This is a story that has to be told in nine parts, and the reasons for this are based on heretical principles that can’t be spoken of, but only seen in the lines drawn on the ground.  There’s no way to begin without mentioning the buffalo that came through the room before it all began, because that’s such an essential part of the story for now.  Oya is sometimes called Buffalo Woman, and she has many other praise names, but it would make sense that my grandfather saw a black buffalo one afternoon while he was having a stroke and we were watching.  We were all in the hospital room, and weren’t aware what we were looking at, although something very important was obviously happening to him.

I wouldn’t have remembered that at all, if I hadn’t checked into a New York airport hotel a few years later, looking for someone who promised we’d meet after the weather changed.  This was interesting in a Mary Poppins kind of way, and shouldn’t be too carefully monitored for signs of developmental strangeness in the romantic arena.  Mary Poppins always had something for me, and I can’t describe it except in so far as it reminds me of Amelie, where there’s a weird tension going on.  But I also know that both figures are absolutely tricksterish, and have the energy that is usually reserved for coyotes.

And I believe in coyotes (and time as an abstract).  When I met her there, in New York City, the weather had already changed once and again.  I thought she may have been waiting for me, and was worried because I was so late, but forget that she never waits for a man.  She just knew that I was coming along eventually.  We started off at St. Mark’s Place, looking for a skull ring to replace one that had broken, because we both love the marketplace, and the day will end somewhere in the middle of Central Park, a place where the humble people just don’t go.  We were not strong enough to be humble, not in those days, we were fallen, and this is what we did with where we fell.