I Killed the King With My Lies

..8:38pm…June 2022…St. Marks Place…the sun stays in the sky forever this time of year. it’s my time. chaos is my favorite character in the city. chaos, make me a deal not to leave me alone….back from an intense three months in Europe. it usually takes a long sleep, then a swim to flick away the exhaustion. on the second day i’m already fighting the desperation of being in a country that has been torn apart by a horde of malcontents…..don’t worry, one day i’ll be back to take retribution on what they’ve done…. but at the moment the only solution is to take another assignment while i’m stuck for a couple of weeks…

listening to Lou Reed’s “rock n’ roll” on repeat while walking crosstown in the twilight. it’s played a dozen times since i started photographing. i don’t want to hear anything else tonight. i’ve never looked up at this rooftop in the thirty years i’ve walked St. Marks Place. the two people straddling the edge of the rooftop fire escape look like they are drinking from a champaign glass. earlier i stopped in stride when i saw syringes laying in a street gutter at the Stonewall. i refused to look down the rest of the way. maybe that’s why this is the first time i looked up at this rooftop. two more months until the I can return to the Odyssey…

…8:27pm…Tompkins Square Park… a pile of roses and a metal hanger; a memorial for those who didn’t have, or don’t have, access to safe and legal abortion.

i passed this on the way back to my car, which for the past twenty-five years i always park in the same area. i got to the city in the afternoon, then took my usual route, walking down Bleecker past Robert Frank’s old studio. a couple of strides down Bleecker i saw a young woman in tears hugging someone, who i assume was her mother, in front of the Planned Parenthood office. i respectfully averted my eyes down as i walked by. the mother was consoling the young woman. since this was happening in front of Planned Parenthood, i assume it had to do with abortion. all day i thought about women’s access to abortion and the restrictions they now face over their own bodies. the state now controls what choices they have over their health. hours later, walking back to my car, i saw this memorial dimly illuminated by the lanterns in Tompkins Square Park. felt like it brought the day to a close.