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Email From NOLA IIz
NY City. At a Deli near Central Park I paid $17 for a few small bags of ice so we could keep beverages cold at the little get together we were having off of 5th Ave. Across the street from this large 5th floor apartment is, well, every damn thing, it's NY what do you think?, but notably, there is a bodega that sells the cheapest damn corkscrew you could ever imagine, and upon every use a piece would break off of it until yesterday, the day after the party, I was reduced to using the blunt end of what was formerly the sharp screw part of the device, to push the damn cork into a bottle of wine.
As I double parked in Jersey City the afternoon of the party, waiting for Otis's most delicious, delivered vegetarian chili, I was witness to a twenty minute sidewalk cell phone tirade by a young woman who informed me, her man, and every available ear on the block about what a complete low-life shit he, her baby's daddy, was.
I do not approach NY these days with the relative gusto of my youth, and so yesterday, the day after the party, I took advantage of this large space, with steam heat so ample that the windows are always open, and laid around, watching the miserable Saints, and then the miserable Cowboys, on TV. The small two person elevator opens right into the apartment and I would go down periodically to smoke a cigarette and wander no farther than the immediate block or two, and every time would see a restaurant or shop or notable building that, I swear to God, wasn't there two hours previous.
An affluent looking man, with grey burr-cut hair and an ear ring and an overcoat looking like it might cost close to what I've spent as down payment on New Orleans ghetto property, was mad at a bus driver double parked in front of his vehicle, inside of which sat his grandson, and this man in the truest tradition of the holiday season, went so totally ballistic, foaming at the mouth, red-faced, veins popping, that the young gangbanger walking in front of me turned around a couple of times with a look of shock, or maybe it was train-wreck anticipation.
I went around the corner after that and stood out front of the grocery store and listened to hip-hop coming from a vehicle across the street. Two teenagers were dancing and then all of a sudden they started to beat the shit out of a homeless person, throwing him to the ground and then kicking him in the kidneys and side of the head. The homeless person lay apparently dead on the sidewalk while passersby stepped around him. After two full minutes laying motionless the homeless person jumped up, danced in place, and then ran off around the next corner, following his friends who had pretended to beat up his pretended homelessness.
I could have gone to Starbucks for coffee this morning but I prefer not to shop at coffee houses where they blank stare you if you go in and order, "coffee." So I went to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street and stood queued behind a few morning commuters and right after I ordered ( by saying, I would like a large coffee), the woman beside me said, at full volume, (and as far as I knew, apropos of nothing)--You owe me an apology. And then she reiterated several times that one of us owed her a damn apology. All five of the workers behind the counter and the five of us queued up glanced at each other to see which one of us was shitheel of the moment. It was one of the workers who had inadvertently taken someone else's order before hers. There was profusely sincere and soothing apology, from every one of the workers, and then a heartfelt--you have a nice day--and the woman almost cried, and said, thank you so very much. Apparently because she was so happy to be even in the proximity of the merest insinuation of the possibility of actually having a nice day.
Seasons Greetings from NYC, woohoo.