The Colossus of New York (4 page)

RAIN

OUT ON the street they hardly notice the clouds before it starts raining. The rain comes down in sheets. Drenched all at once, not drop by drop. The first drop is the pistol at the start of the race and at that crack people move for shelter, any ragtag thing, they huddle under ripped awnings, the doorway of the diner, suddenly an appetite for coffee. Pressed up against buildings as if on the lam. Little sprints and dashes between horizontal cover. Dry here. Surely it will stop soon, they think. They can wait it out. It cannot last forever.

SUSPECTING such an eventuality, the umbrella salesmen emerge to make deals. They wait all week for this and have ample supply of one-dollar bills. The virtues of their merchandise are self-evident. She carries an umbrella every day no matter what the news says because you can never tell and is vindicated by moisture. It pops open. The doused press down on reluctant buttons and the mechanisms pop open. Underneath their personal domes, they are separated from the peasants. To be this easily isolated from all worry. The silver tips dart and jab for eye sockets. Probability says many are blinded by pointy umbrella spokes and you are surely the next victim. At the corner he wrestles with a ghost for the soul of his umbrella. The gust gains the upper hand as he waits for the light to change and the umbrella is ripped inverse. Many are lost. The wounded, the fallen in this struggle, poke out of trash cans, abandoned, black fabric rippling against split chrome ribs. This is their lot. Either in the trash can or forgotten in the restaurant, the movie theater, the friend’s foyer, spreading their slow puddles across floors. Forming an attachment to an umbrella is the shortest route to heartbreak in this town. Any true accounting would reveal that there are only twenty umbrellas in this city, in constant movement from palm to palm. Bunch of Lotharios. So do we learn loss from umbrellas.

THE NEW RIVERS along curbs shove newspaper and grit to gutters. Too big to squeeze through grates the garbage bobs in place like the unstylish waiting for nightclub doors to open. The liquid sinks below. The alligators don’t mind. Eventually a clog sends a puddle advancing. A sliver of moon, the surface of the puddle is tormented by brief craters. Each drop explodes and extends the surface of the puddle. Doing their part for the water cycle, the bus wheels return the puddle to air again. Complacent beneath her umbrella she is thoroughly soaked when she stands too close to the curb. The enemy came from below. The metropolitan transit authority reinforces old lessons: every puddle wants to hug you. If not heavy motor vehicles then it is the children in their bright red boots detonating puddles on people. Knock it off.

IT FINDS the nape of your neck easily. It traces the length of your spine greedily. The long list of errands shrinks into what people can do in the least amount of water. So much for the dry cleaning. All over town the available number of cabs shrinks as thin fingers tilt and quiver at the edges of traffic. The bastard one block upriver gets it before you can stick a hand out, just as you are someone else’s bastard one block downriver. Epithets are tossed against the flow of traffic, upon the unbeknownst. Everybody just wants to get home, so they make calculations and jockey. What’s a better block for a cab. East or west, up a street or down. Schemes multiply and divide the longer you stand there. The supercomputer of cab-catching. Sixth Avenue is uptown and Seventh is down, important variables. The time of day, the direction and force of the wind, sun spots, that Pacific typhoon, all important considerations in the acquisition of a cab. She hailed it because she thought it was empty, but it speeds by with smug fares in the backseat who do not even notice her. Day like this all it takes is a little cab fare in your pocket to become royalty.

COUPLES FORCED into doorways kiss, coached by the cinema. One of them says one two three and they make a break out of the latest slim refuge. They are reminded after a few steps of how cold the rain is. They stop at the next outpost to catch their breath and forget how cold the rain is. This is the start of her long illness. The wrapping would be ruined by the water so he holds the present under his coat, lending to his belly the contours of an absurd pregnancy. She hides in the bus stand. She hasn’t taken the bus in years and feels a secret terror. Pressed up against other people: what’s the point of money. In shelter they make plans. He doesn’t know where he is supposed to be because the paper got wet and now the address is a smudge. Lost at intersections. Look at all the trenchcoats—it is the detectives’ convention come at last to take care of all our loose ends. Up in all the windows, leaning on the sills, the dry people look down on the street and think, Glad I’m not out in that. As if they are without problems. Open half an inch, the window in the next room is still open wide enough to get the floor wet before they notice.

A MAN of liberal convictions, he got this umbrella by pledging money to public radio. It sends the message that he supports public radio. Has a matching tote bag. Now no one will suspect she has been crying. After a block it is evident that they both will not fit under the compact umbrella and one must make do with a dry shoulder. Is this the end of their love. The weekend outdoorsman strides through in his appropriate gear, this is no cliff face or ravine, and he is well equipped. Her glasses are too wet to see through so she takes them off and squints through precipitation. When she gets inside she’ll use up napkins. Unable to decide which side of the bed is more comfortable, the windshield wipers toss and turn. Sleepless like rivers. How swiftly the newspaper becomes a sodden brick over his head. It doesn’t keep him dry at all despite clichés. From street level as he looks up into the clouds each advancing drop is elongated, a comet, until it hits his cheek and crashes. On his lips it doesn’t taste so bad. One drop hits his eye and stings more than mere water should. He blinks. Sooty streaks trail under windowsills. Every building a coquette, a face powdered by industry. This so-called cleansing leaves behind more than it washes away. But then few things are as advertised.

NEW SOCKS tint soaked toes blue. The shoes take forever to dry. Last time it rained he put them under the radiator and hours later they were warped and twisted, as if it were agony to let the water go. Next time he will remember the water repellent spray. It is available at local pharmacies. Secure in her foresight, she wonders about the etymology of the word galoshes. Of course it is a ridiculous thing to walk around with plastic bags tied over your shoes, but do you know how much these things cost. The puddle at the curb is deeper than it looks, an ancient loch. Trying to jump over it you fall short and the lagoon spills into your shoes. Tonight the bunched balls of his socks will dry and stiffen into dingy fists, and roll under the bureau, where they will hide for months and foment.

HE CLIMBS UP the steps and realizes that while he was in the subway the whole world changed. It’s all gray. Pull lapels tight. Only the gargoyles seem happy, up there on the roofs. If you’re lucky when you die, you become one and get to hang out here forever. He says, You think the money they get paid, the weathermen would get it right for a change. Remembering only disasters. The stock boy rips up cardboard boxes to lay down in the entrance of the store. All our vain gestures. It makes the boss happy, it’s how they did it in the old days. The newspaper vendor takes all these wet bills in stride. But no one wants to buy a wet newspaper. The stacks got wet before he could cover them up. In the competing store across the street the news piles up underneath a transparent tarp. Survival of the fittest, but of course he is not saddled with an idiot nephew. In the phone booth preparing for the next sortie. Lay all that money out for the hairdresser and now this. They will drag their feet across doormats and track floors nonetheless. Identical twins wear identical yellow slickers, out of which identical noses poke. What’s this in the raincoat pocket. Apparently the last time it rained he saw a romantic comedy.

AT THE CORNER it’s worse, thrown into their faces like needles or proof. The wind whips it around. Once they find a parking space they decide to wait it out and make out, tilting the car seats back to uncomfortable angles. A nipple gives against a thumb. Once the engine is off they can make out the rain’s true incantation on the roof of the car and clench each other tighter. Safe here. The talk always comes around to the weather. Underneath the scaffolding the conversations among strangers range from grunts to bona fide connections. Quite serendipitous. It leaks. From block to block the people display an assortment of strides, every station between a walk and a run. Each has a personal strategy of how best to move in this. The best of them gave up long ago. The best of them cease stooping, stand up straight, stop dodging, take it as it comes. Apparently they are supposed to get wet, so they give in. It is like letting go of something and a small miracle wrung from accident. Walking slowly and naturally in this downpour, they are avoided by the more sensible, who walk swiftly around them, unsettled by these strange creatures. Citizens of a better city.

IT STOPS. From the river you can see the clouds haunch over adjacent boroughs. What transpired is a problem for sewers now, out of sight and out of mind. Snapping the umbrella open and closed as if it will scare the water off. It pulsates like a jellyfish in bleak fathoms. She tries to button the strap on her umbrella but keeps losing the snap in the folds. Now her hands are all wet. Some people think it’s a trick and keep their umbrellas open for blocks just in case. They walk out of the movie theater and say to each other, Did it rain, pointing at puddles. Yes, they are sure of it, something happened and they missed it.

BROADWAY

ONCE A YEAR he takes the walk. There can be no destination. No map. Live here long enough and you have a compass. Who among them can complain, unanimous weather sparks the same phrases downtown and up: Nice out, isn’t it. Borough to borough. So he walks. He will ask no questions this day. The street will not scheme this day. Let it happen. These are the terms of the truce he has made with Broadway.

WALK. Hands in pockets or hands rowing through this surf. It will not matter. No outsmarting. Only suckers try to double-cross Broadway and it always ends up in one-way tickets out of town. Atop poles, street signs name distance. The names of men of substance haunt street signs until they are exorcised by numbers. When they run out of names intersections opt for mathematics, but what kind of equations emerge from such uneven terms, Broadway times Eleventh Street equals what. Must have left my abacus in my other pants. Signs go, Last Chance and Everything Must Go. For a limited time only you can have my heart on layaway. Around him they all have payment plans, arrangements to pay for what they want. And what is he after. He walks.

NICE OUT, isn’t it. Children avoid fissures in the sidewalk for fear it will give their mothers a spinal injury. Like a child walking in a straight line no matter who what gets in the way. A vow against swerves. See how long you can do it. Obstacles obstruct, the ones on the street and the ones he carries with him. Look down at all that stuff in the cracks in the sidewalk. Let us organize a salute to all the plucky weeds in this town, all those anonymous flowering strivers, with their intrepid shoots and improbable points of purchase. Such exemplary citizens. Seeds seek grime, no shortage of grime, no lack of cracks for grime. This place is falling apart, after all. If you listen close you can hear it. Day by day you contribute to it. You think this place sucks the life from you but in fact it is the opposite. This bosom.

WALK AND FALTER in its great rut. It bulldozed across the city, grinding through grid. Diagonal across appalled avenues, scaring parks out of the way, squeezing buildings into flat iron. At night a well-lit scar. In the daylight Everest. All of you, walk. We grunt and moan. As if this road were not more or less level but jungle path. Just hours before, rush hour made a trail. Trampling, taming inclines, making mistakes for them. But the undergrowth has burst up to flail eyes since, shrubbed up to fill footprints, and now all of them are scouts bending back mean branches. Natives and tourists alike bat at assorted mosquitoes. He’s lived here all his life. Sometimes he leaves but he’s never been good with languages and two feet over the state line is a foreign tongue. Tourists discover what he takes for granted. They torture guidebooks and argue, say, We’ve passed this way before, traveling in circles like the best old-timers. In this city you always end up where you began. Settle for extending the radius bit by bit, give up on more. He’s lived here all his life and friends flee and she fled, too, but Broadway is still here. He walks and pushes against. Keep pushing and you just might increase your radius. Savor hard-won inches.

TRAPPED AT CORNERS, waiting for the light. They catch up to him. Why bother to overtake if they’re all conniving tortoises, ratified by fable. Hey, here comes the league of sexy moms. Pushing carriages, tilting at curbs, steering progeny across pavement. To be safe and unknowing again. Tiny fingers grab air above cribs. People try to make other people’s babies smile as they wait for the light to change. Strangers are always blurry. A brigade of pregnant ladies waddles with dignity. Three months from now they will blossom into sexy moms, but for now they seek the store that sells clothes for unborn citizens. Uniform them quickly in black. Fetuses fret about what zip code they’ll end up in, tapping against membrane in morse code: renting is for suckers. Too young to know that the womb schools the dimensions of a studio apartment. Contemplate dimensions, this citified dementia. The sky has so much square feet when you’re allowed to see it between buildings. All together now: we’ve been ripped off. But breaking the lease at this point is impossible.

THE LIGHT CHANGES and he has that wish again: that every step he ever took left a neon footprint. Every step, from his first to these. That way he could catch up with himself, track himself through city and years. See that the last time he walked this block he was tipsy or in love. Here determined, there aimless like today, no particular place to go. If he could see his footprints, he’d know his uncharted territories, what was yet, and where never to return. Some of the old stores are gone since last time. What comes at their addresses is bright and shiny like new keys. New keys fit new locks. It is rare here that the new establishment is more downscale and if only he could make his self and ideas like real estate: ever higher. God knows he has tried to keep up with the changing market but his new shirt will only go so far—once they step inside they recognize the same old merchandise and demur. He has swept up, his brain gets so dingy sometimes, but they will not see his renovations and he is a dead trade, something remembered only by old phone books. Blacksmith, knife-sharpener. Walk faster.

WALK UNTIL you drop. Past places he has only been in once and never again, a pizza shop, a greasy spoon, that were refuge on a night or an afternoon, because he didn’t want to be early, because he was between appointments, because he had been hit by the big fear. For ten minutes or half an hour he loitered over the counter, ignored by waitresses or nibbling baked goods, once and never again and now the place is monument to that day, for years and years, windows a little grimier, signs a little more faded until one day it will be a pet store. Walk past that refurbished window without thought, forget you ever stopped there once, new ownership proving relocation of those old yous. Believe this, evicting the truth of things.

AT TIMES like this recalling a few verses from the latest self-help book may be beneficial. To live so close to Broadway, in its radiation day after day. It will make you sick. On this stretch doormen keep out the diseased riffraff, sorting them from the more luxurious epidemics upstairs. On that stretch the dishes never get done until all three plates are dirty, freeing tenants to scribble fraudulent postcards to places they never should have left. And who lives on your floors, your assorted transients and shut-ins. Such a strange bunch. Such thin walls in this place. Ire and compassion have been neighbors for years, eavesdropping on arguments and clucking tongues, but they haven’t seen each other for years. Some of them don’t last. Optimism skipped out on the rent a while back, but the cynic in the penthouse won’t leave until led out by marshals. They lug their suitcases up the ave, on the move once again. There are always cheaper residences if you’re willing to give up your principles. Sign here. Give deposit. They will credit-check your soul.

WALK UNTIL your heart grows heavy with freight. He has fraught corners—some places he passes give him the creeps. Their first date in this restaurant, their last date in that restaurant. His ex used to live upstairs. They made out on that stoop and passersby heckled his technique. He had to make that call, it was very important, and the public phones on this street were cursed, did not work, devoured quarters, and it was disastrous. He has fraught corners and you have yours. Avoid them because you don’t want to be reminded. Pavement that remembers a night best forgotten. Potholes that remind you of sunken places in your spirit. See it this day and proclaim, This block’s got nothing on me. To be free of all that came before, to mold your face to the cliché of this place. Pick your self. Be famous and celebrated. Be a modern artist: pick a busy intersection and proclaim it your masterpiece. The critics love it, applaud your sense of color, wonder how you got the faces like that. An undercurrent of metropolitan alienation, says one. Like the best art, it was right in front of you all along but now you see it for the first time. Like the best art, it will outlast you.

EVERYBODY remembers the city. Some people the city remembers. He is disappearing with every step. Who is he among that crowd. Pick him out among the great unwashed. Wouldn’t it be funny if the city actually gave a damn about you. If you made your mark despite odds, if all this step-taking was actually alms-giving and in one unlikely moment after all these years this place smiled upon you. It would happen like this, on an afternoon much like this, when you are between corners and it begins. Every building is somehow a place you have lived in, good times peer out from between curtains. All the streetlights have agreed to grant you speedy passage, safe passage. That would be something. He trips. His shoes are untied. This is Broadway after all and it will undo you bit by bit.

WALK FARTHER. These things float up and what’s a boy to do. Have these mannequins no shame. What are they wearing, what’s up with their nipples and can I get a date. If only there were zoning laws to regulate strange thoughts. Keep them in other neighborhoods. Only after a few blocks is the sadism of the shoe designer evident. Shop in stores for things, shop on streets for people. You know what you want on your skin. What you choose will wear on you. Forget this block because there’s nothing in your size. There’s always another across the curb and maybe it will be better. Cross quickly and cross fingers, too, tell yourself, Maybe the next block will be better.

THIS IS WHERE they shot that scene from that movie, you know, the one about that guy. The whole city is make-believe after all. Not famous, merely famous-looking, but he really works it. The real celebrities leave craned necks in their wake. I didn’t know he was so short. The uncensored director’s cut of his present state of mind would include multiple shootings, not one bludgeoning and untold car crashes. But he doesn’t have the budget and has to make do with cheap special effects, manic hornhonkers, and obscene gestures. One take unrehearsed mayhem, roll camera, roll sound. Around him people make their musicals, inducting extras from those around them, casting bit players in their big-budget technicolor extravaganzas. No duets, please, no one else to grandstand in the spotlight. The other pedestrains hit their marks, fall dead, and he’s the last man alive in a lonely city finally dramatized. Dance over prostrate bodies as music swells. Every car passing blares this season’s inescapable hit. That radio station and its payola choices. One car passes and another car or storefront picks up the baton to make sure the lyrics are always on your lips. What’s the name of this song, anyway.

WALK TO DRIVE the point home with your feet as if making wine. From gutters, rats exclaim in gutter chorus; life is an argument with the world over time. If anyone were listening, it’d be worth the breath. People on cell phones realize they were cut off blocks ago and wonder if they have the courage to repeat their words. Mixed messages, lost signals. The masters of billboards shuffle messages and enticements, hector and hang above street level. Airbrushed anatomical parts. He receives word of a remarkable new treatment or other indispensable thing. Lacking a pen he tries to memorize the phone number, repeating it to himself in a singsong way until more vulgar ditties shoulder it aside, bassoon of buses rumbling to beat the light, high-heel castanets on cement, and soon all he has is two digits left and his own lost cause. If he had the money he would advertise his weakness on every billboard, along the brick walls of prewar buildings, and hire the squirrelly and deranged to hand out leaflets on busy corners: This is me. But no one would buy the merchandise because they scour billboards for what they don’t have and I got enough mirrors at home. Buy anything in this city and it just adds up to empty plastic bags. Empty plastic bags accumulate in soft white mountains. Where is the vigilante or rogue cop who will rid our streets of these empty plastic bags. Husk of need. Crumple them into each other to save space. Mash down all your unruly things. Make them into wine.

YOU NEED giant’s legs to make progress but it is indisputable: he is walking faster. Without knowing it, he found a way into the street’s rhythm and isn’t it a catchy beat, making his feet sledgehammers, into percussive remaking. Step aside, you urban galoots, move along, you shuffling denizens. He’s coming through, hitting his stride. Don’t Walk switches to Walk the second he hits the curb. The biggest delivery trucks simper and stall, break route. Shopkeepers close shop early for a glimpse, crowd the curb waving his flag, this is something to tell grandchildren. No dog has soiled his path, he does not waver and now the orchestra begins in earnest, he will have his musical after all, nimbly moving in their tuxedos and ball gowns they dive in, rehearsals tuned to this moment. This is my city. He’s the King of Broadway, summoning anthem from potholes and sewer grates. The infrastructure is weak and aged and solid only in one place—under his feet. It will lift him up. There’s an armor the city makes you wear and look at him defenseless, breastplate and helmet dropped back blocks ago, no arm among enemies strong enough to string the arrow that could pierce his skin. Rendering all cowards. Let us bow. No one bows. This kingdom is interior.