The sounds of a television echoed in the hall outside Gabrielle’s co-op. I inserted my copy of the key into the lock, and opened the door to find her stepfather, Butch, sitting on the Castro convertible, watching a movie in the dark. I’d forgotten that he was staying over, and was surprised.
“Where’s Gabrielle?” I asked,
“She went out dancing with a friend,” he said from his perch.
“Is she out of town, or just out for the evening?” I asked stupidly, the pork and oysters from Mr. Tang’s disrupting the neurotransmitters in my brain.
“Just for the evening,” he said slightly incredulously, “she left a few minutes before you got here.”
I had met Butch once, on my first visit to Gabrielle’s co-op last December. He was a retired construction worker, and the fingers on his left hand had been sliced off in an accident years ago, what remained of them were angled like an advertisement for Cingular wireless. His belly was as round and hard as a melon, and the remains of a hairline clung tightly to the circumference of his scalp. I made myself busy with the computer at the dining room table, not wanting to rush him through his evening entertainment.
“You want to go to bed?” He asked, “I’ve seen this one before, I don’t mind.”
“Oh, don’t stop watching on my account,” I said, “I’m just firing up the old computer here.”
“I’m tired anyway,” he offered, “got to get up in the morning and drive Gabby and the kids to Jersey.”
I disassembled the couch and pulled it out into bed mode, and climbed in. I had been asleep for some time when the front door opened.
“Hey,” I said, after looking up to make sure it was Gabrielle.
“Hey,” she said mischievously, and then whispered “I just had a bootie call!”
“You did!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster from my sleepy state, “good for you girl!” When Gab and I first reconnected, she was in the process of putting her life back together after a sudden split with her husband of ten years. Her stress was palpable; when we made the trek out to Jersey to visit with a mutual friend she left the house in a harried state, with no time to shower. Her thick dark hair stuck up in a wild mane, personifying her inner turmoil. While she may have been overwhelmed with a business to run and two kids to suddenly raise on her own, she was unsinkable. By the time I next saw her she had started dating again, her self-confidence returning, and stronger than ever. On that second visit we went to a fundraiser at the showroom of Moet Hennessy, and she ended up picking up the bartender who had served us all night.
Gabrielle took off her shoes and crawled under the covers with me, having graciously offered Butch the master bedroom for the night. We lay awake and giggled like we were back in junior high, reliving nights spent on the windowsill of my bedroom listening to Prince and smoking Marlboro cigarettes, and secretly hoping that one of the popular girls from school would walk past and see us.
In the morning Butch watched Cinderella on TV with his grandchildren.
“Hey D,” Butch said to his grandson, “I think this movie should be called 'Cinderfella', whadda you think about that?” Gabrielle giggled from the next room.
“Are you sure that isn’t already the name of a ‘pee oh are en’ Butch?”, she asked. He continued to entertain his grandchildren as Gabrielle prepared the family for a weekend on the Jersey shore.
“No rush, I’m used to this,” Butch said after she apologized for how much time it was taking, “when I’m out shopping with ya mutha, I always bring a book and wait in the car. At the grocery store it’s a coupla pages, at the department store it’s a couple chaptahs.” D climbed and squirmed over his grandfather as they watched Cinderella, Butch tolerating it stoically like a bull mastiff tolerating a puppy.
Once they left I gathered my things and headed for breakfast at Choice Market. I ordered my eggs at the register, and sat down at a long wooden table by the door. Half a dozen diners were sharing a communal copy of The New York Times, and I grabbed the lifestyles section. When I was finished I headed to the G train to catch the Fung Wah bus out of Chinatown.
Despite the reviews that can be found in a Google search describing the transportation line as a live chicken-infested horror show, I found the Fung Wah bus to be quite comfortable, blessedly air-conditioned, and uncrowded. I bought my ticket from two women sitting behind a Dutch door in a cramped street level office on Canal Street. It consisted of a narrow slice of card stock paper with my name handwritten on it, the date stamped in red ink, and the letter N followed by an arrow pointing to the letter B, indicating that I was traveling from New York to Boston. My bag was tossed into the luggage compartment under the coach without fanfare or the use of identifying tags.
I sat next to a teenage girl who was traveling with her mother and younger sister seated across the aisle from us. Halfway through the journey the girls started playing each other on a video game over small, hand held consoles, the younger one clearly besting her sister.
We drove across the Manhattan Bridge back into Brooklyn, passing a building with the words “screw rent” painted in five foot letters onto its façade. We drove past Riley Bros. Mausoleums, and took the Triboro Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway. From there we crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge to the Bruckner Expressway, passed Gun Hill Road, Co-op City, and Mamaroneck, and drove over the Tappan Zee bridge and continued on through Connecticut.
With time on my hands, I reflected on my visit. I love New York, there’s no denying it. I love the clam pizza at South Brooklyn Pizza Co.; I love that on Smith Street a cane-carrying man wearing a white hat with a feather in the band gave me unsolicited directions in a lisp; I love that a park called Diana Ross Playground exists; I love that there’s a restaurant called Kennedy Fried Chicken on Nevins Street, and a restaurant chain called Hot Bird; I love that someone on Vanderbilt Avenue has a chicken coop in their back yard; I love the gnarled roots of ancient trees pushing up through the sidewalk on Vanderbilt Avenue; I love brownstones; I love that the mariachi band at Mexicana Mama on 102nd Street played “happy birthday” at my friend Sara’s request; I love that someone yelled “Hey A-Rod” to his friend while crossing Smith Street at Pacific; I love the inherent nostalgia involved in hiring a car service; and I even love the uncomfortable, sticky heat that makes the dirt from the street cling to my face in measurable quantities.
I love the subway: I love that at 81st street there are tile bugs and dinosaur bones embedded into the walls because that's the stop for the American Museum of Natural History; I love that on the A train a woman wearing a TSA uniform was reading a book called “Bloody Money 2, The Game Ain’t Fair”; I love that a man hawking self-published books yelled out the titles: “This one is called ‘don’t beat your kids or they’ll turn out like me.’ This one is called ‘you know you’re in a bad neighborhood when.’”; I love that I saw two boys break-dancing on a moving train, and then walk the length of the car with an upturned baseball cap for donations, and I love that everyone on the train applauded them; I love that High street follows Jay street; I love that a man braiding his long hair in the doorway had the word “crisco” tattooed on one arm; I love that a uniformed boy scout was reading “The Kite Runner” across from me; I love that there was a discarded Russian language newspaper on the F train to Coney Island; I love that in some stations you can hear people walking on the pavement above; I love that a seated woman worked the New York Post crossword puzzle while a women leaning against the doors looked over her shoulder; and I love that it only takes thirty minutes to get from 145th to 34th Street.
I disembarked near Boston’s Chinatown at South Station; my luggage had survived the ride in one piece, and so had I. The 215 mile journey cost me all of fifteen dollars. I descended the subway escalator to the red line bound for Alewife, the dimensions of the Boston subway toy-like in comparison to New York. A Chinese man played French songs on an accordion on the subway platform; I reached into my pocket and withdrew a dime and six pennies to drop into his open accordion case, and he smiled as they fell in. At Downtown Crossing I switched to the Forest Hills-bound orange line, where a woman in pink plastic framed glasses played an electric guitar. I reached into my pocket and, not wanting to be unfair to the accordion player, dug up the exact same amount of change - a dime, a nickel, and a penny.
“Thank you,” she said as I dropped the change into an open suitcase. What can I say, I’m a patron of the arts.
I exited at Green Street, and rolled my luggage along a narrow, winding road past sweet clapboard houses to Centre Street. I was suddenly very hungry, and stopped at the City Feed Lot, a grocery and dining establishment that leans heavily macro/veggie. I ordered a cup of potato leek soup and a plate of sesame noodles with tofu from a young man who had deep circles under his eyes, and dark greasy hair that fell to his shoulders. Moments later a second young man wearing a necklace with an oversized yellow button in the center appeared at the register and asked:
“Is Max helping you?”, though I had no reason to know his name.
I paid for my order and helped myself to a set of compostable cutlery, and sat down at a table near a discarded copy of the Boston Bulletin. My sister wasn’t due home for at least an hour. I took my time eating, then left the restaurant and rolled my bag the rest of the way to her house. I had no sooner sat down on the front steps when her green Odyssey van appeared, and she waved to me from the passenger side window. The van was packed to the gills with her husband, three young children, and aging Australian cattle dog. I waved back, set my bags down on the porch, and approached the vehicle.
Showing posts with label Brooklyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brooklyn. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
New York Part V - or - how I ended up wearing a maternity skirt to Friday night services
I had packed light; I brought a pair of jeans and a pair of cords, a dress for my high school reunion, a hooded sweatshirt, two pairs of shoes and an assortment of t-shirts. I put on my cords - later that evening I was meeting a friend for Friday night services at a temple on 9th Avenue, and I wanted to dress as appropriately as I could. I left Anne and Harold’s home with my suitcase and backpack full - they were leaving for the weekend, and I was relocating to Gabrielle’s. I took the #77 bus to the Smith & 9th Street station, where a group of construction workers were taking their lunch break on a concrete median in the middle of the train tracks; it looked like a photo shoot for a cigarette ad. I rode the G train to Clinton and Washington and rolled my suitcase seven blocks to Gabrielle’s store, it had never felt so heavy. Several plastic bags filled with gently used clothing and toys waited to be inventoried on the sidewalk outside the store, and the door was propped open. Gabrielle sat behind the counter in a humid stupor.
“It’s like the four seasons of New York or something,” I said to her as I deposited my bags behind the counter.
“Right?” she said, reading the computer screen in front of her. “Look at you,” she said, responding to the bright pink hue I’d taken on, and the copious amounts of perspiration on my forehead and under my arms, “you must be sweltering, is that all you have?” she asked, indicating my choice of clothing with a downward sweeping gesture of her hand.
“Yeah,” I said. A trickle of perspiration ran down my neck and traveled the length of my back, finally settling into the fabric of my underwear. “It was cold two days ago, I was freezing in my hoodie and wished I’d brought something heavier.” I eyed a display of maternity wear, and chose a black skirt that had an elastic panel in the front. “Maybe this will work,” I said. I tried it on in the bathroom next to a changing table and a handwritten sign reading “Please take poopy diapers with you”. It fit, and the pregnancy panel in the front of the skirt acted as tummy control, increasing my self-confidence.
“It’s cute,” Gabrielle said when I emerged. We walked across the street and bought a couple sandwiches from Choice Market, where I wavered over a decision to buy a cookie.
“Well, I am eating for two,” I joked.
“What?” Gabrielle said, her eyes wide.
“Relax Gab,” I said, “it’s just a skirt.”
“Oh, alright,” she said, “because I’d better be on the list of people you call when that happens!”
Sated and comfortable, I dropped off my luggage at Gabrielle’s co-op a few blocks from the store, and got back on the C train to meet Zach and his fiancée Patricia for shul. I’d connected with Zach at my high school reunion the previous weekend, and followed up on a promise to connect while I was in the city. When he suggested shul as a Friday night activity, I responded somewhat flippantly.
“It’s a really beautiful place,” he’d said’ “very open and progressive, very gay, lesbian and transgender friendly…”
“Okay,” I said, “but only if I get to sit in the transgender section so everyone can ask me who my doctor is.”
“Afterwards we have a tradition of going out for Chinese food,” Zach continued, unphased by my attempt at humor, “you’re welcome to join us for just Chinese food, or both Chinese and shul,” he paused, “or neither, it’s up to you.”
“All right,” I said, “but I have to tell you, in the interest of full disclosure I haven’t seen the inside a temple since I went to Len Schiff’s bar mitzvah in 1984.” Len’s bar mitzvah was the event of the season, all the teachers from I.S.88 were in attendance; Len’s mother was the universally adored home ec. teacher there, and she’d invited all her colleagues. Afterwards there was a reception at a restaurant called Terrace on the Park in Flushing Meadows, where we indulged in music, drinks and dancing. We got in two rounds of alcoholic drinks before the bartenders got wise and cut us off. I gave Len a top of the line calculator watch that I'd bought at a midtown Manhattan electronics store from a man in a yarmulke and love-locks, and we all left the reception with party favors - including a smooth flat rock that had several rows of smaller rocks glued to it. The smaller rocks had eyes painted on them, and over them a sign made of popsicle sticks read: “Rock Concert”. The words “Len’s Bar Mitvah” and the date were painted onto the bottom; I still have mine. I recently reconnected with Len, and the first thing I asked him was if he still had the watch.
“You know,” he said, humoring me, “I like to keep it for special occasions, and I didn’t want to take the risk of wearing it into Brooklyn tonight.”
The building located at the address Zach had given me was an Episcopalian church, but people kept walking through the doors - including a number of men wearing yarmulkes, and a sign on the right side of the building told me that this was the gathering place for Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. I never knew Zach as a practicing Jew, or any kind of a Jew really, so I was surprised to see him wearing a yarmulke himself as he loped towards me on 9th Avenue.
“You can participate in as much or as little as you want,” he said to me in preparation, “this is not your grandfather's shul.”
“It takes place inside an Episcopalian church, for starters,” I said.
“Yes, for starters…” he said. Inside we found two seats on the aisle. A red-haired woman seated directly in front of me turned around, extended her hand to me, and said:
“Shalom Shabbat, my name is Janice,”
“Shalom Shabbat,” I said, taking her hand, “I’m J.” The man seated to Zach’s right did the same. A podium stood in the center of the church, flanked by two flags on either side - the rainbow flag of gay pride and an American flag to the left, the Israeli flag and a second rainbow flag to the right. A bespectacled rabbi who looked like a fourteen year old boy, but was actually a woman, led the services accompanied by a guitar-wielding cantor in square glasses, dark curly hair, and a prayer shawl over his clothing. I had no idea what was being sung and couldn’t figure out how to follow along in the book that had been handed to me at the door, even in the phonetically spelled out English words printed alongside the Hebrew, but it was beautiful to listen to - the minor key melodies haunting the cavern of my middle ear. The man standing behind me had a beautiful voice, and it was making me a little misty to hear his devoted singing in such close proximity.
“How are you doing?” Zach whispered to me, possibly in response to my silence.
“Good,” I whispered back.
“Now we’re turning around” he said, and I turned, along with the congregation, and faced the back of the man who’s voice had been enveloping me. He kept his eyes closed as he sang, releasing the music within him.
When the singing was over, the rabbi spoke of a recent trip to Argentina, the plight of the Jews who lived there, and of late mayor of San Francisco, Harvey Milk.
It was dark by the time we left the building, and Patricia met us outside - she was running late and didn’t want to enter after services had already begun. We drove to Chinatown and ate oysters and pork at a restaurant called Mr. Tang, where Zach and Patricia are regulars. We discussed Judaism, and I explained my long and complicated history with the religion, which goes a little something like this: my maiden name is Cohen, I wasn’t raised religiously, and by most traditions I wouldn’t be considered Jewish because my mother isn’t. For most of my life people have not only assumed that I am Jewish, but have regarded me through that lens to explain certain behaviors - an appreciation for good pickles and matzoh ball soup for instance, and a tendency to avoid overt Christianity and the south. Over the years I’ve had various reactions to this, ranging from guilt that I don’t know more about Judaism, to anger that people would have the gall to assume anything about me based on my name. I once hung up on a teenaged boy who called me from a telemarketing phone bank to ask for my financial support of a Jewish organization, and I was irrevocably peeved when a former boss of mine asked, on Ash Wednesday, “so when is your holiday?” My high school chorus teacher was an African-American woman who taught us negro spirituals. Halfway through "I've been 'buked and I've been scorned" she looked up from her seat on the piano bench with a smirk on her face. She turned her attention back to playing the piano, and when she looked at me again was smiling broadly. Finally she stopped playing completely and burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry J," she said between breaths, "but you have never looked more Jewish to me than you do right now."
By the same token, it feels wrong to have my Jewishness ignored. The first winter I spent in Chicago I was surprised that the office buildings downtown don't display menorahs side by side with Christmas trees the way they do in New York, and was shocked when a coworker asked me if Cohen was a Catholic name.
Years ago I felt the need to learn more about “my” religion, and kept renewing the same book on Judaism from the Bezazian branch of the Chicago Public Library before finally returning it, unread. A Quaker friend of mine once gave me a menorah that had belonged to his deceased partner, and I asked a Jewish colleague to phonetically spell out the prayer that accompanies the lighting of the Hanukkah candles. For one holiday season I observed the candle lighting tradition, and now the menorah decorates the top of our television, less a religious item than a household decoration.
One letter less and my name would have been Chen - would people have expected me to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and make Peking Duck on the weekends? The worst was when people told me that I looked Jewish - for those of you who’ve never met me, I look exactly like my Scotch-Irish shikse mother. How on earth can a person look Jewish anyway? I mean, I know what people were trying to get at - I wear glasses, I have curly hair that goes frizzy in the humidity, and I’m a little zaftig. Nonetheless, these indicators would amount to nothing if it weren’t for the name Cohen, and ever since I took my husband’s name nobody has assumed that there’s anything Semitic about me.
Now that I don’t carry the name Cohen, I feel a little nostalgic for it whenever I see it in print, and I enjoy being called Cohen by people who knew me before I was married. My husband's name is Palmer, which carries no such religious weight, although it should - the first Palmers made a pilgrimage to the holy land and returned with palm leaves as proof of their journey.
When we parted ways it was almost midnight. Zach and Patricia headed for Jersey, and I descended the subway stairs on Canal Street to wait for the A train. An interminable flat note emanated from the fluorescent lights overhead, and between that and the yellow cast spilling over everything they touched, I fell into a trance.
“It’s like the four seasons of New York or something,” I said to her as I deposited my bags behind the counter.
“Right?” she said, reading the computer screen in front of her. “Look at you,” she said, responding to the bright pink hue I’d taken on, and the copious amounts of perspiration on my forehead and under my arms, “you must be sweltering, is that all you have?” she asked, indicating my choice of clothing with a downward sweeping gesture of her hand.
“Yeah,” I said. A trickle of perspiration ran down my neck and traveled the length of my back, finally settling into the fabric of my underwear. “It was cold two days ago, I was freezing in my hoodie and wished I’d brought something heavier.” I eyed a display of maternity wear, and chose a black skirt that had an elastic panel in the front. “Maybe this will work,” I said. I tried it on in the bathroom next to a changing table and a handwritten sign reading “Please take poopy diapers with you”. It fit, and the pregnancy panel in the front of the skirt acted as tummy control, increasing my self-confidence.
“It’s cute,” Gabrielle said when I emerged. We walked across the street and bought a couple sandwiches from Choice Market, where I wavered over a decision to buy a cookie.
“Well, I am eating for two,” I joked.
“What?” Gabrielle said, her eyes wide.
“Relax Gab,” I said, “it’s just a skirt.”
“Oh, alright,” she said, “because I’d better be on the list of people you call when that happens!”
Sated and comfortable, I dropped off my luggage at Gabrielle’s co-op a few blocks from the store, and got back on the C train to meet Zach and his fiancée Patricia for shul. I’d connected with Zach at my high school reunion the previous weekend, and followed up on a promise to connect while I was in the city. When he suggested shul as a Friday night activity, I responded somewhat flippantly.
“It’s a really beautiful place,” he’d said’ “very open and progressive, very gay, lesbian and transgender friendly…”
“Okay,” I said, “but only if I get to sit in the transgender section so everyone can ask me who my doctor is.”
“Afterwards we have a tradition of going out for Chinese food,” Zach continued, unphased by my attempt at humor, “you’re welcome to join us for just Chinese food, or both Chinese and shul,” he paused, “or neither, it’s up to you.”
“All right,” I said, “but I have to tell you, in the interest of full disclosure I haven’t seen the inside a temple since I went to Len Schiff’s bar mitzvah in 1984.” Len’s bar mitzvah was the event of the season, all the teachers from I.S.88 were in attendance; Len’s mother was the universally adored home ec. teacher there, and she’d invited all her colleagues. Afterwards there was a reception at a restaurant called Terrace on the Park in Flushing Meadows, where we indulged in music, drinks and dancing. We got in two rounds of alcoholic drinks before the bartenders got wise and cut us off. I gave Len a top of the line calculator watch that I'd bought at a midtown Manhattan electronics store from a man in a yarmulke and love-locks, and we all left the reception with party favors - including a smooth flat rock that had several rows of smaller rocks glued to it. The smaller rocks had eyes painted on them, and over them a sign made of popsicle sticks read: “Rock Concert”. The words “Len’s Bar Mitvah” and the date were painted onto the bottom; I still have mine. I recently reconnected with Len, and the first thing I asked him was if he still had the watch.
“You know,” he said, humoring me, “I like to keep it for special occasions, and I didn’t want to take the risk of wearing it into Brooklyn tonight.”
The building located at the address Zach had given me was an Episcopalian church, but people kept walking through the doors - including a number of men wearing yarmulkes, and a sign on the right side of the building told me that this was the gathering place for Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. I never knew Zach as a practicing Jew, or any kind of a Jew really, so I was surprised to see him wearing a yarmulke himself as he loped towards me on 9th Avenue.
“You can participate in as much or as little as you want,” he said to me in preparation, “this is not your grandfather's shul.”
“It takes place inside an Episcopalian church, for starters,” I said.
“Yes, for starters…” he said. Inside we found two seats on the aisle. A red-haired woman seated directly in front of me turned around, extended her hand to me, and said:
“Shalom Shabbat, my name is Janice,”
“Shalom Shabbat,” I said, taking her hand, “I’m J.” The man seated to Zach’s right did the same. A podium stood in the center of the church, flanked by two flags on either side - the rainbow flag of gay pride and an American flag to the left, the Israeli flag and a second rainbow flag to the right. A bespectacled rabbi who looked like a fourteen year old boy, but was actually a woman, led the services accompanied by a guitar-wielding cantor in square glasses, dark curly hair, and a prayer shawl over his clothing. I had no idea what was being sung and couldn’t figure out how to follow along in the book that had been handed to me at the door, even in the phonetically spelled out English words printed alongside the Hebrew, but it was beautiful to listen to - the minor key melodies haunting the cavern of my middle ear. The man standing behind me had a beautiful voice, and it was making me a little misty to hear his devoted singing in such close proximity.
“How are you doing?” Zach whispered to me, possibly in response to my silence.
“Good,” I whispered back.
“Now we’re turning around” he said, and I turned, along with the congregation, and faced the back of the man who’s voice had been enveloping me. He kept his eyes closed as he sang, releasing the music within him.
When the singing was over, the rabbi spoke of a recent trip to Argentina, the plight of the Jews who lived there, and of late mayor of San Francisco, Harvey Milk.
It was dark by the time we left the building, and Patricia met us outside - she was running late and didn’t want to enter after services had already begun. We drove to Chinatown and ate oysters and pork at a restaurant called Mr. Tang, where Zach and Patricia are regulars. We discussed Judaism, and I explained my long and complicated history with the religion, which goes a little something like this: my maiden name is Cohen, I wasn’t raised religiously, and by most traditions I wouldn’t be considered Jewish because my mother isn’t. For most of my life people have not only assumed that I am Jewish, but have regarded me through that lens to explain certain behaviors - an appreciation for good pickles and matzoh ball soup for instance, and a tendency to avoid overt Christianity and the south. Over the years I’ve had various reactions to this, ranging from guilt that I don’t know more about Judaism, to anger that people would have the gall to assume anything about me based on my name. I once hung up on a teenaged boy who called me from a telemarketing phone bank to ask for my financial support of a Jewish organization, and I was irrevocably peeved when a former boss of mine asked, on Ash Wednesday, “so when is your holiday?” My high school chorus teacher was an African-American woman who taught us negro spirituals. Halfway through "I've been 'buked and I've been scorned" she looked up from her seat on the piano bench with a smirk on her face. She turned her attention back to playing the piano, and when she looked at me again was smiling broadly. Finally she stopped playing completely and burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry J," she said between breaths, "but you have never looked more Jewish to me than you do right now."
By the same token, it feels wrong to have my Jewishness ignored. The first winter I spent in Chicago I was surprised that the office buildings downtown don't display menorahs side by side with Christmas trees the way they do in New York, and was shocked when a coworker asked me if Cohen was a Catholic name.
Years ago I felt the need to learn more about “my” religion, and kept renewing the same book on Judaism from the Bezazian branch of the Chicago Public Library before finally returning it, unread. A Quaker friend of mine once gave me a menorah that had belonged to his deceased partner, and I asked a Jewish colleague to phonetically spell out the prayer that accompanies the lighting of the Hanukkah candles. For one holiday season I observed the candle lighting tradition, and now the menorah decorates the top of our television, less a religious item than a household decoration.
One letter less and my name would have been Chen - would people have expected me to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and make Peking Duck on the weekends? The worst was when people told me that I looked Jewish - for those of you who’ve never met me, I look exactly like my Scotch-Irish shikse mother. How on earth can a person look Jewish anyway? I mean, I know what people were trying to get at - I wear glasses, I have curly hair that goes frizzy in the humidity, and I’m a little zaftig. Nonetheless, these indicators would amount to nothing if it weren’t for the name Cohen, and ever since I took my husband’s name nobody has assumed that there’s anything Semitic about me.
Now that I don’t carry the name Cohen, I feel a little nostalgic for it whenever I see it in print, and I enjoy being called Cohen by people who knew me before I was married. My husband's name is Palmer, which carries no such religious weight, although it should - the first Palmers made a pilgrimage to the holy land and returned with palm leaves as proof of their journey.
When we parted ways it was almost midnight. Zach and Patricia headed for Jersey, and I descended the subway stairs on Canal Street to wait for the A train. An interminable flat note emanated from the fluorescent lights overhead, and between that and the yellow cast spilling over everything they touched, I fell into a trance.
Friday, May 29, 2009
New York Part IV - Interlude
I was a little depressed after I saw M off at the LIRR station, it was the first time in six days that I didn't have an agenda, and I wandered for a while looking for a slice of pizza at what looked like an authentic spot. I found a place, ordered a slice and a coke, and sat down at a booth across from a refuse container that had a piece of paper taped to it with the word “trash” written on it in blue crayon. The man who’d taken my order walked towards me with a bright orange tray in his hands.
“Signora,” he said as he approached me, “buon appetito.”
I ate my pizza, listened to Billy Joel’s “only the good die young” playing on the radio by the cash register, and considered my next move.
Then I wandered a bit until I happened upon a place called the Brooklyn Lyceum, which advertised free WiFi . For the price of a juice and a scone I sat for three hours, took six phone calls, and typed up notes. The café was attached to a rehearsal space, and the sounds of opera filled the air. I walked through the rehearsal in progress to get to the ladies room, overhearing the director giving notes:
“At that point Oscar makes his entrance, stage right…” the bathrooms were behind the stage, protected from view by lengths of plywood.
On the #77 bus from Smith & 9th street, I sat behind a quarreling young couple.
“Why are you looking out the window, I’m right here,” the woman said. The bus passed a store called 99 cent dreams, and a fast food place called U.S. Fried Chicken, where a man stood wearing a t-shirt with the words “Red Hook Old-Timers Day 2007.” At the Ikea stop a woman stood at the front of the bus engaged in an animated conversation with the driver. It seemed they were having a disagreement about the fare, but the conversation turned.
“Have a good night,” the driver said to her as she descended the front stairs of the bus.
“You too my love,” she said. I got off at the end of the line, and walked to Anne and Harold’s. Anne had grilled steaks in the backyard, and we ate in her kitchen, the back door open to the warm night. I told Anne that I’d seen street signs in her neighborhood for streets named Van Dyke and Beard.
II
The next day I visited my friends Mara and Sarah. Mara was visiting for a few months from Spain, where she now lives, and was staying at her stepmother’s house with her husband and young daughter. The house was filled with collections: books lined the walls of the living room; glass jars filled with screws, nuts and bolts took up an entire built-in shelving unit in the hall; and art was hung everywhere. There was copious handwritten signage - Mara’s stepmother took in borders and sometimes ran the house as a B&B. In the bathroom certain shelves were labeled “communal”, and a sticky note by the light switch in the hallway had the words “hall,” “stairs,” and “nothing” written with arrows pointing to the corresponding switches. At the base of the stairs a piece of paper read “no high heels or toxic chemicals on the stairs.” Hanging in the kitchen was a 1981 calendar featuring photos of whales and other marine life; Mara's stepmother had saved it, and the dates were the same as 2009. Sarah joined us, and Mara put on a pot of coffee.
“The coffee is making,” she said, “there’s chips and salsa, is anybody hungry?” We caught up with each other in the kitchen, Mara and Sarah discussing the trials and tribulations of parenthood, all of us talking about what we were doing in the world. I told Mara that I remembered a painting that used to hang in her father’s house that had the word “zaftig” in it.
"That’s a Peter Saul," she said, “he still has it.” Then I remembered one time when she had to write a paper that one of her classmates at Murrow had paid her to do for them. I was bored, so I offered to write it for her.
“I at least paid you, I hope," she said.
“I’m not sure you did. I do remember you telling me not to use too many fancy words though. You said ‘don't write things like due to the fact that, write things like because’."
“So you mean you were outsourcing papers that you were getting paid to write?" Sarah asked.
In the vegetable garden behind the house, two neighbors spoke to each other over a fence.
The hours passed, and as we got ready to part ways, Mara gave instructions to the boarder she’d hired as a babysitter for the night.
“Sometimes she takes a shit at six,” she said matter-of-factly, “you’ll smell it.”
“Signora,” he said as he approached me, “buon appetito.”
I ate my pizza, listened to Billy Joel’s “only the good die young” playing on the radio by the cash register, and considered my next move.
Then I wandered a bit until I happened upon a place called the Brooklyn Lyceum, which advertised free WiFi . For the price of a juice and a scone I sat for three hours, took six phone calls, and typed up notes. The café was attached to a rehearsal space, and the sounds of opera filled the air. I walked through the rehearsal in progress to get to the ladies room, overhearing the director giving notes:
“At that point Oscar makes his entrance, stage right…” the bathrooms were behind the stage, protected from view by lengths of plywood.
On the #77 bus from Smith & 9th street, I sat behind a quarreling young couple.
“Why are you looking out the window, I’m right here,” the woman said. The bus passed a store called 99 cent dreams, and a fast food place called U.S. Fried Chicken, where a man stood wearing a t-shirt with the words “Red Hook Old-Timers Day 2007.” At the Ikea stop a woman stood at the front of the bus engaged in an animated conversation with the driver. It seemed they were having a disagreement about the fare, but the conversation turned.
“Have a good night,” the driver said to her as she descended the front stairs of the bus.
“You too my love,” she said. I got off at the end of the line, and walked to Anne and Harold’s. Anne had grilled steaks in the backyard, and we ate in her kitchen, the back door open to the warm night. I told Anne that I’d seen street signs in her neighborhood for streets named Van Dyke and Beard.
II
The next day I visited my friends Mara and Sarah. Mara was visiting for a few months from Spain, where she now lives, and was staying at her stepmother’s house with her husband and young daughter. The house was filled with collections: books lined the walls of the living room; glass jars filled with screws, nuts and bolts took up an entire built-in shelving unit in the hall; and art was hung everywhere. There was copious handwritten signage - Mara’s stepmother took in borders and sometimes ran the house as a B&B. In the bathroom certain shelves were labeled “communal”, and a sticky note by the light switch in the hallway had the words “hall,” “stairs,” and “nothing” written with arrows pointing to the corresponding switches. At the base of the stairs a piece of paper read “no high heels or toxic chemicals on the stairs.” Hanging in the kitchen was a 1981 calendar featuring photos of whales and other marine life; Mara's stepmother had saved it, and the dates were the same as 2009. Sarah joined us, and Mara put on a pot of coffee.
“The coffee is making,” she said, “there’s chips and salsa, is anybody hungry?” We caught up with each other in the kitchen, Mara and Sarah discussing the trials and tribulations of parenthood, all of us talking about what we were doing in the world. I told Mara that I remembered a painting that used to hang in her father’s house that had the word “zaftig” in it.
"That’s a Peter Saul," she said, “he still has it.” Then I remembered one time when she had to write a paper that one of her classmates at Murrow had paid her to do for them. I was bored, so I offered to write it for her.
“I at least paid you, I hope," she said.
“I’m not sure you did. I do remember you telling me not to use too many fancy words though. You said ‘don't write things like due to the fact that, write things like because’."
“So you mean you were outsourcing papers that you were getting paid to write?" Sarah asked.
In the vegetable garden behind the house, two neighbors spoke to each other over a fence.
The hours passed, and as we got ready to part ways, Mara gave instructions to the boarder she’d hired as a babysitter for the night.
“Sometimes she takes a shit at six,” she said matter-of-factly, “you’ll smell it.”
Thursday, May 28, 2009
New York, Part III - Immigrant Song
I.
An extended remix of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” blared out of a pair of computer speakers as we walked through the front door of Gabrielle’s co-op in Clinton Hill, her two kids dancing and watching their reflection in a mirrored wall. Her aging dog Basil instantly took to M; in previous visits he focused his energy on nipping at my heels for the entirety of my stay, creating a persistent drag on the back of my feet as I made my way around the apartment. Gabrielle had hired a babysitter for the evening and took us to Habana Outpost, a solar-powered restaurant that uses compostable cutlery, and features a bicycle powered smoothie machine.
I knew Gabrielle in junior high school at I.S.88, and we recently reconnected through facebook. I visited her last December to see her for the first time since 1985, and apart from the trappings of our adult lives it was as if no time had passed - she had the same mannerisms and feisty energy that she had when we were preteens, only now she has a three year old and a six year old who match her in spirit, and she runs her own kids clothing and toy resale boutique called Still Hip. I was thrilled to finally introduce her to M, and the two of them hit it off, discussing art and politics like old friends and laughing at each other’s jokes.
When we got back, she asked the babysitter how things had gone.
“Did they go to bed okay?”
“Yeah, we watched a movie and then they went to bed,” the babysitter said.
“Anything exciting happen?” Gabrielle asked as she emptied the contents of her purse onto the kitchen table.
“D told me that his penis was hot, and that it was probably because of the bone inside it.”
I removed the yellow vinyl covered cushions from the 1970’s era Castro Convertible in the living room, and pulled it out into its bed form. Gabrielle got some sheets and pillows for us, and we settled in for the night.
In the morning we woke to the sounds of Gabrielle and her children readying themselves for the day, and then headed out to the American Folk Art Museum on 53rd street. In the ladies room a grey-haired woman wearing hand tooled silver jewelry watched as I tried to pull a paper towel from the dispenser.
“He always packs them so tight,” she said as I pulled off bits and corners, “and you end up with twelve.” She watched me dry my hands, and when I opened the bathroom door said “you realize what you just did, don’t you?”
“No,” I said.
“You just washed your hands, and then touched the doorknob.” She paused for effect, looking me in the eye and waiting for me to recognize the unspoken horror of public bathroom germs. “I always take an extra paper towel to open the bathroom door,” she said as we parted ways. On the first floor as I was taking in the exhibit of Paula Nadelstern’s kaleidoscope inspired quilts, I saw her again. She smiled and said: “You won’t soon forget me.”
Our main reason for going to the museum was to see the work of Henry Darger, a self-taught Chicago artist who worked as a janitor and was a recluse; his copious works were discovered only after his death in 1973. We’d seen his work in Chicago and Switzerland, but his work is so extensive that we’ve still only seen a small portion of it. He created a fantasy world where little girls are at war with evil men, their struggle depicted in words and illustrations on reams of paper, whatever kind he could get his hands on.
Then we saw the work of Ulysses Davis, including busts of every single President of the United States from George Washington to George H.W. Bush, who was in office at the time of his death in 1990. His bust of Jimmy Carter had peanuts carved into the base; he used the 39th President as a subject five times over the course of his life. A security guard who resembled a Davis sculpture stood in a corner in his blue uniform watching me, and I couldn’t help looking back at him as if he were part of the exhibit.
II.
Back in Brooklyn, our friends Anne and Harold picked us up in Clinton Hill and drove us to our next overnight locale in Red Hook. Harold took us on a tour of the neighborhood, driving through cobbled streets, and passing shipping containers and old buildings with nautical stars affixed to their sides. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" was set here, and the neighborhood has a long history of longshoremen and mafia activity - Chicago's own Al Capone was born in the area. In recent years it has become a quiet outpost for those who long for affordable housing and a more relaxed neighborhood; it has also become home to a Fairway food store and an Ikea, and both bus lines that serve the neighborhood have altered their routes to stop in front of the Swedish megastore. Most city views of the Statue of Liberty are from behind, but she proudly faces Red Hook, which boasts the best city view of the statue that can be found. We stopped at a park and walked out onto a pier to get a good look at her, and watched a tugboat pass by.
Then we went to Alma, a Mexican rooftop restaurant that had a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline, and headed to the two floor brick house that Anne and Harold share with an aging Weimaraner named Nikon. They showed us the garden they’ve been cultivating in their back yard, and the box manufacturing factory across the street from them. It was so quiet it felt like we were in a small town, one with no subway and a local economy based on fishing.
The next morning we slept in, and spent a leisurely hour drinking Harold’s own roast of coffee in the kitchen with Anne. M was heading back to Chicago later that afternoon and we had plans to see the Brooklyn Museum before he got back on the LIRR to Ronkonkoma. We called a car service - Red Hook is a ways from the closest subway stop, and a van with a missing side view mirror pulled up to the house driven by a grey-haired man wearing plastic framed glasses. The heat was blasting in the backseat, although it was 85 degrees outside. M asked him to turn it off, and we rode for fifteen minutes from Red Hook to Eastern Parkway. As we pulled into the driveway of the Brooklyn Museum M put his hand in his pants pocket, turned and looked at me with a childlike blankness on his face, and said quietly:
"My wallet…" I froze, anxiety dripping from the crown of my head over my face like a cracked egg. I said nothing and opened my wallet, hoping I had enough cash to pay the driver.
Suddenly a lazy 85 degree afternoon in Prospect Park and a museum visit became a horrible game show in which we had three hours to figure out where M’s wallet was, retrieve it, and get him on the LIRR to MacArthur Airport in time to catch his flight back to Chicago.
"What should we do?" M asked.
"I just have to take a piss," I snapped, "and then I’ll figure it out". We walked through the entrance of the Brooklyn Museum and I found the ladies room, and considered the options as a raging torrent of urine exited my body. I found M waiting on a bench in the atrium, sitting across from a man who was making strange barking sounds. Two workers dressed in blue coveralls looked in the direction the barking man, then at each other, their bodies rocking in silent laughter.
"First, we’ll call Anne and see if you left your wallet at her house," I said, "then we’ll call Southwest and see if we can switch your flight to tomorrow." Anne was home and M’s wallet and phone were sitting on a chair in her house, but the only flight the next day left at 7:30 in the morning, connected through Baltimore, and would cost an extra $180. The next hour and a half was spent largely in taxis and car services, one of them driven by a young man wearing a New York Yankees cap that still had the sticker on it. The word “grandma” was tattooed in script on his left arm and he was eating McDonald’s when he picked us up. On the back seat a receipt for a $35 moving violation with his name and date of birth printed on it was in plain view, and two pungent air fresheners shaped like trees hung from the rear view mirror. I mouth breathed the whole time we were in the car.
An extended remix of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” blared out of a pair of computer speakers as we walked through the front door of Gabrielle’s co-op in Clinton Hill, her two kids dancing and watching their reflection in a mirrored wall. Her aging dog Basil instantly took to M; in previous visits he focused his energy on nipping at my heels for the entirety of my stay, creating a persistent drag on the back of my feet as I made my way around the apartment. Gabrielle had hired a babysitter for the evening and took us to Habana Outpost, a solar-powered restaurant that uses compostable cutlery, and features a bicycle powered smoothie machine.
I knew Gabrielle in junior high school at I.S.88, and we recently reconnected through facebook. I visited her last December to see her for the first time since 1985, and apart from the trappings of our adult lives it was as if no time had passed - she had the same mannerisms and feisty energy that she had when we were preteens, only now she has a three year old and a six year old who match her in spirit, and she runs her own kids clothing and toy resale boutique called Still Hip. I was thrilled to finally introduce her to M, and the two of them hit it off, discussing art and politics like old friends and laughing at each other’s jokes.
When we got back, she asked the babysitter how things had gone.
“Did they go to bed okay?”
“Yeah, we watched a movie and then they went to bed,” the babysitter said.
“Anything exciting happen?” Gabrielle asked as she emptied the contents of her purse onto the kitchen table.
“D told me that his penis was hot, and that it was probably because of the bone inside it.”
I removed the yellow vinyl covered cushions from the 1970’s era Castro Convertible in the living room, and pulled it out into its bed form. Gabrielle got some sheets and pillows for us, and we settled in for the night.
In the morning we woke to the sounds of Gabrielle and her children readying themselves for the day, and then headed out to the American Folk Art Museum on 53rd street. In the ladies room a grey-haired woman wearing hand tooled silver jewelry watched as I tried to pull a paper towel from the dispenser.
“He always packs them so tight,” she said as I pulled off bits and corners, “and you end up with twelve.” She watched me dry my hands, and when I opened the bathroom door said “you realize what you just did, don’t you?”
“No,” I said.
“You just washed your hands, and then touched the doorknob.” She paused for effect, looking me in the eye and waiting for me to recognize the unspoken horror of public bathroom germs. “I always take an extra paper towel to open the bathroom door,” she said as we parted ways. On the first floor as I was taking in the exhibit of Paula Nadelstern’s kaleidoscope inspired quilts, I saw her again. She smiled and said: “You won’t soon forget me.”
Our main reason for going to the museum was to see the work of Henry Darger, a self-taught Chicago artist who worked as a janitor and was a recluse; his copious works were discovered only after his death in 1973. We’d seen his work in Chicago and Switzerland, but his work is so extensive that we’ve still only seen a small portion of it. He created a fantasy world where little girls are at war with evil men, their struggle depicted in words and illustrations on reams of paper, whatever kind he could get his hands on.
Then we saw the work of Ulysses Davis, including busts of every single President of the United States from George Washington to George H.W. Bush, who was in office at the time of his death in 1990. His bust of Jimmy Carter had peanuts carved into the base; he used the 39th President as a subject five times over the course of his life. A security guard who resembled a Davis sculpture stood in a corner in his blue uniform watching me, and I couldn’t help looking back at him as if he were part of the exhibit.
II.
Back in Brooklyn, our friends Anne and Harold picked us up in Clinton Hill and drove us to our next overnight locale in Red Hook. Harold took us on a tour of the neighborhood, driving through cobbled streets, and passing shipping containers and old buildings with nautical stars affixed to their sides. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" was set here, and the neighborhood has a long history of longshoremen and mafia activity - Chicago's own Al Capone was born in the area. In recent years it has become a quiet outpost for those who long for affordable housing and a more relaxed neighborhood; it has also become home to a Fairway food store and an Ikea, and both bus lines that serve the neighborhood have altered their routes to stop in front of the Swedish megastore. Most city views of the Statue of Liberty are from behind, but she proudly faces Red Hook, which boasts the best city view of the statue that can be found. We stopped at a park and walked out onto a pier to get a good look at her, and watched a tugboat pass by.
Then we went to Alma, a Mexican rooftop restaurant that had a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline, and headed to the two floor brick house that Anne and Harold share with an aging Weimaraner named Nikon. They showed us the garden they’ve been cultivating in their back yard, and the box manufacturing factory across the street from them. It was so quiet it felt like we were in a small town, one with no subway and a local economy based on fishing.
The next morning we slept in, and spent a leisurely hour drinking Harold’s own roast of coffee in the kitchen with Anne. M was heading back to Chicago later that afternoon and we had plans to see the Brooklyn Museum before he got back on the LIRR to Ronkonkoma. We called a car service - Red Hook is a ways from the closest subway stop, and a van with a missing side view mirror pulled up to the house driven by a grey-haired man wearing plastic framed glasses. The heat was blasting in the backseat, although it was 85 degrees outside. M asked him to turn it off, and we rode for fifteen minutes from Red Hook to Eastern Parkway. As we pulled into the driveway of the Brooklyn Museum M put his hand in his pants pocket, turned and looked at me with a childlike blankness on his face, and said quietly:
"My wallet…" I froze, anxiety dripping from the crown of my head over my face like a cracked egg. I said nothing and opened my wallet, hoping I had enough cash to pay the driver.
Suddenly a lazy 85 degree afternoon in Prospect Park and a museum visit became a horrible game show in which we had three hours to figure out where M’s wallet was, retrieve it, and get him on the LIRR to MacArthur Airport in time to catch his flight back to Chicago.
"What should we do?" M asked.
"I just have to take a piss," I snapped, "and then I’ll figure it out". We walked through the entrance of the Brooklyn Museum and I found the ladies room, and considered the options as a raging torrent of urine exited my body. I found M waiting on a bench in the atrium, sitting across from a man who was making strange barking sounds. Two workers dressed in blue coveralls looked in the direction the barking man, then at each other, their bodies rocking in silent laughter.
"First, we’ll call Anne and see if you left your wallet at her house," I said, "then we’ll call Southwest and see if we can switch your flight to tomorrow." Anne was home and M’s wallet and phone were sitting on a chair in her house, but the only flight the next day left at 7:30 in the morning, connected through Baltimore, and would cost an extra $180. The next hour and a half was spent largely in taxis and car services, one of them driven by a young man wearing a New York Yankees cap that still had the sticker on it. The word “grandma” was tattooed in script on his left arm and he was eating McDonald’s when he picked us up. On the back seat a receipt for a $35 moving violation with his name and date of birth printed on it was in plain view, and two pungent air fresheners shaped like trees hung from the rear view mirror. I mouth breathed the whole time we were in the car.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)