M101 LIMITED:

CARLOS LOPEZ

I/you want something that is uncomplicated but not something a priori uncomplicated, rather something yet to be complicated. Something who is someone subject to temporality, not yet fallen but in sight of, grasping for, wary of the hole, the vortex, the abyss. I/you want something who is someone who will fall, inexorably, toward me/you, toward complication. I/you want a virgin.

Jenna Parker at 86th street, on the M101 Limited. Jenna sits two-thirds of the way back in one of the solo seats just behind the accordion pivot point of the double bus. Scatter shot bursts of morning sun escape the building-shield and flash on the page of her book every time the bus crosses an intersection. She reads All Quiet on the Western Front; there is a synchronicity between the sun bursts and the bullets that tear apart all those young German boys, those Fatherland patriots, those would-have-been Nazis, those maybe cold war operatives or could-have-been Gunter Grasses. LIGHT BLAST LIGHT BLAST LIGHTBLAST . . . my god, this sun, can't read a thing. My god, this sun, I wonder about their mothers and girlfriends. My god, this sun, when is the end of this chapter . . . ugh.

I/you sit on the bed with a WiFi-linked laptop, searching for virgins. The curtains are drawn tight, but angled beams of sun penetrate anyway and they cross each other on the ceiling. I/you sit on a green, floral print comforter from http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com ($39.99), beneath treasure-map-esque Xs. I/you slather my/your left hand in friction-heated lube from http://www.babeland.com ($12.99) and apply friction until there is heat. I/you watch an uncomplicated girl explore her uncomplicated self with uncomplicated fingers and then a somewhat complicated device. The girl is not really uncomplicated, I/you think. She is an actress, a budding young porn starlet, a before-that stripper, a before-that burlesque dancer, a before-that pretty girl in need of cash, a before-that just for the fun of it high school blow job giver, or if not, something equally complicated. Really she is not those things either. She is it - digitized data streaming across the world to my/your laptop where they are pixilated and displayed. Transmitted electric impulses eliciting my/your self-generated electro-chemical impulses, these self-generated impulses, aided by synthetic friction-heated lube of course, stimulating me/you until a tipping point is reached and then splat.

The two solo seats immediately before and behind her are empty. The bus is not crowded and most of the passengers sit near the front exit, something that irks Jenna Parker to no end. The bus has two doors for a reason. Get off at the back and stop holding up traffic, Idiots! My god, the sun. Enough of this for now. I'll ask Eliza to summarize the chapter before the quiz. There is a heavy, tattooed, baggy-clothes-wearing, creepy-eyed Latino man sitting alone in the couplet of seats just behind the bus' back door. Behind Jenna Parker. Far enough that he is out of her peripheral vision but uncomfortably close, especially because of the creepy eyes. Behind the homeboy is a homeless man; he is mostly refuse and smells like it. The three of them are alone, the only passengers behind the back door - Jenna Parker, Homeboy Creepy Eyes and Refuse Man. LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT blast. Jenna Parker cups the palm of her left hand and places it against her temple as a sun shield.

Sandra Washington, MTA bus driver (M101 Limited), on the phone at home on a Sunday afternoon. "No one told you to quit . . . No, I can't pick up any more shifts. Don't you think all the drivers are trying to get more shifts. Well, think about it dumbass. No one told you to quit . . . No, that's not what I said . . . It is not . . . What I said was . . . No one told you to quit!

I/you am/are a sticky mess beneath a sunbeam X. I/you sigh because the digitized pixilated data that just made me/you cum was so complicated even before I/you clicked on her thumbnail and waited with receding flaccidity for "buffering" to reach 100%. I/you should have known better, all these data/girls were uncomplicated so very long ago, before I/you wanted something that is someone uncomplicated, before I/you understood that the hole, vortex, abyss and the not having fallen into it but the certainty of falling into it was the only thing I/you could love.

I/you imagine a phone with no one on one end and Sandra Washington on the other end. I/you hear Sandra Washington saying "No one told you to quit," and I/you laugh because Sandra Washington doesn't know she's caught in an Abbot and Costello routine so she keeps repeating "No one told you to quit," and, of course, No One, who is on the other end of the phone, who may or may not exist depending on whether I/you am/are psychic or just daydreaming (the same can be said for Sandra Washington), doesn't understand why Sandra Washington is referring to No One by No One's proper name and anyway is quite certain that he/she did not tell himself/herself to quit. I/you laugh hard at this because it is funny and because the next "uncomplicated" thumbnail is taking a long time to buffer.

Jenna Parker was uncomplicated but then Sandra Washington crashed the M101 Limited into a Fresh Direct truck (http://www.freshdirect.com). Jenna Parker's head smashed against the metal handle bar of the seat in front of her. She passed out as the bus flipped onto its side. Jenna Parker woke up to find Homeboy Creepy Eyes and Refuse Man on top of her. There was smoke everywhere. Homeboy Creepy Eyes and Refuse Man were happy to have survived the crash and so they celebrated with Jenna Parker. Champagne would have been better, at least for Jenna Parker, but none was on hand whereas she was on hand. Jenna Parker was made complicated.

I/you am/are still laughing about Sandra Washington when the thumbnail completes buffering. These data are called Jenna Parker and she is exploring her uncomplicated self with uncomplicated fingers and then a somewhat complicated device. I/you squirt a dollop of friction-heated lube onto my/your right hand this time. The data/girl are/is moaning and mumbling, blast blast blast.