They were joking that soon the place would be a Dunkin' Donuts. "That's a pretty big Dunkin' Donuts," said the cashier, a young woman maybe 22 years old, trying to project confidence that her store was not closing -- yet, anyway. As I walked through the glass doors of Virgin Records on Fourteenth and Fourth avenue, a junkie, his wool hat taped to his skin by sweat, balanced on one foot, haggling with the security guard. I couldn't hear what he was saying. No one could -- he was just mouthing words with no sound. People shifted, weaving a bit. "Where to go?" "Another store full of sales? To the movies?"
On line at Thirteenth street and Third avenue, the face on the man directly in front of me was raging. "Come on, already," he mumbled, but he knew not to scoff too loudly at the customer currently at the window because the crowd on line was with the guy. You could feel the sympathy in the quiet way we all listened. "I'm sorry, but those passes are only good on Mondays." "You mean they're not for weekends?" "No. They are only for Mondays." "Where does it say that?" "It does not say that, but that is the rule. We only honor those passes on Mondays." "So, I can't use this?" "It is only good on Mondays." Three couples ahead of me, the negotiator pressed his head against the air and gave the cashier one last look. "Okay, so let me have two regular tickets." He pushed his eyes downward into his wallet. The frustrated gentleman ahead of me sighed. Meanwhile, in back of me, a couple discretely put their passes away and left the line. I decided I didn't want to sit for two hours and continued ambling along, feeling for the lift that used to come from walking through Manhattan at night.
I had decided not to just take a walk in my sluggish Brooklyn neighborhood because it makes me claustrophobic. There are only a few people out after dark, stores are mostly closed, and walking by rows and rows of houses just makes me feel alone. So, I got on the subway and got off at Union Square hoping to join in the energy of people hustling, drinking coffee, shopping, looking for movies, plays, music and chatting. People on their way to have fun are very easy about letting others brush in and out of their conversations. If they're confused about which way to go, I often just jump in with directions. The other night a group of teenage boys wanted to go to Chinatown, but also seemed to want to stay put in Greenwich Village. "What do you want to go for?" It turned out they were looking for some cheap jewelry. Since they weren't looking for brand name knockoffs, I directed them to the many sidewalk shops on eighth street and to K-Mart. "If you just want anything, you don't have to go to Chinatown." Frankly, they could've gone to their local store, but the purchase had given them an excuse for to get away from their suburb and themselves. They were extremely gracious and they smiled from the bottom of their hoodies until their noses. The boys had told me that they liked being on the street in which we stood because there were so many young people. "NYU," I said, but no flash of recognition shone through their pupils. They went off speedily after thanking me, bouncing in their sneakers toward a troop of people in their teens and twenties hovering around Astor Place. As they left, I realized they had heard about bargains in Chinatown, but not one of the city's major universities. A party school, no less. Was my city better known as a discount warehouse than a place to get drunk and have sex?
Though I'd never gone to Chinatown to shop in my 40 years in New York, my friend Karen had gone with one of her friends and her pre-teen and teenage daughters to look for high fashion look-a-likes. I remember especially Karen telling the story of being whispered to by this ethereal Chinese woman while walking with her friends on Canal Street. "You looking for Prada?" After she nodded, the woman led the group down a staircase into a basement full of handbags. Karen enjoyed the fact that the woman had approached her and not the others because she seemed to delight in making her the offer -- like it was a special gift. However rehearsed her manner may have been, the moment of connection between the two had been giggly and sweet. This was the kind of experience that made Karen feel happily like she was visiting from another planet and she should be alert to silly and striking possibilities.
My trip into Manhattan on Friday was torridly grey, in stark contrast to that memory, and to my encounter a few days before with those kids. I'd met those boys in the afternoon and there were students and people on their lunch milling in a quick pulse. The scant crew walking around as the sky became a thick, drab navy, were mostly just watching each other, not out of fear, but restlessness. Like me, no one seemed to have a particular destination in mind and the stores stood helplessly--every window was full of signs announcing huge sales and muzak bounced like a wave of tennis balls into the crowd slowing it down. For some reason, the soundtrack to Mamma Mia was being played and replayed without a break -- as if a back up sound system kicked in as soon as the other stopped so that there would be no silence.
When stores in New York go out of business or have huge sales to raise cash, usually, they get very loud. They blast their sound systems so that their announcements can be heard for miles and husky men with red faces are hired to call to passersby whatever phrases they think will get people into the store. "Cheap lingerie, Mama. Make your boyfriend happy tonight....Or your girlfriend. Whatever makes you happy. God loves everybody." The preacherly tone often builds. "Just trying to help my brothers and sisters out, now. Stop cursing and do something positive. Buy your mother and father something." And if you happen to lock eyes with the speaker in a pause, he will wish you a good night, a safe trip, or tell you that god blesses you. For some reason, it feels honest and warm even though he's said it to thousands of people and their dogs and he's shouted it a few times at passing cars. It's like listening to a false prophet -- the intensity with which he believes in the power and possibilities which could result from his ideas can shake you, even when you and he know the premises themselves are false.
But those men were nowhere this early evening. Paper signs hung like loose coats leaning over the ocean of glass while the relentless, cartoon-disco continued its manic bounce. There was no one trying to catch your eye and people were mostly talking about the fact that the Village was not very crowded for a Friday night. Only the teenagers felt comfortable just getting a drink somewhere. One or two restaurants were packed -- not the cafes -- but the macrobiotic places, the juice joints and The Dumpling Man. If you were going to spend your money, it was going to be on small, healthy-feeling items.
People were silently measuring the worth of the items at the stores, sale or no sale. "Will I really use this? Why? Sure, I've always wanted it, but I've spent a long time without it." I needed to buy something for my class and I picked up a cheap, literary-ish, former bestseller for the ride home. "I've got to get a new library card," I thought as I let myself soak in the bed of icy wind, soothing my joints. I could've walked for hours, but there was no life to look at and I was unwilling to carelessly stop somewhere for a coffee or to fake drinking a beer. (I can't drink, it makes my stomach dry and raw.) No one was interested in hanging out, and that, besides the funereal quality of the passion-free music, was what made the streets unsavory. We were all tourists and we were going home as soon as we hit our marks on the map. Only the journey was not novel, but completely without awe. I felt faceless, and I was because I had no sense of my own identity. My job is in limbo and everything is consciously day-to-day.
There was an empty row of seats on the "N" train, but I vaulted toward them anyway as there was no way I could've managed standing for even part of the way home. Walking down the stairs, I became dizzy from the unfulfilled need to get out of my own head for a few hours. When I leaned forward and lifted my book from my backpack, I saw the word "Pray," etched on the door. A few years ago, before they made it illegal to take pictures on the subway, I'd taken quite a few shots of similar carvings saying things like "Worship God" and "Go to Church." In Manhattan, they are etched on public phones, bathroom stalls, kiosks, ATM machines and traffic poles as well as train cars. Does this happen everywhere else?
But, I hadn't seen these messages for a long while. The aggressive attack on graffiti in New York had erased them along with the bubbled lettering of people's names which used to proliferate on the granite. So, I was suprised to be faced with this word, scratched into the metal, chastising me. I had a picture of the same message in ink in my collection at home, but the letters were longer and thinner in the one facing me.
Who does this? Who has the time to take a key (the usual implement) and dig into steel with enough power to create curves, not just lines up and down? The person who engraved the one I was looking at, unlike the one pictured, chose a spot about six feet from the floor. Someone tall whose hands had a wide and muscular wingspan.
Perhaps it was an out-of-work barker so disgruntled by the fact that business was so bad that it hadn't even created part-time work for extra gravediggers, he defaced the door with god-like rage.
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