THE BIG MEXICAN SCENE

16. THE BIG MEXICAN SCENE:

"My son is in Mexico City and he would welcome you too if he were here but his job is with a bank there" said the dark-skinned lady with pearly teeth and I thanked her for that but said I was only here to catch a glimpse of the city - 'here' being the central overlook on the 21st floor balcony of some crazy red building I'd entered on 23rd and I'd seen her there too smoking with a marble-finish cigarette holder held lightly between her fingers but I figured she was just some crazy woman waiting for a drink (there was a bar off in the corner and some dumb-looking white-hatted attendant walking around) and perhaps even at that I was correct anyway but I never found out as I didn't stay that very long but she had on one or two wonderful shawls and scarves and things and I'd gotten the sense she really was something although probably just as daffy as she sounded and I didn't know anything about her son to be sure and not even what she was talking about nor why she'd have known I was coming to be 'welcomed' since the whole visit was a surprise even to myself but apparently there was something going on and I grabbed a pastry or two and sat there to see what went on and others too were milling about looking at things on the wall and admiring the view - which really wasn't much anyway - but it was all strange and felt like an appearance at any moment by Andy Warhol or Jackie Onassis or someone like that wouldn't be far-fetched even if they were both dead but probably no one here would notice anyway and they had stretched some western paintings - something like Frederick Remington would have done - over the walls and the hangings looked as if they'd been there some time but lights behind them kept moving about and I got the feel that something here was being filmed too or about to be but I never got to the bottom of any of that and in fact never read about it either in any society-feature page blowing about but some little guy did come up to me and asked "what do you think of the marriage of heaven and hell?" and I smiled and simply said back "oh like so many others it won't last a year" and he laughed and walked off but later as I got to thinking of it I decided perhaps that was name of some film they were immersed in doing maybe and maybe these were each characters from some weirder-than-I playbook they were running through and I knew that the 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell' was a Blake title and that lots of these arty types were lately keen on dramatizing William Blake but even I never thought it would happen with pastries and a Mexican but if that was what was going on I never figured it out nor heard of it again (as I said) so I figured I'd just enjoy the time and the surroundings and let happen what may and some other guy all pomaded up and wearing some really odd jacket (red black pearl-studded and cow-hide) came out and started reciting : "look ! there is the square we just came from with the promenaders and there are fewer of them now and now that the heat of the day has increased the girls are hanging closer and the sweat it is soaked through their blouses yet they are still so fine and beautiful everywhere they go and look ! look at the young boys in the shadow of the bandstand and LOOK what it is they are doing ! and there is the home of the little old lady and she is still there fanning herself on the patio and that I see now is where all the young girls are going!"