Slow Cruise
Have you ever been slow cruised?
If you have, then you know.
If you haven’t, it’s impossible to explain.
It’s like . . . like this.
The cops are always out there, making themselves known
Nothing sinister, just visibility
So when it happens . . .
It’s a thing you know for sure happened when it was happening, but when you try to say what happened, there’s no happening there to describe. This incident, which very definitely is something, becomes nothing. It is like a sentence without a verb.
They . . . blehhhh’d me.
I’m sorry, can you spell that?
No, I can’t. And I can’t draw a picture of it either, or point to it on a doll. But this thing happened . . . happens. Frequently. It is the frequency that gets under your skin. The perpetualness.
the performer follows a slowly passing car with her eyes.
Each time they pass they are saying something.
Do you see me?
I see you.
And I know what you’re about to do.
Am I gonna stop you today? Maybe . . . maybe . . .
Nah. Today I’ll keep driving.
But I could have stopped. I could have.
It’s a very grown-up game of “I’m not touching you.”
And you don’t want to get touched.
So when you see them, you suddenly think, “Act like nothing’s going on,” which is how you were acting before you saw them, because nothing, genuinely, is going on. But suddenly you can’t remember what that looked like, so you are racking your brain, trying to remember how fast you were walking before you saw them, and then you wonder, did I just speed up or slow down, and does that look suspicious, and is there a more suspicious looking person nearby I could walk past in order to become less threatening on the curve, and fair enough, I look like the type, right? Fair enough. Cuz why didn’t I wear a bow tie to the laundromat today? And all the while they are slowly cruising by.
the performer follows the slowly passing car with her eyes.
Do you know what I mean?
Have you ever been slow cruised?
If you have, then you know.
If you haven’t . . .
You may say, “Just take it cuz it all serves a purpose”
And “If you never did nothing, why you getting nervous?”
Seems knee jerk on the surface, but it goes deeper:
Sound of the beast is sound of the reaper.
Or the sleeper or the choke
It’s a taser for a toke
Grab the phone, then remember them three numbers is a joke
And you’re on your own when you hear that note
Cuz the system’s broke . . .
Have you ever been slow cruised? . . .