I am sitting in the St. John’s Medical Center cafeteria with my sister Amy. Another Thursday just evaporating. A man walks in. He wears his gown hunched and heavily adorned with IV lines as two of his family members walk slowly behind, one at each side. He looks like a retired general in his new uniform, regal and depressed. He carries with him a great and dignified loss, nearly broken over some battle that is being replayed in his mind every second of every day. It’s the kind of thing you can’t share with people because it might mean too much if they actually got it. Still, we somehow immediately know where he has been and we know where he is going and we know that it is good and we know very, very little else. He puts a small bowl of banana pudding on his tray and it’s all really quite a spectacle to watch if you watch it from far enough away. I swear I could sell tickets to this thing. My sister is texting. She’s 33 years old. This look is not becoming on Amy. I don’t dare tell her, I’m not sure I could watch her cry again today and I’m not sure she has any tears left and more than anything I really don’t want to find out. I decide to quietly go back to eating my banana pudding which has suddenly, but not inexplicably, taken on new significance underneath the noxious fluorescent lightening which has rendered us all slow and still. Some of us gods, some monsters, and some beautifully both. (St. Vincent’s new album Strange Mercy is out September 13th on 4AD)
