Arts & Technology

I like to feel like a Champion. Listening to Frankie Valli say "I can't
take my eyes off of you" I feel like New York City is a scale model in my
penthouse in North Carolina where I study economics, capital markets,
and the World Bank. I like to look into a scene from the top of a building in
my hometown down at the traders who are moving here from New York
City because New York City started to be kind of like a losing place for
wealth creation. Now I look down on them and say to myself "I'm too big
to fail." I take my keys off of the ledge and walk down the condominium
tower overlooking the entire city. When I reach the parking deck I open
the door of a 1980 Mercedes Benz 450 SL and coast to a place called High
Street. I'm at High Street knocking back a gin and tonic with three girls
I met at the Arts & Technology Center conference on the decline of the
book. We have a laugh about the old guard who make a book bound in
glue and then pinch angel dust off our palms. At this point I'm so high I'm
like, look, why don't we excuse ourselves and go up to my condominium
tower I've just invested 3.5 million dollars in. They are like uh, we can do
that. So we pile into my 450 SL and ride to the tower listening to the music
of Frankie Valli transform our night into a piece of artwork. Nearly there,
I look around at the Arts & Technology girls and sort of hum to myself.
I feel like I've hit a milestone in my evening when we trip into the foyer
of my massive penthouse that has those gleaming glass cubes set into the
wall you see in Miami or Miami Beach. From the cubes a glimmer of the
prosperity circling this region pierces the dark in the form of an orange-
yellow beam of fluorescent light. One of the girls is removing her jewelry
and I'm like no, don't. She takes off her clothes instead and lies face down
on the carpet. At the stereo I play a song by Frankie Valli. The other two
are kind of standing around surprised, I think, by the curtain of paperback
books lining the north wall. Those are only bound books I tell them
while I finger the Kindle on my coffee table. It is the new large Kindle
and we are looking at a book called Boredom by Alberto Moravia, taking
turns reading passages from the screen. When we get to the part when
the boho girl is fucking the protagonist the totally white breast of one of
the Arts & Technology girls slips coolly from her blouse. Pretending not
to notice I continue to read in my turn. The girl sitting on the other side
of me is wearing some totally white string of pearls and she's removing
everything but the pearls. I continue to read the screen while the Arts
& Technology girls start to make out like I had been planning for them
to do ever since we licked angel dust off each other's palms. I get up and
go to the stereo, set the needle back to the gold record "Can't Take My
Eyes Off You," and walk calmly to the sofa. Once I'm there I melt into the
sand-rubbed upholstery with the Arts & Technology girls who haven't
yet passed out on the floor. While I'm lying with my back to the armrest
I glimpse a piece of sky I've seen only in films of the old grain. It's a wild
purple darkness with a bright white hole in it. I'm thinking to myself
God, my personal Jesus Christ and saviour, I want you to come down
here through that hole in the night and join me in Eden.