MARK: Al!
AL: Hey, there, Marcus. What’s up?
MARK: Jeez!
AL: What’s going on, buddy?
MARK: I don’t\’t get it, Al. I don’t understand it.
AL: You want something? Want a drink? I’ll call the waitress…
MARK: No! No! Don’t even try. (Gets a breath.) I don’t know what’s going on today, Al. But it’s weird.
AL: What, like…?
MARK: Right from the time I got up.
AL: What is it? What’s the story?
MARK: Well—just for an example. This morning I stopped off at a drug store to buy some aspirin. This is at a big drug store, right?
AL: Yeah…
MARK: I go up to the counter, the guy says “What can I do for you?” I say, “Give me a bottle of aspirin.” The guy gives me this funny look and he says, “Oh, we don’t have that, sir.” I said to him, “You’re a drug store and you don’t have any aspirin?”
AL: Did they have Bufferin?
MARK: Yeah!
AL: Advil?
MARK: Yeah!
AL: Extra-strength Tylenol?
MARK: Yeah!
AL: But no aspirin.
MARK: No!
AL: Wow…
MARK: And that’s the kind of weird thing that’s been happening all day. It’s like, I go to a newsstand to buy the DAILY NEWS, the guy never even heard of it.
AL: Could have been a misunderstanding.
MARK: I asked every place—nobody had the news! I had to read the TORONTO HAIRDRESSER. Or this. I go into a Deli at lunchtime to buy a sandwich, the guy tells me they don’t have any Pastrami. How can they be a Deli if they don’t have Pastrami?
AL: Was this a Korean deli?
MARK: This was a Kosher from Jerusalem Deli. “Oh we don’t carry that, sir.”
He says to me. “Have some tongue.”
AL: Mmm.
MARK: I just got into a cab, the guy says he doesn’t go to 56th street! He offers to take me to Newark instead!
AL: Mm-hm.
MARK: Looking at me like I’m an alien or something!
AL: Mark. Settle down.
MARK: “Oh, I don’t go there, sir.”
AL: Settle down. Take a breath.
MARK: Do you know what this is?
AL: Sure.
MARK: What is it? What’s happening to me?
AL: Don’t panic. You’re in a Philadelphia.
MARK: I’m in a what?
AL: You’re in a Philadelphia. That’s all.
MARK: But I’m in—
AL: Yes, physically you’re in New York. But, metaphysically, you’re in a Philadelphia.
MARK: I’ve never heard of this!
AL: You see, inside of what we know as reality there are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias. If you fall into one, you run up against exactly the kinda stuff that’s been happening to you all day.
MARK: Why?
AL: Because in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can’t get it. You ask for something, they’re not going to have it. You want to do something, it ain’t gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can’t get there from here.