I'll Be Your Everything (27 page)

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Authors: J.J. Murray

BOOK: I'll Be Your Everything
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Chapter 26
 
W
e’re much quieter on Thursday.
I didn’t think it would ever be possible.
We’re actually kind of shy, trying to be all business. We wander with the bike and two helmets, my tote bag clipped to the rack in back, me in boots, my North Face jacket, and brown corduroys (about as dressy as I want to be for this shot), Tom in jeans and a sweatshirt. Tom carries the photography bag over his shoulder and holds my little hand with his big hand. To anyone watching, they’d think we were two young (hey, twenty-seven and thirty-four
aren’t
old) lovers out on a stroll on a cool but sunny fall day.
We are actually looking for the largest pothole in Brooklyn.
We find a nice fat canyon on Dean Street in Boerum Hill in front of an immaculate row of redbrick brownstones. The pothole seems so out of place for such a nice block, but it’s November, and I read somewhere that there are 73,000 unfilled potholes in Brooklyn. Who goes around and counts them all? Your tax dollars at work. It’s obvious that even Boerum Hill isn’t immune to bad roads. The problem is a red Honda Element parked dangerously close to where we’d have to land after our leaps. I set up the tripod on the sidewalk near a metal railing and take a few quick shots as some cars go by.
“You’re thinking Photoshop, aren’t you?” Tom asks.
I snap away, even though I know very little about this camera. Auto-focus is the bomb. “I don’t want either of us eating a bumper today.”
“We could find another pothole,” he says.
I look at the pothole. “This is by far the deepest one I’ve ever seen. Sound echoes in that thing. We may even find Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart down there. We will use this one somehow.”
I swing the tripod a few feet into the street and take several more shots with the black railing and a door framed in the background.
“I could try,” Tom says.
“I like your teeth.”
Tom places the bike in the pothole and swings up onto it. “What if I make it fly?”
I knew he was Superman. “Go for it.” I ready the camera.
Tom bends his legs, hunches down, then yanks up on the handlebars, and the bike jumps about a foot off the ground.
Very cool. “Do that again, and look straight ahead with a smile on your face.” I snap away, reminding him to smile, reminding him to look ahead, encouraging him to be Superman. I lower the tripod after about twenty “jumps” to make it seem that he’s leaping higher.
“Your turn.” He takes over camera duties as I get on. “Remember to smile, look ahead, and be cute, Superwoman.”
I have trouble keeping the bike balanced, and my first few attempts only raise up the front wheel.
“Wheelies are so cool,” he says, clicking away.
The first time I completely get my balance, I drop down, bend my legs, and jerk up.
“Three inches,” he says. “Didn’t even clear the top of the pothole.”
Shoot. “This bike is heavy, Tom.”
He lies on the sidewalk beside the pothole and points the camera up at me. “Try again.”
“I’ll land on you,” I say.
“Just ... go.”
I make several more attempts until my arms and legs start burning. “No more.”
He turns the camera around. “Take a look.”
I don’t know what settings he used, but it looks as if I’m much higher above the pothole than I really was. I’m even smiling. “How’d you do that?”
“I read the manual.”
“When?” We fell asleep together and woke up together.
“While you were dreaming. I couldn’t sleep.”
I don’t even remember dreaming. Weird. I always remember my dreams. I smile at Tom. Yeah, he’s the reason I’m forgetting them now. I was in the arms of my dream all night.
An elderly white woman wearing pink slippers, plain white tube socks, and a parka over a pale yellow housedress covered with flowers comes out of her brownstone. “You from DOT?”
The Department of Transportation? Is she kidding? Tom and I are actually
visible
.
Tom smiles. “Good morning, and no, ma’am.”
She stands next to the bike and stares at the pothole. “I’ve been calling about this eyesore for weeks.”
“It’s a dandy,” Tom says.
“Tell me about it.” She looks at Tom, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Then what are you doing?”
Hmm. Camera. Tripod. We must be taking pictures. “We’re doing an ad campaign for this Peterson bicycle,” he says. “Do you know who owns the red Honda?”
“You’re selling a bike by taking a picture of a pothole?” she asks.
“Well, we actually want to jump the pothole,” I explain, “and the red Honda is in the way.”
She looks at me. “What for?”
“To show the bike’s capabilities,” I say. “You know, this bicycle is able to leap deep Brooklyn potholes in a single bound. You know, Superwoman, Superman.”
She blinks at me. “That’s crazy. The best place for a bicycle is on the ground.”
I can’t argue with that. “Yeah, it is. How would you sell this bike?”
She looks the bike over from back to front. “Oh, I don’t know much about advertising. I ran a market with my husband for fifty years, but food sells itself.” She slides her wrinkled hand over the seat. “This bicycle reminds me of my first Schwinn. Mine had fenders. Chrome. A basket on the front. A little bell.”
“Did it have tassels?” I ask.
Her face erupts into the sweetest smile. “Oh yes. Pink and white ones. And whitewall tires. I used to ride it all the way to Coney Island and back when I was a young lady.”
“You still have it?” Tom asks.
“Oh no,” she says, a trace of sadness in her voice. “It’s long gone.”
Tom takes her picture.
“You just took my picture,” she says. “Did you get my good side?” The woman is a born flirt.
Tom takes out a little notepad. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes widen. “Anne Collier. Is this really for an ad, like on a billboard?”
“That’s what we’re hoping for, ma’am,” Tom says. “Why don’t you move it to the sidewalk. By the railing.” He takes several shots in succession. “You want to ride it?”
“Oh, oh my,” she says. “I haven’t ridden a bicycle in sixty years.”
I know she wants to ride it, even after sixty years. “Would you like to try?” I ask. “It’s a very safe bicycle.” I offer her my helmet.
“Well, I suppose I could try,” she says.
I help her with the helmet, and Tom helps her up onto the bike, steadying the handlebars while I hold the back tire in place.
“Well, I’m up here,” she says.
“I’m going to let go,” Tom says, “and you can just coast if you want to.”
“Okay,” she says, “but don’t let me fall.”
“I won’t,” Tom says.
Her face is shining! This is so beautiful.
Tom lets go, Mrs. Collier pushes down on the pedal, and as she coasts down the sidewalk, Tom runs backward and shoots away, Mrs. Collier’s housedress fluttering behind her.
She even shouts, “Whee!”
She squeezes the brakes too hard and nearly falls, but Tom catches and steadies her. He helps her off, and they walk back to me.
He turns the camera around to her. “Look.”
“Ha! That’s me!” She beckons me over. “Oh, would you look at my face! Ooh, my hair is flying every which way! And I’m wearing slippers and white socks! I look a sight! Ha!”
I get a look.
That
is a picture of pure joy. That is a picture of pure abandon.
“It’s like I’m riding my first bike all over again,” she says.
Goose bumps race up my legs to my chin.
Tom blinks at me and mouths, “Wow.”
I quickly write that one down. I note her address. “Mrs. Collier, thank you for being such a good sport.”
“Um, it’s Mrs. Harland Collier. Harland is ... no longer with us, but I still keep his name. He’s why I rode all the way down to Coney Island so often.”
That’s so sweet and sad.
She looks from Tom to me. “Are you two ... an item?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say quickly. “Yes, we are.”
“I knew it.” She folds her arms in front of her. “I could see it in your eyes when I was watching from the window. Harland and I ran our market for fifty years together over in Carroll Gardens. Isn’t it wonderful to work with the man you love?”
“Yes.” I smile at Tom. “Yes, it is.”
“When will I be up on a billboard?” she asks.
“We have to win the account first,” I say. “But if we win, very soon.”
“Wonderful,” she says. “You’ll let me know where?”
“I have your address,” I say. “We’ll even send you a copy.”
“Thank you, thank you,” she says. “Just think. If they had filled in that pothole, I wouldn’t have ridden a bicycle today.”
We leave her beaming, just beaming.
Tom and I practically skip away. “We need to get to a park,” he says, “and we need to get more people riding this thing, the older the better, every possible ethnicity.”
Now there’s a plan! “It’s like I’m riding my first bike all over again. Why didn’t we think of that?”
Tom shrugs. “Maybe we’re too young.”
Chapter 27
 
O
ur first few attempts at coaxing people to ride the bicycle are unsuccessful.
“You must be joking!”
“Are you crazy? You want I should break my
other
hip?”
“Is this some TV show where you pull a prank on someone? Where are the hidden cameras? Is that one over there up in that tree?”
“I never learned to ride.”
“Is it safe? Anything you have to wear a helmet to ride
cannot
be safe.”
But then we meet Arnie, a bowlegged black man who has to be at least eighty, in Cadman Plaza Park. He jumps right onto the bike and takes it for a five-minute spin. He circles Tom several times, and Tom keeps on snapping away. After Arnie, we have a line of people waiting to try. Some even ride with no hands! Their faces shine. They literally glow with joy. No model could re-create that joy, even if they were paid to do so. I keep track of names and addresses, promise to send all of them copies, even if we didn’t use them, and three even ask where they could buy the bike!
“It’s better built than my car. Of course, just about everything is built better than my car these days.”
“Just look at that craftsmanship. Handmade, you say? I believe it.”
“So smooth I thought I was riding on air.”
“I didn’t know they made bikes like these anymore.”
Fifteen
elderly people ride the bike. Seven men, eight women, none under fifty-five. Hispanic, black, Asian, white, Jewish, Italian, even the cutest Russian woman who didn’t want to give the bike back!
“We have to use the word
home
somehow, too,” I say as we rest under a tree, my back against his chest, my legs splayed out in the leaves. “I feel it.”
“You sure?”
I’m sure. “That word ties everything else together.”
Tom throws some leaves into the air. “Home of the brave?”
I bite my lower lip. “How about ...‘A memory of home—it’s like I’m riding my first bike all over again.’ What do you think?”
He sniffs a little sigh and shakes his head. “You don’t need me at all, Shari. That’s brilliant. I’ll just take the pictures from now on. You do all the thinking, okay? I’ll just nod my head.”
That’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten. “Keep thinking, Tom. Brilliance is not always perfection.”
He tickles me. “Stop quoting Cringe.”
“I’m her, remember?”
He turns me to him. “Never.” He kisses me softly. “We can’t stay here all day doing this.”
“Why not?”
He looks up. “Beautiful day for taking pictures. Didn’t Mr. Dunn want a New York landmark spread, too?”
I nod. “Do we still need to do it?”
“It’s up to you.”
I like that phrase very much. It’s up to me. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say that to me. I don’t think anyone has actually said that to me my entire life. “I think we should still do it. The light is so magical today.”
He takes my picture. “The light, um, was especially magical just then.”
I blush. “We have to get down to Coney Island, then back to the Brooklyn Bridge, over to Times Square. Tom, we need to get a move on.” And now I’m sounding like him! This man has already rubbed off on me.
“I wish we had a car so we could go take pictures of this bike,” he says.
I roll my eyes at the irony. “Ha-ha.”
“No, I wish we had my car. It’s in Great Neck crying out to me. Can’t you hear it crying, Shari?” He pulls out his cell phone, hits a few buttons, scrolls down ...
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Calling your car?” Maybe he’s Batman.
“I’m getting us a taxi,” he says.
“Right,” I say. “We’re going to have a taxi driver take us to all these places so we can take pictures of a bicycle.”
“As long as he gets paid, why should he care?” He punches in a number. “Yes. I need a taxi for the rest of the day ... Don’t worry about the expense, I’ll pay it. And if you can, send your oldest, most experienced driver, the one who knows the city best.... I’m at Cadman Plaza Park with my girlfriend and a red and black bicycle. You can’t miss us.” He closes his phone.
“Your girlfriend,” I say.
“Should I have said something else?”
I nod. “I am not a girl.”
“Well, hot, sexy friend who makes interesting noises during booty rubs wouldn’t have—”
I don’t let him finish. Leaves are very effective for stuffing into a nasty man’s pants. I’m sure I’ll be finding leaves in my bed this evening.
“You also said, ‘You can’t miss us,’” I say. “What’d you mean by that?”
He smiles. “We’re the two happiest people here.”
Uh-huh. We are, but I think he meant something else.
When the taxi driver shows up, I immediately think I’m talking to George Burns, only he wears Mr. Magoo’s glasses, Speed Racer’s racing gloves, and a World War II bomber jacket. I’m actually a little taller than he is.
I immediately like this driver very much.
Tom asks him to open the trunk.
“You’re putting the bike in the trunk?” he asks in a typical Brooklyn accent. “Are you hurt?”
“No sir,” Tom says.
The driver opens the trunk, Tom sets the bike inside, but the trunk lid won’t close.
“Has to close,” the driver says. “Regulations.”
Tom maneuvers the bike out of the trunk and fits it into the backseat.
“Now where are you two gonna sit?” the driver asks.
I smile. “Up front with you. I’m Shari, and this is Tom.”
He looks at each of us for a moment and sighs. “Carl.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I don’t bite, Carl. Tom and I are taking pictures of this bike at various New York landmarks for an ad campaign.”
“Yeah?” Carl says. “Who do you represent?”
“Methuselah’s Breezy Hiccup,” Tom says.
“Never heard of ’em,” Carl says. “You out of Jersey?”
“No,” I say. “We’re straight out of Brooklyn.”
“With an office in Great Neck,” Tom adds.
Carl squints at me. “Brooklyn
and
Great Neck? Is he kidding?”
“Yes,” I say, sticking out my tongue at Tom. “So is it all right if we ride in the front with you, Carl?”
“Long as you pay,” Carl says, “you can sit anywhere you like.”
When we get in, Carl just lets the taxi idle.
Oh yeah. Where to? “Where are we going first, Tom?” I ask.
“Um, Carl,” Tom says, “we want you to give us suggestions for where to take pictures, and maybe you can even pose on the bike.”
“Suggestions?” Carl says. “For places to take pictures? In
this
city?”
“I know, stupid question,” Tom says.
“Well, you have to go to the Garden, Yankee Stadium, and the Empire State for starters,” Carl says.
“And Coney Island,” I add.
Carl nods. “Definitely. Gotta take a picture of that bike on the boardwalk. And Central Park, Radio City, Sylvia’s ...”
Carl knows about Sylvia’s home cooking in Harlem? “Why Sylvia’s?”
“You got me all day, right?” he asks.
We nod.
He straightens up his gloves. “I gotta eat, don’t I?”
And then ... we see the city from a Peterson bicycle’s perspective. We hit the Brooklyn Bridge again, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Central Park, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Flatiron Building, the Grand Central Terminal, Madison Square Garden, the New York Public Library, the New York Stock Exchange, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Temple Emanu-El, Times Square, the United Nations, the World Trade Center site, and Coney Island. We don’t spend a great deal of time at each spot, and Carl never turns off his Sinatra music, giving anyone watching us something to sing or hum. I impress Tom with my ability to play dashboard drums along with Buddy Rich, and Tom blows me away with his flawless rendition of Perry Como’s “Catch a Falling Star.”
This job is a blast!
As the sun starts to set, Carl heads toward Harlem, and I smile because I’m hungry, too. After taking photographs of the bicycle at the Apollo Theater, Abyssinian Baptist Church, Hotel Theresa, the Lenox Lounge, and Strivers’ Row, we get to Sylvia’s, the world-renowned soul food restaurant on Lenox Avenue and 127th Street. Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Magic Johnson—stars, movers and shakers have eaten there.
Carl gets the chicken livers sautéed with onions and peppers and covered with gravy. Tom and I do not. We eat smothered pork chops and barbecue ribs off each other’s plates, and I am much faster with my fork than Tom is. We try to get Sylvia herself to get on the bike after we finish.
“Child, that ain’t for me,” she says. “I got my feet, and they’ve been carrying me just fine so far.”
Carl, however, proudly gets on the bike in front of the restaurant with Sylvia standing nearby.
It is easily our best shot of the day.
After a quick stop at an ATM to get more cash, Carl drops us off at the Brooklyner, and Tom pays him.
You don’t want to know the final tally. Carl can probably retire now and move to Jamaica.
I walk around to Carl’s window. “I’m gonna miss you, Carl.” I kiss his cheek.
Carl doesn’t speak, but the glimmer of a smile lights on his lips. He nods at Tom, and he rolls off.
Once inside the apartment, we load all the pictures into my computer, and they all look fantastic. Because of that last picture of Carl, we have sixteen billboards (or web banners and magazine ads) that speak of joy, freedom, America, and old-fashioned values. The fifty landmark shots are decent, but they pale in comparison to our real New Yorkers.
“These are incredible,” Tom says. “Just incredible.”
“All thanks to a Brooklyn pothole and Mrs. Harland Collier,” I say, starting work on the web banners. “What should we do with the landmark shots?”
He massages my neck. “Not sure. Mr. Peterson could run them in the New York market. Newspaper, magazine.”
I lean back and he kisses me. I lean forward. “If you keep massaging me, I won’t get these done.”
He stands at the window. “I wish I could start on the videos ...”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Tomorrow we’ll go to your studio. It’s late, I ate too much, and I just want to make these perfect.” Click and drag, shrink. Adjust contrast, brightness.
“What about Bryan?” Tom asks. “Isn’t he coming tomorrow night?”
Oh yeah. Bryan. Why do I keep forgetting to tell Tom about this? “I should have told you this earlier,” I say with a sigh. I should have told him the day I did it. “I, um, called him when we got back to JFK. Bryan won’t be coming. We are officially finished.” I watch Tom’s reaction in the reflection of the window, and he looks ... puzzled? That’s not the relief I expected to see.
“You gave him a ‘Dear John’ over the phone,” Tom says.
I nod. Yep. Heartless me.
“How’d he take it?” Tom asks.
“He was sad,” I say. So was I. “But he’ll get over it.”
He turns my chair away from the computer and faces me. “I’ll bet he was devastated. If I were in his position, I’d come storming up here after you.”
“He won’t, now let me finish these.” I try to turn my chair back to the computer, but he holds my chair in place. “What?”
“What if he
does
come up here?” he asks.
I sigh. “But I won’t be here, right? I’ll be at your little bungalow in Great Neck. I am staying the weekend, right?”
He searches my eyes. “But you knew him for twelve years.”
And you didn’t answer my question. “More like eighteen years. What’s your point?”
He shakes his head. “Eighteen years, and you can just ... call him up and dump him.”
Oh. That’s his point. “It wasn’t easy, Tom. He was ... he was my first. My first real date, my first boyfriend, my first lover.” The first man who almost asked me to marry him not ten steps from here. “Why are you so concerned anyway? I thought you’d be happy that I’m completely free.”
He lets go of my chair and returns to the window. “I’m putting myself in his place. I’m trying to feel how it would feel if you gave up on me. I don’t think I would ever get over losing you.”
“You won me, Tom, so there’s nothing to lose, right?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I have the strangest feeling that Bryan is going to be here tomorrow, that’s all. He has known you for eighteen years. He grew up with you. He was your first. Don’t you think he’ll fight for you?”

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