New York Part VI - Epilogue

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.

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.

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.”

New York, Part II - Dad

After washing up in Jorge's tiny shower, I pulled a towel off its rack without even fully extending my arm from where I stood in the tub. Raising my left arm to apply deodorant I banged my hand against the shower curtain rod. As we readied ourselves to leave the apartment, dad called my cell phone to confirm our plans to meet in Chinatown for dim sum. These were well made plans; dad had sent several emails to me over the past weeks confirming and re-confirming. We had tentative plans to go to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum afterwards, and I set my phone down for a moment while I went to find the paper where I’d written the museum’s address. When I picked the phone back up, dad was in full soliloquy mode; he’d been talking the entire time that I’d been looking for my piece of paper. It took me five tries before I could break in to the conversation.
“The Teneme… the Teneme…. the Teneme…. the Teneme…. The Tenement Museum is on Orchard Street,” I finally managed, “we won’t be far from there.”

We took the 1 train back to 34th street to drop off our luggage with Jorge before heading to Chinatown. A little girl with large brown eyes and long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail sat across from us on the train, her mighty cheeks drooping downwards. She fidgeted with a Metro card as her legs dangled six inches above the floor, her eyes meeting my gaze occasionally. I smiled at her, and she regarded me with a serious expression. She got off the train with her mother at 96th street.

The journey to Jorge’s office was rife with repeat experiences from the night before - the train stopped at 125th street, which was the stop before Grand Central on the Metro-North train from New Haven; we got off at 34th street, where M and I had met up the previous evening; and the same man who’d approached me with an empty Dunkin’ Donuts cup stood in almost the exact same spot as I’d first seen him, this time standing behind a card table set up for donations to something called the United Homeless Organization.

We found Jorge’s office building on 7th Avenue, which was staffed by a doorman who bore a striking resemblance to the actor Bruno Kirby and wore a bright blue jacket and black tie. In the elevator a sign reading “inspection certificate inside the super’s office” was engraved into a plaque on the elevator wall, and on the second floor Jorge greeted us wearing a bandanna that made him look like a gypsy. We dropped off our bags, and headed back out to the street. This part of 7th Avenue is known as “fashion avenue” due to its proximity to the garment district, and thin young models were everywhere. Two tall women in leather pants shook hands in front of us, then separated like parting waters as we passed between them. A few yards further, another tall, thin woman wearing small black shorts walked ahead of us.

Back on the 1 train, we listened to the garbled MTA operator announcements, which unlike the prerecorded announcements in Chicago, were live. At Times Square we transferred to the R train, and walked past a man seated on an upturned crate flipping through pages of a book, a sign reading “New York Times published poet" propped up against a stack of books in front of him.

We switched again for the B train, and exited at Grand. A fierce transsexual in white platform sandals stared at me as I got off the train, her face heavily painted.

On our way to the restaurant a woman’s voice behind us yelled:
“Jesus Christ, who do you think you are, King Tut?” Ahead of us, a man stepped close to another pedestrian and elbowed him gently. The man who’d been elbowed turned around and said:
“What - are you trying to run into me? I could take you.” Then they smiled at each other and shook hands.

When we surfaced from the subway it was 12:05, but somehow it took half an hour to find the restaurant. Dad doesn’t have a cell phone, so we just kept trudging along. I had visions of him standing on a street corner trying to pick us out of a crowd, saying over and over to whoever would listen:
“I called her this morning, I told her I’d made reservations for noon.”

“It took a long time to get here from the B train,” I managed to get out in the midst of a coughing fit once we found the restaurant and spotted dad's diminutive figure. I got a cough on Canal Street, and brought it with me all over New York and up to Boston the following week. Dad stands at five feet eight inches tall, and weighs no more than a hundred and thirty five pounds. He wears glasses, has a prominent nose, and has kept his facial hair in sideburns for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of him from the ‘70s when they grew to historic proportions, reaching a thickness of over an inch. They have become more subdued and greyer with time, and have turned white at his chin.

I needn’t have worried about him waiting for so long, dad had settled into a quiet corner of the restaurant, and being a Monday it wasn’t busy. He’d ordered a bottle of red wine, and began serving it to us as rounds of dim sum made their way to our table.
“Where are you coming from,” dad asked.
“A hundred and forty third street,” I said.
“Jesus Christ!” Dad exclaimed, “you could get raped, robbed, and murdered at high noon up there”, his voice rising on the word “noon”.

The food was delicious. The few times I've gone for dim sum the experience has been a heavily greased one, but I have to hand it to dad - he found a great spot. He's a foodie, and carries a red Michelin guide (which he calls "the geed meesh" after the French) wherever he goes. My stress dissipated as we ate, and I began to genuinely enjoy myself in dad's company.

When the bill came, M held a handful of small bills under the table as my dad worked out the tip. I motioned for him to put his money away.
“I’ll explain later,” he whispered. Our server took the credit card slip from my dad, and returned moments later, saying:
“Excuse me, sir,” and pointing to the tip line on the receipt. A three dollar tip had been left on a fifty nine dollar bill.
“Oh dad, that’s a terrible tip!” I cried, “you have to leave more, leave like... twelve dollars.” Dad pled ignorance, saying he’d been so distracted by our conversation that he’d miscalculated. He made the correction, and then apropos of nothing, began singing a 1950's era Tom Lehrer song:
“Oh the black folks hate the white folks, and the white folks hate the black folks, and the black folks hate the white folks, and everybody hates the Jews.”
At the next table a man in red spectacles and a grey ponytail looked over at us and made eye contact with me, I held his gaze.

We gathered our things, dad placing his signature blue beret on his head and grabbing his Michelin guide, and we headed outside in search of Little Italy for coffee and dessert. Dad overheard M and I discussing the fact that we needed to figure out which direction Bowery Street was in. We were halfway across a busy intersection when he approached a Chinese woman who was walking toward us, raised his finger in the air, and said:
“Bowery?” She continued on without so much as looking at him. He repeated this one word question, without providing any context around it, until we happened upon Bowery on our own. We stumbled upon Ferrara’s, where we indulged in espresso, a chocolate cannoli, and a sfogliatella.
“I think we're near Umberto's Clam House, where Crazy Joe Gallo got whacked,” dad said.
"Maybe you want to keep that to yourself dad," I said. When we left, he made a point of asking the proprietor if Umberto's was in fact the site of the Gallo murder while M and I waited for him outside.

At the Tenement Museum dad struck up a conversation with a woman behind us as we stood in line for tickets.
“This woman wants one ticket for the next tour!” he exclaimed loudly, and I whirled around, touched my hand to his shoulder, and shushed him. He shushed me back with a manic look on his face, and I left the building, the limits of my patience having been reached. M followed me, and we sat on a bench outside.
“I’m going to say something to him,” I said.
“Okay, but just calm down,”
“I’m not going to yell, I just need to say something because I can’t take any more of this.” Typically my limit with dad is about three hours; we’d made it to one hour and forty five minutes.
“Dad,” I said to him when he emerged, “I was having a nice time with you, and I want to continue to have a nice time with you, but it really embarrasses me when you talk to strangers, so I’m asking you to please just turn it down a notch,” Dad mumbled incessantly throughout my speech, saying:
“Yeeeeah, ooookaaaay, yeeeeeah, embarrassing yeeeeaah, oooookay, Iiiiiiiiii turn it down a notch.”
I wasn’t finished.
“It’s like babysitting,” I continued, “for a seventy year old.” The three of us were quiet for a moment while my catharsis passed, and then I said, more quietly: “ I just wanted to clear the air.”

The next tour at the museum wasn’t for another hour, and we had to get back to Jorge’s office before 7 p.m. to pick up our things. We decided to head to the west village to shop, and perhaps find a GAP store for M to exchange the pants and button down shirt I’d bought him the day before in Times Square. M is extraordinarily particular about his clothing, and I’d picked a shirt that was “too preppy”, and pants that didn’t match his shoes. We located a subway entrance, swiped our Metro cards through the electronic card readers, and walked through the turnstile.
“Where’s your dad?” M asked, and I turned around. He was nowhere to be seen. I stood with my arms extended outwards from my body, my mouth hanging open, and my brow furrowed for a long moment.
“Could he have walked down to the platform already?” I wondered aloud, “is he that fast?” We walked down to the platform and looked for him in vain, then walked back up to the turnstiles. We waited a moment and descended the stairs again.
“There he is, he’s on the other side of the tracks,“ M said, and I looked where he pointed. It took a moment for me see his beret-hatted form walking in quick, short strides on the opposite platform.
“DAD!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“You can’t call him dad,” M said, “you have to use his name!”
“BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!” I screamed, but he continued on his trajectory. “BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!” I screamed again, with M accompanying me. We screamed his name a third time before he finally stopped, his body startled into recognition of his name as if from a dream. He raised his hand and waved.
“Hiya,” he said, and made his way to the staircase connecting the uptown and downtown trains.
“Where did you go?” I asked when he rejoined us, my adrenaline subsiding.
“Oh, I have to go to a station agent to get my senior citizen’s discount,” he began, “and only certain subway entrances have the personnel who let you pay the senior fare, and I have to show my ID…” He paid for each subway fare individually instead of buying a pre-loaded card, and did this each time he rode the subway.

We exited at West 4th Street, and found a GAP. M picked out some clothes and tried them on in the dressing room while dad deconstructed a display made from a jacket and button down shirt, and held a jacket sleeve over his arm for comparison. M made the exchanges that he wanted, and we headed out of the store, M’s goal of finding wearable clothes having been accomplished.
“What do you want to do now?”, dad asked.
“I don’t know, how about we explore the West Village?” I suggested. We walked for three minutes when M became suddenly incapacitated by a piece of debris that had flown into his eye. I handed him my compact mirror, but he was unable to locate or dislodge the debris. I walked into a Gristede’s food store and paid eight dollars for a bottle of Visine, which my dad pronounced “vee seen.”
“Maybe you should go back to where your headquarters and lie down,” dad suggested.
“I’ll be fine, I just need to put some drops in my eye,” M said.
“Yeah…” dad trailed off. “I know when these things happen to me it’s good to just go back home and lie down.”
“He’ll be fine,” I said. M sat on top of a newspaper vending machine by the sidewalk, tilted his head back, and began administering drops into his eyes.
“Once or twice a year I get an eyelid that flips up, completely,” dad said, his voice rising at the word “completely”. “Ooof,” he said, his face pinching into an expression of pain. “Yeah, what you want to do now is just go lie down”.
“I don’t need to lie down!” M said sharply from his perch, his left hand covering his eye, his right arm extended outwards with the palm facing up, and I suddenly laughed at the absurdity of the situation. M joined in the laughter, but dad stood firm.

We had to collect our bags from Jorge before moving on to Brooklyn where we had dinner plans with my friend Gabrielle, so we decided to call it an afternoon.
“Well, it was short but sweet,” dad said to me as we parted ways underground before M and I headed back to 34th street.
“What do you mean?” I asked, “you’re here ‘till Wednesday, right?”
“There’s simply no time!” Dad said, his voice rising, “tomorrow I’m going to MOMA, and Wednesday I have lunch plans with Richard.” I froze, dumbfounded.
“Um…. okay,” I finally managed, and watched as he toddled off to the other side of the subway platform. He turned briefly before disappearing and waved. I waved back.

New York, Part I - Arrival

Just before boarding the Metro-North train in New Haven, M called me from Midway Airport in Chicago. He’d missed the deadline for checking his bag, and now the airline couldn’t guarantee that it would get loaded onto the plane with him. This was just one in a series of phone calls I’d received from him, beginning that morning when he called in a panic over the details of how to get to Midway Airport from our home on the northwest side. I talked him through his options and he’d texted twice to update me on his progress on the CTA. I was on the commuter train to New York when I got the next phone call. M had landed but the bag didn’t make it, and the airline wanted to know the address of where we’d be staying so they could deliver it to us. I doubted that Southwest would make the trip all the way from MacArthur Airport in Long Island to 143rd street in Sugar Hill, but I gave M the address. As expected, delivery wasn’t an option, and arrangements were made to have the bag held at the airport for the duration of M’s visit.

I felt responsible for the situation; if it hadn’t been for the extra clothes I’d asked M to pack for me with his things, he’d have been able to travel using only a carry on bag. This meant M had no clothes other than what he was wearing. I got off the train at Grand Central, and boarded the subway shuttle to Times Square, where a grey haired man wearing a baseball hat with the words “Springfield Armory Trap Door” printed on it unwrapped a stick of gum, and after putting it in his mouth, crumpled up the aluminum wrapper and flicked it across the subway car with his thumb and forefinger, seemingly at someone seated across the aisle from him. Above ground at 42nd street, graduates in caps and gowns kept appearing before me like an internet meme, some carrying flowers, some wearing their caps on their heads, and some carrying their caps by their sides like briefcases.

I walked past the biggest Dave & Busters in the country, an Applebee’s restaurant, and negotiated through crowds so thick I found myself thinking “oh for Pete’s sake” in a Minnesota accent, although I’ve never set foot in the state. A girl in faded blue pixie haircut spoke to her companion, saying “just get like, a little thing of coconut rum,” and I walked past a poster of three men on a desert island wearing nothing but Speedos. The man in the center of the photo stared into the camera, his right hand down the front of his bathing suit. The words “Man Island” were printed at the top of the poster; a play on words, I supposed, on “Manhattan Island.”

I had an hour before M’s train arrived from Ronkonkoma, and I hoped to buy him a change of clothes during that time. I pictured myself picking through piles of sweatpants and "I heart NY" shirts set up on vendor tables along the sidewalk, but found a GAP store in Times Square - score one for ubiquity. I texted M for his pants size, but didn’t hear back. I felt like I was on a game show - I’ve lived with the man for ten years, could I remember his pants size unprompted? I grabbed a pair of 32 waist jeans, and 34 waist khakis, and hoped one of them would fit. I picked up a t-shirt, a button down shirt, three pairs of socks and two boxers, and paid for them at the register, which was manned by an uninterested hipster.

The last time I was pick pocketed in New York, George Bush the elder was in office, but out of habit I rearranged the contents of my purse before leaving the store, placing my wallet under my glasses case and makeup bag.

I was standing across the street from a red neon sign reading “Green Papaya” when my phone rang again.
“The train is in Hicksville,” M said.
“Isn’t it fabulous that there’s an actual town called Hicksville?” I asked.

As I approached Madison Square Garden I suddenly lost my bearings, and asked a street vender selling halal meat what direction Penn Station was in. He silently lifted his right arm and pointed - Penn Station was in the same building as Madison Square Garden, how could I have forgotten this? I walked towards 7th Avenue and tried to make out the honorary street name ahead of me. Did it say Jay Leno Plaza? No. John Lennon Plaza? Wrong again, Joe Louis Plaza. My eyes were failing me.

I ventured underground into the labyrinth of Penn Station, and tried to find the track that M’s train would be pulling into. A man wearing glasses that were duct taped together at the bridge of his nose, a dollar bill in his hand, asked if I had change.
“What for?” I asked, thinking that he needed change of a dollar.
“I’m short a dollar for my train fare, and I was wondering if you could help me out,” he said. I thought for a long moment; I’ve actually fallen for this scam before, and the strangest part is that I knew I was being scammed even in the moment that I volunteered my spare change to the last man who‘d told me this story at the Irving Park blue line stop in Chicago, under the Kennedy Expressway overpass. There’s something about committing to the scammer’s story that keeps hold of me until I’ve parted with my money, and I was dangerously close to becoming ensnared once again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I can’t do that.” My eyes had become weary with the strain of trying to find M in the streams of people coming up from the LIRR train gates, so I turned and went back up the escalator to the street. As if on cue, a muzak version of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” played overhead.

Outside, I settled into a corner away from the main foot traffic when a man with an empty Dunkin’ Donuts cup approached me asking if I had any spare change that he could have to buy some dinner with.
“I can’t do that,” I said, emboldened by my experience with the underground duct-taped man, “I’m waiting here for my husband so he can feed me.” The man with the empty cup looked at me, unsmiling, for a long moment before retreating to the crosswalk where a friend was waiting for him.

I was exhausted. I’d been in the city for exactly ninety minutes.

M called me from underground and I talked him through the escalator to the street. We made our way to the number 1 train, and then realized that we had boarded the southbound train, so we got off at 28th street. There was no way to cross over to the northbound trains until 14th street, so we boarded the next one heading south. Like it’s number, it smelled strongly of urine. A man wearing a filthy white jacket, black pants, and sneakers lay sprawled across five seats, his right foot touching the floor, his left leg bent at the knee with his foot resting on a seat. His right hand rested near his head, and with his left he grabbed his crotch, moving his fingers across his groin periodically. As we pulled into 14th street a nickel fell out of his jacket pocket and hit the seat near his head, causing him to open his eyes momentarily before falling back into a fog. We switched to the northbound train, and M asked how far we were going.
“We get off at 145th street,” I said.
“Is it safe?” He asked,
“It’s fine.” I said.
“I just, it’s getting kind of dark, and we’re carrying bags and…”
“It’s fine, we’ll be fine,” I said. M started reciting lines from a scene in the movie The Brother from Another Planet in which a card sharp tells the Brother that as a magic trick he can make all the white people disappear from the subway train, and in 1984 at about 110th street, that’s exactly what would have happened.

At 145th, we walked two blocks south and found Jorge’s apartment building. I called him on my cell phone and got his voicemail.
“He must be in the laundry room,” I said to M, in my most reassuring tone of voice. He called back a few minutes later, and came to the door wearing a tan cap, jeans, and a t-shirt with the word “minority” printed in block letters. His apartment was on the 4th floor of a walk-up, and although there was a buzzer system in the building, there was no buzzer to Jorge’s apartment. He greeted us warmly, and looked at our pile of belongings.
“Is this all your luggage?” he asked.
“Well, there’s a story,” I said.
“What do you pay in rent for this place?” M asked as we negotiated the narrow stairway. I was mortified, there are two things I never ask New Yorkers: how much they pay in rent, and what they earn in salary.
“Eighteen,” Jorge said, leaving off the word “hundred”.

Jorge’s housing situation has been in limbo since last summer, when he made a down payment on a condo, and is currently living in a month-to-month lease while he waits for the details of his purchase to finalize. This is the third transitional apartment he’s moved into, and most of his belongings are in a locker at Big Apple Mini-Storage. I set my bags down and headed for the bathroom, which was so small that when I sat on the toilet my left leg pressed up against the bathtub, my right leg was pressed up against the wall, and I had to stand up to wipe properly.

I’ve visited Jorge in New York many times over the years, including one time in 2000 when he lived in a storefront building on Avenue C on the lower east side. My flight had been delayed, I didn’t have a cell phone, and I didn’t get to his neighborhood until two in the morning. In my travel weary state I’d forgotten that he lived in a storefront, and stood in front of an apartment building searching for his name on the buzzers. I didn’t see his name on any of them, so I pressed them all and someone buzzed me in. I was carting a large hard-shelled suitcase with me, and I dragged it up the stairs one at a time, the sound echoing off the walls as I climbed the staircase calling his name.
“Jorge?” I called out every few seconds. A door opened a crack. “Jorge?” I whispered. SLAM! Finally I remembered that this wasn’t the building I should be in, went back outside, and found the storefront that Jorge actually lived in.

We sat in the central room of Jorge’s apartment and caught up with each other for a few minutes. I heard the sound of someone coughing, but it wasn’t coming from any of us.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you - I have a roommate,” Jorge said. I looked around but couldn’t figure out where a fourth person might be hidden. “You probably won’t even see him. He stays up all night writing code or whatever it is that he does, and sleeps all day.”

A silent black and white cat made her way to M, and he scratched her on the head.
“That’s Kitty,” Jorge said. She looked exactly like a Kit-Kat wall clock, and had eyes that were wide open in an expression of permanent surprise.

We left the apartment and went around the corner to a Mexican restaurant that had ten tables, and waitresses in short white skirts. Fifteen minutes into our visit a large Latin man in a Hawaiian shirt started singing loudly into a microphone, while music blared from a sound system. It wasn’t quite karaoke, since he was the only one singing. It was too loud for conversation, so while we ate I watched a TV that was bolted to a wall. An ad for weight loss medication came across the screen, the word “Gorditos” flashing across it, and the same footage of three overweight men was shown twice with the word “Antes” above them. Then a camera shot from below a large man’s belly showed him squeezing his rolls for the camera. The singer finished his song, which I understood one word of - mujer. He then began speaking to his audience, and, spotting Jorge’s shirt, said in English: “I like your shirt man, minority rules!" And then: "Do any of you speak Spanish?”
“Un poquito,” I said.

When we left, a large man seated on a stool by the front door wished us a good evening, somehow I hadn’t noticed him on the way in.
“He’s a bouncer,” M said later, “in a restaurant with ten tables. Something else is going on in that place.” That may well have been true, but the food was delicious.

Back upstairs, we began making arrangements for the hand off of Jorge’s keys the next day once we made the subway trip downtown and dropped off our bags with Jorge at his office, a task that seemed hopelessly complicated. Then we talked about our respective workplace situations, M telling Jorge how strange it felt to tattoo people who were born after he’d graduated from high school.
“You have to be born in 1991 or earlier to get a tattoo,” M began, “In 1991 I was…”
“A hot mess,” Jorge interjected.

My words stopped making sense.
“I’m too tired for these details”, I said to M as he began dressing the air mattress that Jorge had blown up for us.
“It seemed like you were both having trouble”, M said. Three brand new packages containing flat sheets and pillow covers sat on top of the air mattress, and M set about opening them.
“There’s some kind of a blood stain or something on this pillow case,” he said, showing me the offending spot, “so don’t turn the pillow over.”

M turned on our laptop and became so absorbed that he didn’t even notice that I was changing into my pajamas in full view of the undressed window, with the bedroom door wide open just moments after having been introduced to Jorge’s roommate. I went to Jorge’s bedroom to say goodnight.

“You can stop by any time before I leave work to get your bags and to give me the keys,” he said, “usually I’m done by seven; then I come home and cry.”

M and I slept under a single sheet wearing our sweatshirts for warmth, visions of Latin singers and gorditos in my head, and Kitty asleep on M’s legs. I woke up at 4 a.m. with a pain in my side like I’d been punched in the kidney. I got up and squeezed myself onto the toilet to pee, and then came back to bed, disturbing Kitty’s perch on M's shins.