No Help For The Homeless
Bernadette said ask no questions when on the way to Katz's we passed a downtrodden man unlocking "his" bicycle cable with a pair of bolt-cutters.
The next day, like the most recent Miss USA "caught up in the whirlwind of New York," I found myself discussing needles with a Midtown Manhattan man in a spartan cubicle ten stories up. He was very professional about it, asking me if I'd ever used the needles before and I confessed that I had never. He assured me that they were the finest sterile and disposable one time use needles and that if I would initial here and sign there we could begin with a procedure that would have me lying prone on a table while the man hammered gently, needles into my flesh. I don't know why I had to drag Miss USA into my ill-conceived analogy but there it is.
Walking back Downtown I got behind the clopping cadence of a high-booted woman and trailed her for blocks until it suddenly hit me that I was tapped into her high-heeling drumbeat and therefore a bit of a stalker, and at that moment was sure she thought the same, so I passed her and stayed in front long enough to show her a thing or two about what it feels like to be a stalker, before turning left on St. Marks to Ave A and then right, continuing Downtown.
Two nights ago killing time before meeting Alice and Cassady for dinner Bernadette showed me around the part of town above the one where we would eat and I saw diamonds and fur coats and the giant Christmas tree and the giant toy store next to the glass cube across from Bergdorf's. On the way back down to eat we passed through Grand Central Station and looked around and up, it's hard not to look up, and discussed acoustics. Bernadette showed me the four corners of a hallway/foyer that one person can whisper into and then a person 50 feet away in the opposite diagonal corner can hear the whispered words. The sound evidently travels up the corner and then up the curving vault of the ceiling and back down the other side. She said it was a goofy touristy thing to do but has enough self-confidence to pull it off whereas I could not talk into a corner, as much because I know they have really cracked down on the babbling homeless freaks of Grand Central as because I lack the self-confidence. Not to mention standing with my face towards the corner reminded me of the minor but obviously lasting shame of grade school punishments. I do believe though that I heard her say can you hear me? And when I asked her in person did you say can you hear me she said yes. So there's that, which leads to this.
Still walking, on Ave A a couple of blocks before Houston and a bearded, aged bum is bent at the waist, with his face towards the sidewalk. He is the letter L fallen forward. He's groaning out the first notes of an unknown yet to be heralded opera and also it seems that he may be near ready to vomit. Or is he choking? It's rush hour and he is missing his chance for handouts from the passersby. I have walked 25 blocks by now and passed thousands of people and this man is the single most compelling example of humanity I have yet seen. He tells so much of the story with the least effort. But I don't really want to interact with him or God forbid get close enough for him to breathe on me or touch me. I'm glad he didn't see me looking at him, or at least I think he didn't. It does feel as if he may have eyes in the top of his head, looking at me glancing at him. When I am just past him, and perhaps in line with a certain pattern of cracks in the sidewalk, I am able or think I am able to hear a whispered message which in addition to being unintelligible has the unique quality of blotting out all other sound. As if the man is talking only to me, his sour breath hot and close and curling the hairs grown too long in my ears, except I am 30 feet away from him by now. He wanted some kind of help but before I knew it I was at Houston watching a kid push his bike across the wide intersection against that particular red light which is as good as the green one.
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