Since the onset of Covid in March 2021 New York has been cut off from the rest of the world and also the USA. Americans were scared by the reports of crime and foreigners were banned from flying to JFK, however in the last months the restrictions have been downgraded to allow vaccinated international travelers to enter the States.
On Friday my godson Edward Brial arrived at JFK airport en route to visit his girlfriend studying at Cornell. He was traveling to Ithaca by bus and we met at the Port Authority once the most wicked bus terminals in America. I was surprised by the sheer volume of people coming to New York and departing for destinations near and far. Times were changing, although I preferred the void of last winter, when the city began to us again. That desolation never never destined to last long.
We had time to kill and I suggested he may a beer.
“You’re not bothered by my drinking.”
“Not at all. It’s been over a hundred days since my last drink and I’m quits.” I haven’t had the least urge to reclaim by life as a hard drinker. My life depends on this strict regime and I was happy just to be with Edward, who called me the Brown Ranger in his youth. We chose the Beer Authority. Ed had a draft and I ordered a cranberry juice. He had just been in Glasgow attending the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
“There was a lot of hope, but the corporations have no interest in stopping their rape of the planet.”
“Sadly the vast majority of people reject any action that would result in the end of cars and potato chips. The entire capitalist system has been ruined by the shifting of industry to Asia. We have no factories. No industry and no control over the production of everything other than more pollution. Everyone wants to think they are not the problem and that type of thinking is a barrier to a real solution. World population 2050. 500 million.”
Edward shared the hope of his generation. He didn’t need to hear my pessimism and I changed to subject to my coming to London to be the writer-in-residence at Goodenough University for the Head Chancellor, my good freind Alice Walpole. His departure was scheduled for 6 and we walked over to the bus station. I was surprised to see an advertising poster for XXX films and books at the stairs leading to the entrance of the A Train.
Edward took a photo of me and I explained that Mayor Guiliani had closed most of these shops to allow Disney and various other family-flavored franchises to replace the streets of sin, but not the 300 Video Center, where time resisted the will of an evil Mayor.
As the Spanish director Luis Bunuel once said, “There is no pleasure without sin.”
And while I have stop drinking 100%, I might participate in some wickedness in the months to come.
Nothing like his film BELLE DU JOUR with Catherine Denevue.
