"I don't think you ever really learn
anything about yourself. You find some way to deal
with reality, to cope, to enjoy life, but there's
a blank hole about yourself, about your relationships–I
don't think that ever goes away."
–Isabelle Huppert, quoted in "The ice queen
shatters," by Ginna Bellafante, NYTimes,
16 October 2005
When I was growing up, other kids on my block kept dying
suddenly in mid-October.
The dread returns every autumn.
What a crappy weekend. Without warning or ceremony,
a friendship of many decades' duration, one of the
most important of my life, may be over. We were in
the grip of a strange but transient misunderstanding,
I felt at first. After reaching out and finding a
handful of air, now I'm beginning to feel ambushed.
I wasn't. It just feels that way.
When "My Fair Lady" was on Broadway, Lerner or
Loewe–I never can remember which–lived on the street
where I live. Hardly a week passes when a shoot doesn't
disrupt foot traffic, or I don't see scenes on tv shows
and in movies shot among the zillion-dollar townhouses
between here and Hudson Street. They never show, across
the street from the townhouses, the city swimming pool,
playground, handball courts, and playing field that
occupy the entire block, along with an indoor recreation
facility (now named–a well-deserved honor–for a
community leader who put immense effort into improving
the neighborhood, especially the parks, Tony Dapolito)
and a branch library. A narrow, unpoliced park–benches,
trees, some brave plantings–divides the playing field from
the rest and offers sanctuary for a few hours a day
to a noticeable number of homeless folks.
They don't bother the burghers (on weekdays mostly workers
from Hudson Street offices), nor do we bother them. [Above
you see two women and children entering the park to use
the playground, townhouses behind them; at left in that
photo, and closer up at left, the heap on the bench is a
sleeping person, his supermarket basket of worldly
goods parked in front of a statue commemorating two
volunteer firemen killed in an 1834 conflagration
farther downtown.]
One couple–she middle-aged, white, and tomboyish, he
young, black, and good-looking–are among the can-collector
regulars. We've never acknowledged each other. She arrived
alone one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, and he turned
up shortly after, uncharacteristically yelling and
swearing at her, a furious tirade that continued while
he rummaged methodically through every trashcan in the
seating area. A tirade so loud, so unnerving I actually
considered saying something but of course didn't. While
he–screaming at her all the while–culled the basket a
foot and a half from me I kept on doing what most New
Yorkers would have–and his partner had done since his
arrival–sat impassively, acting as though nothing unusual
was happening. His round completed, en route back to her
bench, when he got to mine he half-paused and–it took
me a moment to grasp–apologized to me, citing the
egregiousness of her offense. In fact, I'd paid no heed to
the content of his rant and didn't understand him now. I
waved him on with a don't-give-it-a-second-thought gesture.
Lulled by a blissfully long summer, I haven't adjusted
since the weather turned a few days ago. Trying to
read the Times in the park this afternoon–already
out of sorts because I'd expected to spend the weekend
a good deal more pleasantly–while I was overdressed
my hands were cold. After days of temperatures in the
low 50s F, no heat in my tenement building (wrong side
of the curve in this bipolar block), it finally came
on yesterday. To hell with fresh air, I decided.
I arrive at the front door. Through the narrow window
next to it I see a derelict sitting on the vestibule
floor. I crack the door and order him out. He tries to
gesture me through. I repeat my order. I stand on the
sidewalk waiting for him to go. A woman I somehow hadn't
seen inside opens the door and is jabbering about a
blow job. He's not particularly scruffy. She is. I just
want to be where I can take my hands out of my pockets,
but I won't wade through a homeless colony to get there.
I scared out a dude smoking crack in the vestibule as
I left maybe six weeks ago [walking away from the camera
in photo left]. Get out, I tell her, pointing
to the red No Trespassing sign. This routine is repeated
for an interminable three or four minutes: Door opens.
She jabbers. Get out–No Trespassing. Door closes.
Then we're all on the sidewalk. They're trying to explain
to me yet again that they meant no harm, she was just
giving him a blow job. His loose belt-buckle points downtown,
the untethered belt-end uptown. Oh. Now my mind's able
to process what she's been telling me. I say, Not here,
this is the wrong place. A plaintive–no, a pleading–expression
on his face, he looks me squarely in the eye and says, No place
is the right place.
I turn my back and march triumphantly into the vestibule …
defeated. All hail New York City 2005. The celebrated
Bloomberg NYC 2005. What can I say? We've all got problems,
pal? This moment is no more surreal than most since those
pilots-for-a-day gave a dozen neocons the excuse they'd
always craved to unleash their lunatic world-domination
theories? What the hell can I say?
Another mid-October weekend survived. As far as I know
nobody died. If a treasured friendship did, well, if you
grew up on Maxwell Avenue when I did, a devastating loss
at this time of year is no surprise.
