5.

I just put in my fucking laundry. I put everything together in one load. There was a girl next to me. She came across the place, put her clothes next to my clothes. I kind of wanted to giver her my business card,  I had nothing interesting to say. She was a typical dreamgirl.

This was a weekend without work. There was like, some kind of creative planning committee document. It needed revisions. I couldn’t tear myself away from the laundry.

Outside of my first-floor condo, I smoke, and drink coffee from a white cup. I’m sitting on a ledge next to the garbage cans, listening to ranchero music. A guy is washing his maroon Ford Windstar. He looks happy, probably a family dude taking a break from the family to meet Bushwick on a Sunday morning.

Up and down the street, people are coming out of their apartments. I go back into the laundromat and move my clothes to the dryer.

***

In this Latin neighborhood, I’m just another corporate officer. A craftsmen working at the core and living on the periphery. There are a few of us here, at the city’s edge. We have secret cash and somewhere to go during the day. We move between worlds that don’t exist in reality. I’m like – having a meeting inside of the idea of a meeting. Where the light is soft. The furniture is expensive because that is what our clients expect. They are reasonable people, our clients. It’s hard to spot someone who is totally devoted to moving money between dream A and dream B. It’s like trying to see air. You could discover a conspiracy for good, and then tell nobody of it. The executives exist by organizing a corporate fantasy in space and time. They are different when the neighborhood is different. They disappear into cars, melt into nameless coffee shops and production studios. They are the anonymous clientele of the finest establishments.

I’m trying to remember the last time there was something I needed to buy that I couldn’t afford. It was probably at University.

I trying to remember wanting something I couldn’t have.

My CEOs are so approachable. The Vice President of Culture and Communication says “hey,” near the elevator bank for floors 12-24. I imagine that maybe they live at the top of my condo, deep in Queens. We have these post-neighborhood living situations. We all have these projectors in our Great Rooms. Because money doesn’t mean everything it used to mean. It’s simpler now. It doesn’t take an intense tradition. It doesn’t require a coat of arms. It’s like tap water and being really friendly and never loosing focus on what matters most to America.

It’s time to buy in.