Part 1: In Which Much Is Revealed About The Condition of Future New York

August 11, 2112

Dear Marie,

The cowboys were rowdy tonight, as were their familiars.

Yes, yes, I’m having the same dreams again, I fear. Truth be told, it hardly seems worth the effort to go on trying to avoid them any longer. When you come to reach my age, you realize that there’s a certain satisfaction to be had in confronting that which plagues the moonlit hours.

All bluff and bluster aside, I was naturally shaking with latent dream-terror upon awakening this morning in my lonely little New York one-bedroom. I use “morning” in only the loosest sense of the word, of course, as much to my chagrin I’d awoken from my rather fright-filled repose at the ungodly hour of three AM. Shaken, and with the prospect of sleep no more than a dim blot on the horizon, I decided to calm my nerves with a glass of warm milk. And by milk, I meant hard drugs, not so much drunk as injected directly into my forehead.

Loosing myself from the blankets I’d tangled about my legs in the night, I afforded myself a brief moment to reflect upon this latest iteration in the serialized horror show that my dreaming sleep had of late become. The dusty saloon, ancient beyond time, vacant but for its three ghostly patrons and their familiars. Three cowboys, each one cutting an imposing figure as if sculpted with great pride by their Creator, now grown hazy and indistinct with age and their spectral pallor. Their familiars, tiny leprechauns, dancing between their legs and mocking them all the while. Usually I enter to find the cowboys alone at the bar, sipping their whiskeys and their sarsaparillas as the leprechauns nagged, shoulders sagging under the burden of no doubt weary lives. Sometimes they are contented merely to stand, toes tracing patterns in the accumulated dust of years, occasionally giving one another reassuring, if uncomfortably protracted, pats upon the rear.

Tonight, though, the ghostly cowpokes were in a rare state. Rather than moldering away on their barstools, I found the phantom figures and their accompanying leprechauns out on a crowded dance floor, kicking up their heels to a saucy, infectious, possibly Latin beat. Everywhere around them, the frenzied dancers danced, blissed out on the groove, and probably Ecstasy. But no matter how enthralled/high they were with the music/drugs, all eyes in the room were on the cowboys and their familiars, busting passionate moves to that spicy European rhythm. Watching the pulsing whirlwind of grinding hips, I began to worry that my moves might not measure up. Sure, I remembered a few tricks from my Chippendale’s days, but could my tired repertoire really match up against this in-your-face display of raw Latino heat?

Forgive me, Marie, but I can scarcely bear to recount another second of that horrid scene, imagined or otherwise. There are particularly terrible aspects to these dreams, not the least of which is the false assertion that I was at one point a Chippendale’s dancer. For I feel that within them there may be an ounce of truth, or a portent of things to come. But alas, I fear that that was a rather larger digression than I at first intended. Where was I? Ah, yes. The cocaine.

Please, Marie, spare me the gloomy assessments of the risks to my health. Would that you only had some small measure of faith in our government; were cocaine so grave a poison, why would they bundle it with every issue of the morning post? I’ll grant you, the damn warning labels near enough encompass the packaging nowadays that it’s all a man can do to get to the goods inside. But the myriad flavors are a delight to wake up to each morning; I must confess a particular weakness for the “Piña Colada”. It’s really a rather bracing experience, and when you come down enough to be able to grip your car keys, it’s off to work with nary a batted eye (not counting your time on the cocaine, wherein your eyes bat at a most alarming rate).

Well, that’s usually the case. It’s here that I come around to the real meat of my day, Marie, and that is my most unfortunate trip to the hospital.

Though I maintain that my previous (and, no doubt, future) experiences with the stimulant have been utterly devoid of consequence, I found today’s batch of powdery indulgence to have a bit more of a kick than previous; “kick” referring both to the strength of the drug, and to the involuntary action of my legs as I lay passed out on the floor in cardiac arrest.

It’s the heart, I fear. I forget whether your part of the country has felt the effects of the recession so severely as has New York; here, at least, the city has had to tighten its belt substantially. Just recently, I received a letter from the Organ Reclamation Council, New York Branch, informing me that due to my recent elevation to a higher tax bracket, they would be coming to repossess my heart’s left and right ventricles. And, though I stand firmly behind our country in these most trying times, I hope you’ll permit an old man to speak his mind: these government-issue replacement ventricles are hardly up to snuff with the original models. Normally I’d not give voice to such trifling complaints, but in my weakened state (and already an aorta and several feet of vein short due to last tax season’s harvest), the cocaine seemed to have proven too much for my system.

But while I’m always assured the chance to repurchase my heart valves at the bi-annual government auction, my time at that infernal volunteer hospital has been lost for good. The incompetence of volunteer workers, of course, is not unknown to any citizen of this otherwise-proud country, but if I’ve ever witnessed a more shameful display than today at that ramshackle “medical center”, I can scarcely recall it. It was akin to Charlie’s journey through the lunacy of the Chocolate Factory, except all was left out but the hellish ride through the tunnel.

It grows late, and I am tired. I’m sure I’ve taken up far too much of your time already, without subjecting you to the supremely trying antics of the hospital personnel. Suffice it to say that not only did they appear to be rather poorly stocked (I cannot recall itchier vestments than the gowns provided to the patients, and the vending machine on that floor was barren as a desert, an opinion which I am not ashamed to say I voiced to any and all passersby), but they appeared also to be egregiously understaffed. If you can’t attend to each patient’s needs in a timely manner, then why bother to set up a hospital at all? I can say with all confidence that a government clinic would have me suffer no such iniquities.

Even as I write, I am checking to ensure that none of the charlatans at that “hospital” have helped themselves to the contents of my wallet. No doubt they make a habit of pilfering money from the infirm to fund their street racing and pornography habits, and God only knows what other illicit activities. But as I said earlier, Marie, I’ll not keep you longer. Thank you dearly for your time, and I hope very much to see you at the next reunion. My, but it’s been a long day. I think I’ll help myself to a bit of the old cocaine, stalwart foe of fatigue. To be perfectly honest, if it weren’t for our government, I’m not sure what I’d do.