Berkely in July - The Vivisection and Undying Glow: Paul Benton and the Lovesick Traders Block of Old York

In another time - a time whose wrinkles had not yet materialized, a time where status was measured not in points, dollars and cents, the bottom line, the stacks of consecutive ducats heaped in the barred and coded depths of unknown vaults in exotic locales he'd never visit - Paul had been a dynamo trader at the bulls eye of international exchanges, the NYC Stock Exchange. A typical day for Paul began at 5 AM, when his cell phone alarm buzzed and sparsely levitated from the intensity upon a dark, wood bedside table. Paul would wake to the pre-sunrise mist of the millions of cold-hearted souls of old, cruel, crumbling, sleeping New York viewable from the 12th story window of his penthouse near Park Avenue, but not quite close enough to imbue Paul's mind with delusions of grandeur just yet.

Apartment Check:
Personal exercise gear; in-home massage appointments from husky European women with extra charge cucumber masks; TV dinners of processed gloom, mainly frozen pizza, to be eaten in moderation and only if the healthy food had run out; a living room like the pages of an IKEA catalog had wished for physicality and were granted a residency in Paul's ghost-quiet abode; pots and pans Paul would never cook with; pitchers Paul would never pour from for guests he'd never have.

Paul's apartment held the slick shock of "too much too soon" and no fanfare to balance it all out, and hung like a drying sock in a dank alley. Paul reaped only the swift rewards of lingering completion , never the foreverness of notoriety or even the warmth of women's thighs and sweet whispers in his ear on lazy Sunday mornings in the big sinkhole of life.
Paul's virgin white walls sat lifeless in the void and sparkling electronics of his apartment. The utter vibrant-less dull of his routine never bothered him. After all, the bustling bodies of downtown served as his support. The thickness of shoulder-to-shoulder hollering howling bellowing beleaguered suits as one vaporous echo of commerce/life/death anchored his brunt of loneliness and herdish mentality and resolved his still vague denial of the pot-holed avenues that brought him so many riches in suck a brisk and biting period of time. Paul thought himself happy. He was seldom seen without an honest-on-the-surface smile and normally imbued his seldom company (typically awkward engagements - coffee walks and the like) with seemingly genuine fancy. What seethed within Paul, underneath several levels of lies and ancient schoolyard catcalls was as delicate as dynamite, and just as explosive. Paul had as of yet never loved, never yearned or panted for the affections of a better half. His day would come, but it would not be here or now. Paul held sinister plans. Paul was beginning to burst inside...

(To Be Continued Next Week... Paul Benton Redux)