Urbansugar

by Jonathan Wayne, March 9, 2016

Remember that night on Bleecker Street last summer when you watched me devour a stale
day-old cupcake from Magnolias at the 11th hour at a chess table? You werent the only one
there. You both followed me on a late night summertime jaunt across lower Manhattan from one
haunted village to another as one of my 200 sugar demons got the best of me. You in particular,
an actress, an accomplished voice artist, a weekly tour guide-goddess who gives dessert
walking tours in the dead of winter from the Washington Square Arch, a cupcake-viewing
collaborator, a pipsqueak masticator. You were out uniting couples at corner cupcake plazas,
while I was looking for ice cold glasses of organic, grass-fed milk to accompany my sweet treats
of devils past. Whether it was my druggy sugar run to the Swedish candy shop on Christopher
Street a bit further north, or whether my post-sugar fatigue bested my initial sugar cravings, you
were somehow a spectator to my shameful urban vices of the biggest city for most pragmatic
souls. And there we spouted off about the deadly symptoms and consequences of sugar
addiction in another parallel universe, while we talked up shops, mops and teeny bops. You and
the other person there started getting into metaphysics and doomsday, thanks to the effective
triangulation of our astrological harmonies. Your Aquarius air fueled the Leo fires and staved off
the earthy Upper West Siders until further notice. I was already sick from the cupcake overdose.
I had purchased two with buttermilk icing and one with peach icing, and I had only eaten one
before I knew I was already too far gone. The rats underground sensed that I was approaching
comatose sugar levels, but they were waiting their turns to try their luck on tonight's regular
dumpster diving tradition. I sensed that our other friend beside you had underestimated you until
this point. Youre always somehow available every time Im in New York City too, whether its a
days notice, or a years notice. I usually notify you ahead of time on the Internet before my
arrival, but dependability is part of your DNA despite being a supposedly flakey air sign that is

often notorious for being somewhere in the clouds. Not you though, at least not yet. Both the
Manhattan rats of yesteryear and Brooklyn cats of hereafter couldnt read you, even if you were
located on the first floor of the Strand bookstore. Drama and narcissism are easy for you to take
in, especially coming from a natural extrovert with a penchant for dinner reservations like
myself. I guess it also helps that youre one of my clients on the Internet, as your webmaster.
Sometimes I hear from you when you want me to add some new head shots, or maybe update
your portfolio, or perhaps add a new reel to the homepage. I notified you not long ago that I
myself had signed up for an acting class, and in my excitement, had to mention just how my
blood sugar had improved dramatically too. I sensed encouragement and agreement rather than
disdain for my flamboyance and robustness that I would have otherwise received from a difficult
Scorpio or two. Youre like the 21st century version of Jane Fonda, always trending on the late
night infomercials, despite being off the air. I dont even have to pay a ticket to see live theater
on Broadway, for I can just give you a call and meet you somewhere on St. Marks Place and
watch you perform a monologue for 20 minutes. Youre an actor, you never get nervous, youve
been to plenty of soires in Jersey City, where the open bar didnt call your name, because the
liquid confidence had already established itself in your pancreas at an early age. One recent
Autumn afternoon you even telepathically talked to the ghost of John Wilkes Booths older
brother in Gramercy Park. And last summer you rolled up your jeans in a particular state park
and posed for photographs, while the indifferent rose bushes could only sit and stare. You
specifically were witness to a virginal woman I had invited along for entertainment one evening,
a woman that was slow to illuminate and ruminate despite being vigorous and vivacious. We
walked the High Line later that night, and were telescope voyeurs, elevated 30 feet closer to
Earths moon. And how could we ever forget that night I turned 36 years old and you and 2 other
women accompanied me to a West Village Italian restaurant. Had you not stolen the spotlight in
those early moments, I probably would not have been pressured into ordering a Tiramisu for the

whole table, that melted faster than fresh mozzarella. You saved my life from a crazed, angry,
psychotic older woman later that evening, one of the 2 remaining women who accompanied our
walk in Hudson River Park. I would have been bobbing up and down in the Hudson River like a
forlorn wine bottle cork, fighting the current, hoping to reach Ellis Island downriver, or if not that,
the other island with the Statue of Liberty on it, before I ended up in the Atlantic Ocean on my
way to the Bermuda Triangle. There, I would have for sure disappeared without a trace, ending
up in some parallel universe where I was a 41 year old female actress living in an apartment in
New Jersey with a view of an IHOP restaurant from my bedroom window. And had I finally
drowned one morning in a vat of artificially flavored maple syrup, whatever remnants of myself
that came pouring out of a septic pipe in a deep subway station under West 4th street would
have been put to good use by a family of medium-sized rats. Yes, had you not rescued me from
that crazed, demented woman, I would have been reduced to yet another toxic stain in her
gangrene brain. Instead of that trauma, mini gummy eggs, berry buttons and salty licorice from
that Swedish candy shop were part of a unique reduction sauce digesting deep in my small
intestine. Sure, my body didnt appreciate the overdose of sugar that night, but the alternative
would have been far, far worse. Remember that April day when you found yourself in a cozy
little parklet tucked away in the East Village not knowing where you were exactly? We were all
air and fire sitting in the cold sun, occasionally tapping on our smartphones lost in a
dehumanized trance. Behind me, a homeless man was lounging peacefully in the sunshine, one
foot on the chair swing and one foot on the ground. His can of soda and opened bag of vanilla
shortbread wafers was within arms reach, and lying on the cobblestone. The plastic birds were
tied to the branches of the Oak tree, and one of us started petting them without discomfort. You
were spaced out, and part of you was still reciting lines for a character you were supposed to
play next week in an indie film production. We all talked quietly at a bar called The Burp Castle
after night set in, and we were told by the lone bartender to lower our voices in a pleasant and

considerate manner, once the room hit a certain decibel in volume. Unafraid to burp and slurp,
we all sat there as proper patrons, transported forward in time to a true speakeasy, when
jukeboxes didnt overpower our freedom to speak, when technology didnt distract our
conversations, when people had interesting things to say and could enunciate their words slowly
and carefully. And afterwards, we could hobble outside and be true conspirators, wearing
blindfolds on the neon streets without the fear of being hit by the amniotic fluid of a four winged
metal machine, when we could hear ourselves breathe in public places without having to wear
noise-canceling body suits, when we could pet real plastic birds who made real plastic bird
sounds and bit us with real plastic beaks. Let us reminisce about those chess tables back on
Bleecker and Hudson though, and that warm summer night, when we communicated with extra
sensory perception while I slowly killed myself on sugar. I awakened to the sound of rain, pitterpattering, never flattering. I stumbled to the bathroom door, better out than in evermore. The
clouds parted the naked sky, I found my calling in my third eye. I walked to the window to
undress the drapes, I finally found my fires escape. I let the air in, and funneled my nostrils,
time is not kind to cupcake fossils. Theyre buried in the earth, where theyll remain until the birth
of another sugar junkie whose late night run on the New York City streets ends in withdrawal.
Tonight, Chinatown offers no sweet treats for me.