She serves them whiskey and wine

It starts with a memory, a particular summer night in Wisconsin, when I was eight or nine. Whole years of childhood are blotchy or missing to me, and yet the feeling of one minute from this particular night is crystal clear. It's very dark and the sky is full of stars. The smell of the lake is everywhere, a green and heavy smell that I love. We are playing ghost around the graveyard, as we do every summer night. My friends are hiding somewhere behind my house, in the dark, waiting to tag me, and it's terrifying, even though it's only a game. I am looking down at my feet with astonishment; they are speeding over the grass and the world is gliding by at a perfect and even speed. Superhero feet. Gazelle feet. I am so fast, for that minute or two, that I wonder, in an eight or nine year old way, if there was something magical about the burgers my dad had grilled for dinner that night. Or the potato salad my mom had made.

On Saturday night, my feet are gliding, nimble and light, in exactly the same way. I am in Greenpoint. Once again I look down at them with astonishment. I am trying to find some Polish chocolate before a show starts and it seems like far too ordinary a moment to feel this fast. It was my fault that a Cadillac hit me while I was on this walk. It is a little known fact, however, that I was hit because I was trying to remember the verse of "Brandy" that starts, "Brandy wears a braided chain...". This so distracted me that I walked into an intersection with a two way stop, thinking it was a four.

And then suddenly I am on the ground, looking up at a street light, and I am thinking: I've got it. The line in Brandy I am trying to remember is suddenly clear as day: "Made of finest silver from the north of Spain." I sing the whole verse in my head, triumphant. I decide, in the next moment, that I will go back to the North of Spain, soon, to the Basque country. I will rent a bike and ride around near the sea, stopping to drink the local honey wine and to eat tapas. I decide that there are some secrets I have waited too long to tell and that I am going to tell them now. I decide to never get so lost in a one hit wonder again. I decide to sit up. The Polish man from the car is standing above me. He smells like cold air and cigarettes and vodka. He speaks to me in Polish, he doesn't speak English, and he is pleading and angry at the same time. As he is looking down at me, a wheezy sob escapes him and because I can't bear to see anyone cry, I start crying too. Not because of my left leg, which is throbbing, or because of the shock of getting hit by a car, but for reasons I can't put into words. I just don't know how to say it. We gaze at each other for a moment, tears streaming, and then I climb to my feet. It is up to me to show this man that I am fine. That it is not his fault.

#2 is to ride your bike your foot dragging the leaves in the gutter. Columbus, Ohio 1992

*This update typed while listening to Christine McVie.