I hope I didn’t wake you. I wanted you to know that, of all places, we are sleeping here tonight, in a drab shipyard on Staten Island. We are doing so because what is happening now is absolutely magnificent. I am in my room on the top bunk, all lights off. We are tied to a floating barge that is lit only by amber work lights. The rain is coming down steadily; big drops falling on steel surfaces, red paint weathered from seasons of neglect. I can hear each one impact the barge in a symphony of liquid explosions. There is a steel dry dock, a structure that is used to lift ships out of the water, on the opposite side of the barge from my vessel. It is a massive black wall from my perspective. The rain is sliding down it in sheets that resemble the legs of a full bodied wine on the inside of a glass or an ornamental waterfall. I watch this scene through a circular porthole in my room. I wish you could see and hear it. There nowhere else I’d rather be. This is where we are tonight.
M
thestrangestlifeivelived 