatreds of almost nine million people.
I’m also just me. Still human in all the ways that matter: I bleed, I sneeze, I scratch my ass when mosquitoes bite—and they still bite, little evil-ass zebra-striped motherfuckers as resistant to pest control as the rats and pigeons.
This ain’t the kind of city where you can start from nothing anymore and have a real chance, and I started with less than nothing. American Dream been a sucker bet.
That’s my Manhattan: neat and proper on the surface, walking near-death experience underneath.
“Human beings get time off, yes. We are the city that never sleeps.” “A’ight, fine, I get it, Scarface.”
Aww, bye booty, but hello to the front, mmm. He catches me looking and blushes, which is hilarious. Fine as he is, I know full well Manny been drowning in pussy, bussy, and all the ussy in between, his whole grown life—but with me, sometimes it’s like I’m talking to a virgin.
“We’re gonna Make New York Great Again!” More cheering all around him.
The fact she wrote this before dude started saying it.
Especially immigrants for whom the whole Send me your tired, your poor schtick has turned out to be more like Send me your smartest and hardest working so we can suck the life out of them then ship the exhausted dregs right back.
He’s getting lopsided, with more legs on his left side than his right. He opens a mouth that is froglike, stretched across his face and lined with too many small square teeth, and no one sees this. Some do flinch, at least, when he suddenly yells in an echoing foghorn voice, “FOREIGNER. FUCKING FOREIGNER.”
I almost forgot how goo her writing is, the audiobook makes it even better.
Thus does the Queen of Queens reclaim her throne—only to belatedly realize somebody stole her aloe plant. Fucking city. She loves it so much.
The avatars of living cities aren’t supposed to need rest, but tired isn’t always a physical thing.
An instant later, the ferry pitches wildly again as the tentacle flails. This time the Woman’s creature isn’t trying to capsize the boat, however. It’s flailing in what looks like pain as it tries to get away from the rolling, clattering wave of oysters climbing its way up the tentacle’s length.
The PA comes on and the captain’s voice yells, “Holy shit, did you see that? Barge Black Tom, we do not need assistance anymore, repeat we do not need assistance, thanks but holy shit, oh, holy fuck. I quit, man, after today I fucking quit.”
Veneza wishes the captain happy job- and therapist-hunting.
“Stupid,” says a Black femme, somehow putting extra “oo” into the word. “But I guess you gotta be to join these dumb-asses. Hey, you know they not allowed to jerk off?”
Half of Bel’s new friends burst out laughing, while the other half look astonished. “The fuck—” “No fuck, that’s the point!” More laughter. “Supposed to make ’em more manly or something.” “It ain’t working! They need more hair on their palms!”
“If you know who we are, then you know cops love us and hate you fucking freaks. You’ll get your asses kicked and end up in jail, and we got members in there, too—”
And if any of the elders give you any more trouble about it, you just let me know, and I’ll kill them and steal their stuff.” “—The fuck?”
“Well, I was the seat of the British Empire.” She reaches over and pats his cheek, fondly, and he blinks. “Now, now, I’m joking, dear. I don’t do that anymore.” With that, London heads off. The street market is probably still going, so she’ll see if she can grab a kebab there. Then she’s going to do an old-fashioned pub crawl, because it’s been too long. Talking to baby cities always puts her in a nostalgic mood. Behind her, New York stares for a moment longer, shakes his head, then vanishes back home.
