“You said that?"
“Yes… and then she just continued. And afterwards, she asked me again if I knew her name. I asked her if she knew mine, and then she just gathered her clothes and walked out of the room.” Alex sighed. “That’s what I’ve been doing with myself for the past couple of years.”
Without me realizing it, Alex had moved to my side. A good couple of inches taller than me, the ends of his sneakers looking out over a thirty-foot drop.
“Did you really say that, Alex?”
“Yeah.”
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“I hate you…” I tossed my cigarette out into the night and watch that single eye spiral away. “Let’s always be friends.”
“Sure thing, Lucky.”
I handed him the bottle of wine. Not much left in there, and Alex polished it off. Set the bottle down and coughed. The shimmering sidewalk stretched up and down the block as the air around us grew thick.
Something moved just past my periphery. Begged for a second glance.
The window to the neighboring house was now filled with the body of that woman, blonde and precise, naked. She was staring at me. A cigarette hung from her mouth and the smoke fled upwards, away from all possible form.
I welcomed her eyes, left her body behind.
We looked at each other for a long time.
And from her mind, straight to mine, came the strangest sentiment.
You have to earn it.
Alex stared at stars, and I kept my mouth shut.
“You know what you saw,” he repeated.
I followed suit. “I don’t know shit.”
Finally, she pulled the curtains shut and an instant later, the light was out.
Easy does it.
“Hey, look at that.” Alex’s voice led me from the window and down to what awaited us.
Everyone had gathered in front of the house, necks craned towards our towering empire. They cried out, something about getting down from there, maybe, but none of our words had that kind of reach. I might have seen Apolonia’s face in all of that, concerned and impassioned. Always looking out for us. They all kept babbling and not a single sentence came through over the dizzying sensation of height and summer madness.
I looked at Alex, “Are those our friends down there?”
“I don’t know, Lucky. Hard to tell from up here.”
“I suppose we should get down there and find out.”
“I suppose we should.”
“So it’s settled.”
The pleas and staged warnings of those down below dispersed into the air, flung towards some future date, what was in store for all of us past the petty grievances of one summer night in Verona.
Alex and I took a few steps back, giving things just enough time to make sense before running forward and leaping past two stories of solid concrete history.
No End To Metropolitan.
I said goodbye to the cat and traded my basement digs for the sidewalks of Sunset Park.
October winds were cutting in. Street life in transition. Pop-ups along the ave packing it in, stoops shedding their unwilling denizens, evidenced by longnecks and bent cigarettes. The wild scent of storefront grease trapped behind closed doors. Milk crates abandoned, left to wonder what happened to all those fat asses and lazy summertime conversations. Mad sounds of salsa and reggaeton barely pushing past the cracks of bars and blue-hued nightclubs.
I stopped in at The Tap Room. Right on the corner of 5th Avenue. Threadbare decorations, free from theme. Wood-paneled walls, single strand of red tubing that encircled the bottles in a Day-Glo lasso. Period.
Five-o-clock shadow named Bruce setting me up with a beer and shot.
“What’s going on?” I called out over the early strands of Aretha.
“Going on where?”
I motioned towards the Karaoke machine stationed in the corner.
“Going to be a party tonight,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Going to have fun for once in our goddamn lives.”
“Yeah!” I took my shot. Motioned for another one.
“You hear about Federico?” he asked, pouring another bullet while taking extra care to roll his R’s.
“The MTA guy?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Had a head case jump in front of his train today.”
“Yeah?”
“Suicidal blonde. Just like the song. Got split right in half. Just like…” He paused. “Just like you do, I suppose.”
I sighed. “Wolfie once told me, there’s more subway suicides than you could possibly imagine going down in this city.”
“Who’s Wolfie?”
“Maybe it was his friend.” I drank half my beer, wiped my lips. “The one with the sister who thought I was funny. Brought me orange juice in bed.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Is he ok?” I asked. “Federico. How’s he dealing?”
“Don’t know.”
“You’d think it would be one way or the other.”
“One way. Fucking subway, who knows?”
I glanced up at the TV. Tiny little box of ESPN captions involving the Tar Heels, coach Roy Williams.
Nothing worth caring about. “When was this?”
“Last night.” Bruce shrugged. Been there, done that, and this, and more of that. “Just sat there confused, and so I couldn’t rightly blame him. He… I don’t know, laid down a twenty or so and left.”
“Huh.”
I laid down my own happy Hamilton and stood. “Wish I could stick around and see how it ends.”
“Where you headed?”
I sighed. “Williamsburg.”
“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. “Won’t be long before we’re all living there.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Got to catch my train.”
“Stop on in later. Going to be a good night, I can feel it.”
I nodded.
Outside, the boys on the corner were still drinking their 22s, smoking cigarettes.
Bundled in heavy wool outerwear.
Oblivious to how cold it was going to get once time had its way with their beautiful neighborhood.
***
Took the N/R into Manhattan. Union Station. Wormed my way downstairs to the L. Stood shoulder to shoulder with distressed leather jackets, plaid and phosphorescent trucker hats. Mustaches and Van Dykes. Black rimmed glasses, throwbacks to Marxist revolutionaries of their dormitory walls. White earbuds slithered like ivy towards hidden I-pods, designer boots tapping to private Ibeats, Isongs, Iplaylists
I rode the train three stops back into Brooklyn.
Same borough, universe of another color.
I forced myself along Metropolitan Avenue.
Flush with polished dives and the final throes of seedy, old-school bars.
Overconfident, joyless hipsters wandering the streets, sick with disinterest.
Men grinning through tales of manufactured survival.
Ladies cradled close to every word, wondering why it was that life wasn’t easier on them.
Brunch menus tattooed along their necks, shoulder blades.
I bopped into the Blue Lagoon.
Shut my ears to the strains of an Indy Rock juke box.
Ordered myself a bottle of Bud.
Sat and waited for Fiona.
Tried not to hold the place against her.
Every last person I had ever known in my early New York days had migrated to this sector of the city. Standards and practices. Nothing worse than not belonging to some sort of moment. Some imaginary movement. Never mattered what you stood for as long as there was someone there to see you say it.
Do it.
Prove it.
The non-smoking laws had just come into effect, and I was stuck following the crowd.
Pretended to wave to a set of friends in the corner and ordered three be
ers.
Struck out onto a patio designated for cigarettes and a chance for locally brewed individuals to bond over their resplendent similarities. I staked out a bench, lit up. Reached into my bookbag. Extracted a notebook, a few sheaths of printed prose. Went about taking my red pen to the tale of a miscreant wannabe named Gavin Delanco.
The back door swung open to the loud swagger of self-indulgence.
Sent my eyes on a quick flutter.
Caught a couple making themselves known.
Tallboy somewheres ‘round my age, twenty three or so. Black leather jacket, trucker cap. Black-rimmed glasses, behind which beady eyes managed to bulge from counterintuitive sockets. Grizzly miscarriage of a handlebar stashed beneath his massive honker, reinforced with carefully maintained stubble.
His girl, pale and clean kept. Dark, curly hair. Traces of a previous dye-job. Glasses to match her not-yet spouse, and a jacket of teal fleece. Tattooed ink a muddle of required reading.
Maybe they knew the revelers to my right, maybe not.
Either way, the pair let loose with a series of drawn greetings, vowels stretched taut over every surface, saying HEEEEY! HEEEY! ALL RIGHT, HEEEY!
They sat down, pleased as can be, embedded at the table across from me. Pints of Brooklyn Lager at the ready. American Spirits lit and burning bright. Getting back to the basics of their existence.
Hipster blowing smoke to the skies: “I don’t know if that’s poetry.”
The girl mimicked his gesture. “It’s not like your poetry.”
“What about your collection of poetry?”
“That’s why it’s my poetry.”
“They think they’re just making a point.”
“They don’t have to review either one of us, I don’t care…”
I was still immersed in my own world, one foot in the door. Ajar just enough to let my ears burn.
“What’s he writing?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Probably nothing.”
“It can’t be nothing.”
“Nothing important.”
“Well, of course not.”
“No way.”
“See the cigarette?”
“The hat?”
“The beers”
“Yeah, but the hat.”
“Blue skully.”
“Yeah.”
The girl strayed from her momentary indignation. “Look at him drink, though.”
“Guess he’s good at that, at least.”
“Who do you think?”
“Ernest.”
“You think?”
He snorted, tugged at his mustache. “Guy thinks he’s Ernest.”
“He thinks he’s Ernest.”
“Trying.”
“Yeah, of course, trying.”
“Yeah.”
“The shoes.”
“Dressy.”
“Those are rubber soles, though.”
“I was about to say.”
The girl lit a smoke. Sent a casual glance to the sky. “Rubber soles, right?”
“Yeah, they are.”
“Think he’s rich?”
“He thinks he’s Ernest, whatever.”
She reached for her beer. “When I was five and we were in Paris, my father pulled me aside and said –”
A slew of proudly enunciated words followed.
I lit another cigarette. Assassinated my second beer. Glanced at my shoes. Could only guess how my laces had escaped detection. Undone and scraping the bottom of the barrel. Reached out and drained my third beer to its final fifth.
Hopped back onto their conversation.
“Maybe he’s just studying,” the girl said.
“No. That’s a novel.”
“Oh. Please, God, no.”
“Yeah, right?”
“We should find out”
“You should find out.”
“I’ll walk past.”
“You could drop something.”
“I’ll drop something. Have a look.”
“You could drop something and have a look.”
The prospect got her excited. Led a hand to rest on his chest. “I could pretend to be interested.”
“You could drop it, maybe ask him.”
“I think the bathroom might be empty now.”
“You want to do it on the way back?”
“I’ll do it on the way back,” she agreed.
“Thinks he’s Ernest, yeah.”
“Your collection of poems, though,” she said.
“Yeah, they’ll know it when it happens.”
“I’m thinking maybe mine might.”
“Sure…” He lit another cigarette, toyed with the Zippo. “Don’t forget to drop something on your way back.”
“Going to the bathroom.”
“Don’t forget to drop something on your way back.”
“On the way there.”
“Whatever.”
“Going to the bathroom.”
She stood, made a b-line to the ladies’
I slid my work into a beat-up bookbag, just a few months short of disappearing in a late-night blackout involving a long-lost lover, Glock-nine gangsters, and an unexplained face full of dried blood.
I stood on rubber legs, rubber souls , wondering if Fiona might forgive me this time.
Walked across the patio, careful to drop my lighter on the way to settle my tab.
***
Stumbled into the Tap Room and felt the swell of the crowd. Putting their hands together, fresh off another karaoke number. Local citizenry, most still saddled in their scrubs, MTA uniforms, jumpsuits. White tees and blue jeans, misappropriated teeth and salamander skin, worn elbows, joints wailing for another chance at the weekend.
I muscled my way to the bar.
Got my Bruce, got my beer. Got my shot.
He yelled something at me.
I yelled back.
Took my shot and chased it down.
The crowd knew what was up before I could get to cheering.
Opening notes of the Carl Douglas song cresting as Federico took the mic.
Voice cracking along his ordinarily tired lips as he proclaimed that Everybody was KUNG FU FIGHTING!
He ran up and down the bar, doing it up. Karate chopping and high kicking along a mass of sweaty, wide-rimmed eyeballs. Everyone jumping, lifting their hands as far as they would go, because them cats were fast as lighting. Whatever it was had happened last night was done and over with. Federico was taking us for a ride. An entire building careening along a single city block, neighborhood shaken to its foundations. Old and ugly, wasting time in whatever was opposite of the limelight. Exhausted lives mainlined into whatever was left. Worth another shot, and seven or so beers and yes,
it was a little bit frightening.
***
Woke up with my face in a couch cushion, and a cat on my face.
Alone, as always, but better off than the rest of them.
Had myself a cigarette, fed myself a feline.
Recognized the need for more beer, slipped out of my monastery and down the block.
Stopped by the corner store.
Counted out a couple of tallboys and a fresh pack of Marlboros.
“Good night for you?” the kid behind the counter asked. Someone’s son. Worked every other day, same as a clockwork candy bar.
“It was good to be back home,” I said. “Tell Carmen I said hello.”
Stepped out with plastic bags cutting off the circulation. Breathed in the morning air.
Crisp with a taste of nectar and an approaching snow storm.
Turned the corner to find them walking towards me.
I stalled in my tracks, no guarantees I wasn’t still somewhere in the ugly shadow of Williamsburg.
Two boys, one girl. Nose ring and blue ink blending with her jean jacket. Two mustaches shared between the fellas, black jeans betraying tiny thighs and bulges barely worth writing home about. Conversation rising and falling as they wal
ked past, wafting, the scent of ripened garbage trailing, lingering in the air.
“Yeah, but if that beer were any more heavy on the hops, I’d have to call it a pilsner, but most definitely saved by an IPA status.”
Only thing I could contribute to fill into their footprints was a barely audible, and ultimately useless No.
I repeated the word to myself as I stood freezing, realizing that I had wandered barefoot down an avenue of broken glass and cupcake bottle caps. Watching them point, laugh, trade ironic observations like forged denominations. Reassigning the neighborhood with a casual flick of their cigarettes. Rubber wristbands matching the hue of a sky in strange transition.
No, I repeated.
No.
No.
No.
I tore a fresh beer from the plastic rings, and popped myself another round.
Went home and sat at my bridge table.
Baseball bat resting on my right shoulder.
Savages knocking on my basement door.
The Last Time I Saw Blondie.
Last night on earth, it felt like, and the threshold was dressed in grapevines and parched skies.
I tapped my pen against the dusty pages of a blank notebook. Pressed my back against the wooden chair and pretended to scratch away a couplet of imaginary words. Temporarily distracted by a chorus of laughter, eyes forward.
I didn’t know most of them, but the percentages weren’t bad, and the night lights played tricks on us all. Waves from the pool sent flashback ripples on the collection of teenagers, drinking, smoking. Singing in dissonant Spanish lyrics.
I gave myself a few seconds with Sonia. Her black hair spilled over dark features, angular nose, skinny legs crossed, cat napping in her lap. She must have felt the weight of my thoughts, explicit details of that one night staring out her window.
She looked up, eyes the texture of a lunar eclipse. Teeth red with wine, lips one or two years gone, so recent I could taste it on my tongue through the curtains of her smile.
Shirt a tattered taste of royal blue, hanging loosely down one shoulder.
I said it out loud, in a language she didn’t know, words the entire world had been forced to memorize. “I love you.”