Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me(6)
After getting the news about Jeffie, I dashed down the six flights in my building and went straight into the German restaurant across the street. I ordered a beer and stood by the window, so I could watch for the truck delivery. I got to talking to a man standing there. Larry was his name; a big guy in a well-worn gray suit. He was waiting for his wife. I told him I’d just moved here, and without another word he gestured to the bartender.
“Patrón,” he said.
We clinked shot glasses.
“Welcome,” Larry said, “welcome to New York,” and the tequila tasted as clean and bright as metal—like an element with a name I couldn’t pronounce.
I hadn’t finished half my beer when the truck pulled up.
“There’s my bed.”
“Now you’ve officially got a home. Tab’s on me, go for it.”
He gave me his card and told me if I ever needed help, help of any kind, give a call. After all this time, almost ten years later, I still have it: Lawrence H. Stein, Attorney at Law.
_____________________
I had visited New York many times over the years but living here, as I soon discovered, is a whole different ballgame. On the other hand, one doesn’t become a New Yorker by virtue of having a New York address. For me, the moment came the first time I left the city. I flew back to Seattle for Christmas to see family. No sooner had the plane lifted off than I felt a pang of regret. To be a New Yorker is to be away from the city and feel like you are missing something, I wrote on a cocktail napkin. By this I didn’t mean missing the Rockettes at Radio City, New Year’s Eve in Times Square, or some amazing exhibition at the Met. In New York, there is always something amazing happening somewhere that one ends up hearing about only later.
What I meant instead was missing the evanescent, the eavesdropped, the unexpected: a snowfall that blankets the city and turns it into a peaceful new world. Or, in summer, the sight of the first fireflies in the park at twilight. The clop-clop of horses’ hooves on cobblestones in the West Village, mounted police patrolling late at night, or a lovers’ quarrel within earshot of all passersby. Of course, what is music to my ears may be intolerable to another’s. Life here is a John Cage score, dissonance made eloquent.
It’s in the subway where I find the essence of this. Every car on every train on every line holds a surprise, a random sampling of humanity brought together in a confined space for a minute or two—a living Rubik’s Cube. You never know whom you might meet, or who might be sitting next to whom. I prefer standing to sitting and would never doze or read while I ride. To do so would be to miss some astonishing sights—for instance, when two trains depart simultaneously and, like racehorses just out of the gate, run neck and neck for a time.
If it’s late at night, I try to get into the first car and stand up front, so I have a clear view through the windshield. As the subway barrels ahead, star-like lights flickering on either side, I feel as though I am on a rocket hurtling through deep time, with no idea where we will land, or how, or when.
The Dry Cleaner’s Daughter
SUBWAY LIFER
During my first year in New York, I took the A/C line to work each day. I had a full-time job raising money for a global nonprofit dedicated to developing an AIDS vaccine. The West Fourth Street station was five minutes from my apartment. My favorite time was early morning. The station wasn’t crowded yet, riders weren’t rushed. People did not talk but read or listened to iPods. The smokers hacked their smokers’ coughs. Water drops—rusty tears in winter, I’d imagine, beads of sweat in summer—leaked from the steel I-beams overhead. The air was soft, as if unfinished dreams still emanated from everyone’s skin.
Waiting, however, can be a delicate business. Patience can turn to impatience in a flash and prompt a stance I’ve come to call the lean-and-look. This involves standing on the yellow strip at the edge of the train platform, one foot firmly planted, the other extended back, and leaning out far enough (but not too far) to see if a subway is coming. It’s one step away from being either suicide or a minimalist dance move. One after the other, people would come forward and do it, myself included, as if collectively we could coax a train out of the tunnel.
Sometimes it actually worked and, on rare occasions, brought forth not one train but two: an A on one side of the platform, a C on the other. At such moments one realizes that even the smallest choices matter. Both trains went to my stop at Fulton, but the A was an express and the C, a local, was poky. Each attracted different riders, different personalities. Which am I this morning, I would think, an A or a C? And what might happen in the extra minutes gained by the express? Will I bump into my next love as I exit, or trip and break my leg?
On weekends, I tended to take the red line; a 1 stop was just down the street. Other than Oliver, I didn’t know many people here, which suited me fine. My primary relationship was with the city—like an Mbuti pygmy’s is with the forest. We got to know each other via long subway rides—through Harlem and Washington Heights, Brooklyn and the Upper West Side. I would always carry my camera with me, and I took to approaching people on the street who caught my eye—strangers—whether because they looked interesting or attractive or unusual or, perhaps, utterly ordinary. “Can I take your picture?” I’d simply say.
After a day of exploring the city, one night I ended up in Midtown at Lincoln Center. I stood for a long time in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, watching the luminous dance of the fountain at its entrance. I got a ticket, last-minute, to an opera just about to begin. The lights dimmed and the crystal chandeliers made their silent retreat into the ceiling. I found myself shedding a few tears as the overture started. Did I wish there were someone with me? Perhaps. So I wasn’t shy about sharing my joy with others at intermission.