The Meatspace Times

Humped up to the Mirror Café over icy sidewalks in the pre-dawn, first time in weeks since the snow has made morning walking treacherous. The sky just getting a warm cobalt blue behind the Imperial building, which I think was a hotel in the old cattle market days.

I’ve been jonesing bad for that old cow hotel, thinking of the generations of lost hoof and hide men, glue guys, bone merchants, and – early on - purveyors of fine flesh to His Excellency General Washington, camped across the river in Cambridge.

Cow men, come to buy, come to sell, come to have a warming glass after a day in the yards, picking through shit to assess the merchandise. Then to bed in the creaking stillness of the fourth floor, no fooling around here, this is an honest house if you want that sort of thing you’ll have to look elsewhere – or ask the subtly winking bellhop when the manager’s back is turned, he might know a fellow who might know a couple of girls ready for a bit of fun.

Imperial cow men, knights of the empire, sleeping the same sleep as the cows now, though unlike them mourned over and almost certainly not eaten. They were praised perhaps, but not for their marbling, and now they sleep under marble, keeping their fat secrets to themselves, silent as Santa.