The Newtown Pentacle

Literally in a dark place, me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, over the weekend one was trekking through Industrial Maspeth. After catching up with a couple of old friends in Ridgewood later in the day, one began scuttling back to Astoria well after the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had disappeared behind New Jersey. There’s only one efficient way to get “here” from “there” on foot, but luckily the walk is figuratively and literally all downhill from Ridgewood. My path carried me back into the hoary shadows of Industrial Maspeth, my happy place.

By the way, if you want to do something daring and scary – try to cross the intersection of Metropolitan and Flushing Avenues at night… brrr…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One always feels vulnerable in this place, even when the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself still hangs wanly in the sky. There’s always someone – or something – watching as I scuttle by. Paranoid wonderings pollute the thoughts of one such as myself in these times. Delusional visions of getting grabbed and dragged, shuttled off to some storage vault or basement room and left to expire by some nefarious character, abound in the area between the ears and behind the eyes. There’s also sharp pieces of metal protruding from the pavement in random spots which you need to watch out for, as well as some of the watery eyed derelicts who establish temporary camps at the edges of habitability.

Who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden around here?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Eerie and deserted by its diurnal army of laborers, industrial Maspeth nevertheless still serves as a thoroughfare for vehicular traffic preparing to exchange the streets of Queens for those of North Brooklyn, but in this lawless no man’s land of nighted warehouses they seldom offer anything other than a reluctant acknowledgement to traffic law. They eschew lane ordinances, roll through stop signs at speed, and can be observed laughing hysterically while blowing through traffic signals and ignoring intersectional regulations while traveling at cyclonic velocities.

The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume, which wouldn’t be forgotten.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There are homes hereabouts, wholesome structures populated by those both stout and stubborn, and families whose multigenerational presence at the edges of Industrial Maspeth defy the impressions gathered by one such as myself. With the filthy black raincoat flapping about behind me, the arrangement of my sweatshirt hood and raised coat collar combinine with a usually shaved pate, and one lends no other impression to a casual viewer than that of a corpulent and aged vulture hybrid scuttling by in the dark. Essentially, who am I to cast the first stone? I’m some weirdo who likes wandering around in the dark with a camera while imagining that monsters, and witches, and a serial killer are chasing after me.

The reason that I love this area so much is its distinct lack of reflective surfaces, wherein true horror is revealed.

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