Getting To Use That High School French

A New York City summer reeks with heat, and the wet air lays across Brooklyn like a stranger rubbing up against you on the subway.

A middle-aged black woman sits on some flattened boxes under a tree, her legs splayed out in front of her like a child’s, and she is waving to a little girl who watches her in confusion before running to catch up with her mother as she crosses the street.

I walk up to the woman, who is still waving to the air where the child had been, and ask, “Are you thirsty?”

The woman responds in a language I don’t immediately recognize, but eventually I figure it out, and when it seems like she’s done, I try again, asking, “Ummm, l’eau?”

YIATA

A rental truck parked in the middle of a residential street: clearly just another asshole double-parked, so I go around on my scooter. 

Except they’re NOT double-parked - they’re just stopped at the light, which changes as I’m going around them, meaning I am directly in front of them when they start to go, which is hella dangerous for me.

At the next light they’re too close to the parked cars for me to squeeze through, so go around again (what was I thinking?), going past the driver’s side.

“You motherfucking idiot,” he helpfully suggests as I ride past, and I really can’t blame him.

Long Ago Seems So Close

“What other bands from that era started in the Eighties?” my physical therapist asks. We’ve been talking about Nineties bands.

“Well, The Flaming Lips started in the mid- to late-Eighties I believe,” I say

“Wow, I mean, I know my dad was listening to them around then, but I didn’t know they went that far back,” he replies in mild disbelief as I turn into dust and blow away.

Interspecies Communication

While Katie returns the freight elevator to its proper floor, I sit down on the curb outside and wait.

It’s late afternoon, an hour or so before dusk, still some light left, a low, buttery light tinted with gray from the overcast. I watch the breeze play with the few living things in this industrial dead end: a weed or tree growing in the rain gutter on the top of a brick wall waves a few delicate leaves, a pigeon wandering the asphalt a few yards away shakes his feathers in the cool.

The pigeon notices me, noticing him, and struts over to check me out, so I politely say, “How’s it going?” but he doesn’t reply. 

Mourning

I watch the swimmers at the Olympics, and I remember what the pool smelled like, chlorine and sweat. I remember slipping through the water, pulling my body clean and swift through the water, my skin tight and my body loose.

I remember winning, the tiny sliver of embarrassment when they took losing hard, the raging exultation of crushing my opponent, my personal best. 

Tonight, I remember getting a piece cut out of me and I miss it, I miss that person, and I mourn him, a little, even though he had to die sometime - I just didn’t expect to still be alive afterward.

Delicious Prayers

The framed front page of the New York Times from September 12, 2001, complete with screaming headlines and photos of burning buildings, that formerly loomed over this table in the restaurant is gone, replaced with an innocuous ad for beer. 

Katie and I devour tacos on homemade tortillas, with fragrant red-tinted rice, and pinto beans swimming in savory, thick broth heaped on paper plates. We eat peacefully, without saying much until finally, plate empty, stomach and heart full, I speak up.

“I don’t know how to say this without sounding stupid,” I say, “but eating a well cooked meal is like someone praying through you."

Theology Hospital

“So what hospital are you getting your knee looked at?” my physical therapist asks.

“It used to be called Methodist, now I guess it’s Presbyterian, in Brooklyn,” I reply.

“It would be weird to have them both own it at the same time,” he says.

“Yeah, Calvinists versus the Wesleyans,” I say apropos of nothing.

Over Explaining

“We have two cats, pair bonded litter mates. We got them when they were five years old, and I think it’s ’cause their owner got sick or something and couldn’t take care of them anymore.”

Now my physical therapist, who’s been listening to me talk about my cats, is looking sad, so I switch tactics: “So we called them Wallace and Davis, which we picked from the movie White Christmas, because the women, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera Green get married to Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, respectively, so they’re taking on their names….”

Instead of sad, he now just looks confused, and my voice trails off.

Returning The Call

I end the call and stand up at the desk in the office, getting ahold of myself. I can feel my insides vibrating, and my skin strains with the effort of keeping it in.

I walk into the kitchen where Katie is sitting and kiss her on the forehead. I have my water bottle in both hands and I realize that my fingers are wrapped around it as if it were a neck.

Bad Timing

“Okay, well, it’s really important that I speak to them today, so please have them call me, okay?” I tell the customer service rep after waiting on hold for over a half-hour.

“Absolutely, sir, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you more today,” he says, so I reassure him that I know he did all he could, and hang up.

After my doctor’s appointment, I walk into the library, and pull out my phone to double check for any calls. 

...and see the voicemail from the call that I missed as I was crossing Eastern Parkway to get here, not five minutes before.

Tiny Victories

“I gotta say,” as I’m putting the yogurt away, “I’m very proud of how I asked the guy to check the price on the yogurt.”

“Yeah! Good job!” Katie replies, unpacking her backpack.

“I mean the price was wrong but I spoke up for myself and got it changed, you know?”

That’s New York City

We get on the crowded train, but no seats available. Now I don’t expect people to offer a seat just because I carry a cane - why should they? And of course I don’t know what other peoples’ situations might be, but the woman with the rosary doesn’t offer, nor the young man and his girlfriend, nor any of the athletic and able-bodied looking folks on the train, and I resign myself to sore legs and a long ride into the city.

But the guy with the 40 in a plastic bag, with the hat that says “Fuck You” and the marijuana festooned socks and the facial tattoos - THAT guy offers his seat, which I gratefully accept.

Who Is This “We?”

Bottom of the ninth, the Brooklyn Cyclones are behind five runs to nothing, and after a lackluster performance all game by the home team, we’re ready for the game to be over.

“I mean, statistically it’s possible for them to score six runs in an inning,” I tell my friend Kevin, and we both laugh.

But then they proceed to score five runs, one right after the other.

“Holy crap, we might actually win this!” I say.

The Way To A Woman’s Heart

“We have 7 different types of gnocchi, and 25 different sauces,” our waiter tells us, “so to try every type, you would have to visit us twice a day, every day, for a year.”

“I’d practically live here!” Katie exclaims.

“We’d be working each others shifts,” the waiter replies with a smile.

“Hey, buddy,” I mock-growl, “that’s my wife you’re talking to.”

Not the first time he’s used it

One of the assistants in the operating room comes up as they’re prepping me. “My name’s Noel, not the the first but the greatest,” he says by way of introduction.

“That’s a pretty good line,” I say.

“Did you hear that?” he says with a grin as the entire surgical suite staff groans. 

Killing The Killer

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a tiny fly in the air above the couch where I’m writing. When I look directly at it, though, it’s gone.

I catch a glimpse of it again, so when I see something moving on my chest, I react without thinking and smack it.

When I lift my hand, though, I realize it’s not a fly that I’ve killed, but a spider, and my heart sinks.

Inspired

“Your wife has a studio!?” my physical therapist asks. He’s usually very calm, but something about my mention of Katie’s art studio has gotten him excited.

He watches me intently as I explain her workspace and her business. “I’ve never talked to anybody here about this,” he says shyly after I’ve finished, “but outside of work, my real interest…, my passion, is photography.”

Slow day

The guy on the e-bike pulls in front of me as I turn on to Sixth. I follow behind him for a bit, my excessive politeness keeping my natural competitive streak in check, but finally I just can’t stand it anymore.

I push on the accelerator and pull wide around him. There’s no traffic, and no problems, I just zip around him and it feels good to not worry about what other people think.

Undercover

We’re waiting for the light under the BQE when Katie points to a car parked on the sidewalk across the street.

The parking job is a real dick-move: it’s unnecessary (a summer weekend in NYC means everyone is out of town, leaving plenty of spaces and no need to park on the actual sidewalk) and completely inconsiderate in the way that it takes up so much room that it blocks anyone from actually being able to walk on the sidewalk without having to go into the street. Plus the car has this very aggressively macho-muscle-car look to it, with a gray paint job and dark, dark tinted windows.

“That’s a cop,” Katie says, and then repeats it: “That’s a cop.”

The Law of Attraction

As we coast down the hill toward the intersection, I wish for a green light and, way down at end of the block, as if in response to my wish, the light obediently turns green. I also know, with absolute certainty, that we’ll make it through no problem, and sure enough we slip through, barely even slowing down, only to be caught at the next long stoplight a block later.

When I mention how much I love catching a green, she agrees, adding, “But I’m sure that’s gonna be the intersection where I get straight-up t-boned from somebody just ploughing through a red light.”

“Yeah, let’s not manifest any unwanted experiences in our lives,” I say, nodding ruefully.

Horror Books

“These books are heavy, off putting, and have a good chance of making you dry heave!” Katie says, quoting a book recommendation video, then she repeats it. “A good chance of making you dry heave!”

“It’s not for me,” I say, waving my hand.

“I mean, maybe I’ll like something on it,” she says, pressing play.

They Were Just Trying To Be Nice

Two pretty young women rolling a bright yellow cart stacked with thin, glossy paperback books and craft materials rattle up to me as I sit in the waiting room for my doctor’s appointment.

“Would you like to do an activity while you wait?” one of them, an asian woman with long black hair, asks. Her expression suggests that, while concerned in a friendly sort of way, she takes a certain pleasure in demonstrating her concern, but wouldn't want to show either her concern or pleasure in a way that was too obvious.

I’m polite, midwesternly so, and I smile, showing none of the rankling I feel at their (entirely inadvertent, and probably felt only by me) condescension in treating me like I’m some sort of child who needs to be entertained and distracted by crosswords or origami or macaroni art, and I just say “No thank you,” indicating the book I was reading before they walked up, and they smile back and nod and roll on, content and secure in their beneficent goodness. 

Customer Service

“And before we finish this call,” says the customer service rep on the phone, “can I just ask, purely for my own nosiness, what kind of art your wife makes?”

I mean, it’s the reason why I mentioned it in the first place, so I tell him her website, the name of the piece we’ve been discussing, her insta handle, the whole thing.

I hear him typing and then he says, “Oh wow….”

“I didn’t think I’d see anything as beautiful as that today,” he says, his voice softening from his customer service voice to something gentler, more emotional, more real.

MRI

After they’ve strapped my feet together and attached me to the machine that will pump a chemical into my veins that allows the bigger machine to read my insides with greater accuracy, after they’ve put plugs in my ears to ensure I don’t go deaf from the buzzing mechanical symphony of physics and enormous magnetic fields that will see through my skin like a man looks through a window to check the weather, after all of this preparation for what is effectively a miracle of science..., we hit a snag.

Now three people are futzing with the table upon which I am trussed and blanketed, raising it, examining the readout, lowering it, shoving it into place with a jarring clunk, consulting, shaking it back and forth, wiggling it, several more clunks and finally a smooth slide into place.

You know that feeling when the ride operator at the carnival checks the straps and the shoulder pull-down bar, just to make sure everything’s kosher, before the chair upon which your very life depends lifts off at ridiculous speed to spin you through space, but you notice when he does it he has to really shake it once or twice, like maybe he’s not entirely confident, but finally he leaves it, because, you know, good enough? I have a brief moment of trepidation as the open maw of the machine receives me and the cacophony of the scan begins.

Think Small

I’m hanging out with Katie in her studio (which is really only set up to comfortably hold one person) seated behind a desk about a foot-and-a-half away from her as she works. We often joke about how it’s a good thing we’re obsessed with each other, because we spend an awful lot of time right up in each other’s business. 

But when I need to get up, I feel like an enormous, clumsy lummox, gingerly rising, being as careful as I can to not accidentally knock over the tools and supplies she’s surrounded herself with to do her job, and I wince as I try to get stiff muscles to move with a dancer’s grace that I didn’t possess before I had cancer, let alone now.

She looks up from her work to watch me sympathetically but without pity, and says, “Yeah, it’s a little crowded in here.”

Scooting Big and Tall

I love riding my scooter - with my leg banged up, riding a bike is tough, so it’s the easiest way to get around for the time being.

But occasionally, I am confronted by the limits of the technology, namely that I am kind of a big dude, and  maybe tending towards the upper limit of the weight that your average scooter can bear.

So sometimes, on a hill, say, or even just from a standing start at a stoplight, the little electric motor that makes the scooter go vroom has to do a little more work than it might like, and even though it never complains… I know.

And I know I’m at an okay weight for my height, but when my scooter starts to chug going uphill, man, I kinda take it personally.

Belt And Suspenders Kinda Gal

“This is the place”: Katie sets down the furniture dolly and points to the brownstone sheathed in scaffolding. We’re both slick with sweat and tired of walking, but this is our only stop before home - we’re picking up a little shelving unit someone’s giving away to put in the living room. 

A young, blonde, slightly disappointed looking woman brings the shelves down the wide front stairs and, seeing the dolly, compliments us on being prepared.

As Katie straps the unit to the dolly with bungee cords (also brought by us for just this purpose) I can only think that this lady obviously never met my wife.

Giving Up

Four boys running across a field, three of them moving well in a small pack - legs pumping, chests out, heads high, pure joy in forward motion.

The fourth is slower and runs like someone unaccustomed to the task. My eyes flick back and forth between them: the sprinters surging, reckless with laughter, encouraging each other to greater speed, while the kid at the rear falls further and further behind, his every effort seeming only to slow him down more.

He persists even as he slows until finally his stride subsides into kneeling, into falling, into laying out flat, arms akimbo, face down on the grass.

Ice It

The chiropractor has me turn on to my back, and he lays hands on my arthritic knee with a firm assurance.

“Let’s just get this…,” he says, and then, giving it a practiced push, he puts my knee back in place.

There is a painful pop, and warmth and what feels like an electric shock zaps up my leg and straight out the top of my head, causing me to yelp involuntarily.

“Okay,” he says gently, “I was not expecting that to be quite so intense, so I’m gonna suggest that you take it easy for the next few days.”

Poetry of The 6 Train Conductor

Once again to all my beautiful people aboard this train

this is your uptown uptown Bronx bound

Six train to Pelham Bay.

Yes you can transfer to your D and M train - take the stairs at the north end north end of the platform, and have a blessed and beautiful day

Reading The Room

The quiet reading event that has taken over the backyard of this Brooklyn Bar is about to start when the young couple walk in. 

And who can blame them? Yesterday’s heat and misery has given way to the kind of perfect day that New Yorkers keep secret from their friends who don’t live here, and the careless blue sky above the buildings is dotted with perfect meringue clouds - if I were young and on a date with a girl I just met who I wanted to impress, I’d sit outside too.

But when the event starts, and the backyard goes *really* quiet in that heavy way it does when a bunch of people are reading, and the guitarist the event organizers brought in starts playing a jazzy solo instrumental of “Still Crazy After All These Years” the couple seem to get the hint and beat a hasty retreat.  

Mild Chaos

The rain starts with a few fat drops spattering down, but it’s only a few blocks before the sky opens up and gutters start to run. We huddle under a tree for a few minutes before the downpour overwhelms the leaves, and we break for cover of a bus shelter as the splashes from the raindrops hitting the wet pavement make it look like it’s raining upwards. 

We sit on the bench watching the storm roll across the city; lightning flashes and grumbles at us, and we see bedraggled celebrants walking by, still thrilled at Pride month, in rainbow stripped outfits or carrying Pride, laughing and enjoying the rain.

I watch the tops of the buildings, thinking about my family, my mom and sister, and enjoying the mild chaos.