Brad Walsh

What I Will Do Next Week

I will stand in the middle of the street and cough up quarters. As the cars halt and people start taking pictures, the quarters will flow from my mouth and onto the pavement where they will be collected and stuffed into the pockets of children hungry for that nickel glow and the promise of luxury that it brings. There will be so many quarters, such a constant and bountiful flow, that scoopers with pockets full will begin to store handfuls in grocery totes, and soon, garbage bags and the trunks of their vehicles. The quarters, the quarters, they will number in the hundreds of thousands. People will perform their estimations and loose counts, dividing their coin number by four to determine approximately how many dollars they have just stumbled upon for free in this, the worst economic season of my living history.

When the police taser me because they are afraid of that which is unexplainable, the shock will travel through me, the metal spilling forth through my mouth, and to the appreciative crowd below. It will only serve to energize the lot of us, like shots of espresso to the brain. The street will be closed off, someone two floors up will position their stereo facing out and max the volume, pushcart vendors will wheel in and provide free treats and street meats to all, and an impromptu Manhattan block party will materialize in the middle of the work week. It will be a daylight speakeasy, the worst-kept secret in all of New York. People dancing on the ground to “Dancing on the Ceiling.”

And then? Then I will acknowledge your thrown-together tulle and neon lycra shitstorm in a nightclub as a legitimate fashion show.