Dear Sir or Madam,

There is something of the underground about the Underground — or subway or tube or T or ‘viol de ver’ or what have you. Normally, I’d rather charter a personal ballooncraft to traverse four blocks than lower myself both figuratively and literally in such a way, but there was an occasion not six weeks ago where I found myself on the rickety stink of public conveyance and in the company of its denizens.

The socialite Henry Bix Binn had purchased a new painting by some young, dead artist to cover a stain on his crepe wallpaper. He confided in me that it was the elbow smudgings of his now-dismissed maid, and I asked if he meant the stain or the painting. Incidentally, this same maid revealed to me that the mark had come from a “Wacky Wallwalker,” Sir Binn’s guilty pleasure it seems. I then made her wealthy as a joke.

Anyhow, I simply had to see this new painting. Henry told me that he intended to faint at its loveliness, but could not without my approval. It was the same as at his wedding. He tantrumed that I must come immediately, and he knows those damn balloonists take ages to rally. Naturally, simply writing the man off was infeasible until the end of the season. Stuck, I swiped the special card we have that makes most things free, and boarded the next local metro ‘Untergrundbahn.’

Dressed in Semi-CasuFormal Style level 3S, I perhaps underestimated the squalorly skin coverings of the unwashed transported masses. A man, whose sleeveless rags bore the name of either his sports team of choice or his mother, pawed at me with his eyes, glossed at my perceived purity. It was as if I was his Christ Jesus or American Idol. He asked me, using all of his teeth, “Can I have eighty-seven dollahs an’ a button?”
“I think not,” was my reply, and I regretted wasting three entire words on the droopsnot, because unfazed, “I only needs twenny fitty to get mah house back and kids,” gabbered next out of his gob.
“If I were to give you one million dollars American,” I began playfully, watching as I literally stretched his mind with the number, “what would you do with it?”
He thought for a time, a curious sight; his grubby fingers played on a crusty hole in his jeans and on a crustier wound in the leg beneath. And then, with an aplomb only the single-minded and destitute can muster, the answer, “I would found a res’rant featurin’ both chicken, acid jazz, and amoral human gamblin’ wit a bright and cullaful atmisfeer an’ some kinda clowndog for da chillens. I knowa guy. Two,” came with the odour of malted liquor and Advil coating.

We went to his lean-to and knocked about concepts over iced coffee and crackpipe. I never did make it to HenBinn’s place, but I’ve been told he’s since sold the painting for eighty-seven dollars and a button — because he has no sense of money whatsoever. As you may have guessed, this is indeed the story of how the chain Gilles Peterson’s House of Wings and Deathsport was founded. We only have a few locations currently, but my associate CaneVein and I prefer that things remain underground for the time being.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site