New York City: Part 1

New York City

Part I

Any human being not bed-ridden or imprisoned is...by sheer force of life, a fairly peripatetic creature. We wander about....some of us trapped in a Chuck Berry tune with "no particular place to go".....others taking trips and zeroing in on GPS blips. I'm no exception. I'm hardly a traveler, but I'm mobile. I zig-zag. My wanderings aren't quite as varied as I'd like, but I'm on the move and it's a sustaining circumstance. The one splendid and prevailing facet of any expedition is the fascinating and impressive unforeseen. Whom shall I meet on the road? What will I find over there?

I recently returned from a delightful little trip to New York City. I happen to be friends with a soon to be remarkable teacher and a rockstar(jealous?). Lou and Jamie, my benefactors, one day found themselves in a collectively munificent mood and decided to free me from the oft-inhabited grotto of my bedroom and invited me to accompany them on one of their frequent trips to Jamie's aboriginal residence on Long Island. I of course accepted and was soon packed into Jamie's truck zooming down the thruway toward bright nights in the city lights! Oh boy!

My clothes and toiletries were rattling beside me in a duffel bag donated to me by Lou. Why didn't I have my own bags? I did! I had a suitcase on wheels, man! The thing is....when you're driving two hours in one direction to stay someplace for two nights, a suitcase is rather superfluous and silly. Upon this revelation I transferred by belongings to Lou's red-white- & blue duffel bag....changing my traveling appearance from a business man to an Olympian. I initially packed my things into a suitcase at my mother's urging. It's a funny thing, living home at the age of 25....because you can't be 25 to your mother. When I was cramming jeans into my old book-bag from college my mother saw me at the age of twelve...not entirely certain of 'how to exist' and offered her maternal assistance. I, momma's boy that I absolutely am, took her advice after a quick and futile argument that I "knew what I was doing".

So there I was, grilled cheese and tomato sandwich in my lap, ipod at the ready, demolishing miles at the pace of a homesick twenty-something Long Island princess who misses her family. I made the most of my cramped backseat slot and pulled out all the contortionist stops by folding my body into a one-dimensional wallet-sized photo of myself. I couldn't do jumping-jacks back there, cumbersome as it was... but I could tap my feet and nod my head to the driving pummel of Ringo Star's "Helter Skelter" smash. Donned in a headphone crown and impressed with my own maneuverability I disappeared into a melodious ocean of music and drifted into a rhythmic dream for the greater part of the journey. For awhile it seemed I would realize that rarest of rare circumstances....a comfortable road trip with not even the slightest bother....but a spider would maintain fate's reputation and make way for an editor's note in the narrative. I'll explain in just a moment.

Before we proceed, there's a unique detail that I feel this portion of my story should explain. In order to maintain whatever charm I'm able to conjure up for this tale you should definitely be acquainted with the .1% of Lou's body missing at the time. Lou takes the trip to Long Island at least twice a month on weekends. The last time he made the trek he was robbed of a most valued appendage. The sliding steel & glass door of an Amtrak train pulled a 'smash & grab' job on Lou's left hand and made off with the nail of his middle finger in a gruesome and visceral fashion not at all provoked or deserved by my poor friend. To illustrate the more specific details of this accident would have me writing a blog of a different, and slightly bloodier genre...so I'll just say that Lou's left hand may as well have been severed completely for all the good it did him. Keeping his arm quasi-akimbo with his finger guardedly hovering in front of his chest, Lou was a walking, talking glass antique marked, "handle with care".

So, back on the thruway....Jamie speed-racing, Lou abiding, I suddenly sensed a front-seat fuss. The intrusion on my peaceful state obliged me to open my eyes and interpret the disturbance. What I didn't do was relinquish my headphones. I'm looking at Lou mid-freak-out, imploring Jamie to aid him in what seemed an acute state of agitation and genuine fear; all while listening to the super-cool chorus of "Black Tongue" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For those of you unfamiliar with this garage gem, the chorus is Karen O's devastating declaration, "Boy you're just a stupid bitch and girl you're just a no good dick!" This accompanied by the faded drone of at least 75mph I thus witnessed Lou's provoked reaction to a spider crawling up his leg, and Jamie choosing to ignore his supplications by focusing on driving between the white dashes and keeping her attention tuned in to avoiding almost certain death. Thirty seconds into the mayhem Lou's incapacity was broken by a resolve to win the duel on his own. The spider did manage to make a few freakish advances but Lou refused to be taken out and won the battle with the ferocity of a wounded animal by using his right hand instead of his left; hilarious to witness - impressive I avow! I'm still not entirely certain how Lou defeated the abrupt foe...suffice it to say the timing of Lou's victory and sudden calm must have been destined to occur at that precise moment because my song faded to its close, and the seven second silence between tracks was a fitting companion to the battle's end. Why can't my dreams be so captivating?!

Jumping ahead.....I must have slept for at least another half an hour because when I again awoke the New York City skyline was spread and standing in all its splendor on my right. Missing of course were the once familiar pillars....two soaring concrete giants serving as the man-made middle and index fingers of the city's fist....shaking a portentous warning at distant ships, overhead planes, and New Jersey. Jamie managed to point to the area south of the Trade Center grounds where her father's Firehouse stood. It was effortless, though slightly heart-wrenching from that point of view, to imagine firefighters and law enforcement running into that deluge of dust and debris....that torrent of concrete wreckage and perpetual fire. It was maddening to me that my first thought upon seeing the famous city was a clear and prevailing picture of it's forever recent tragedy - the first inclination of my eyes to seek out the vacancy left in its wake. The trip over the bridge I quickly realized I was driving over was solemn and reflective. The gravity of my memory was yanking me into an exhausting, abstract slide show of where I was and how I learned of what had happened on September 11th. I remembered...grudgingly...and was fortunately pinched back into my vacation by the familair drawl of solid road replacing the light hum of the Long Island overpass. It's a remarkable feeling to witness the absence of the towers. You fix your gaze on the spot, drenched in momentary despair, in search of some fleeting rationality to silence the trying question, "How could this possibly have happened?"

You'll be happy to read that this is the one and only sullen moment of the trip. It's lively and amusing from this point forward.

It was mere minutes before the three of us were swallowed whole by Long Island "superbia". I've only ever seen homeowner's insurance commercials indicative of this kind of utopian society. As a 'for instance'...I was immersed in a sort of midday cordiality that would be nothing short of extraordinary here. Rooftops were being mended. Gardens were being carefully watered. Parents were sweeping there stone porches of the few blades of grass kicked up by the lawnmower leisurely guided by their children. These aren't terribly uncommon things in upstate New York, but there was a natural calm and seemingly genuine want to be performing these chores....And while they were being done the workers would frequently come to an abrupt stop to wave at jogging passers-by. This was a kaleidoscopic comic strip of Leave It To Beaver! My favorite sight during the introduction to Jamie's neighborhood was a young couple walking hand-in-hand, both wearing 'earbud' headphones, just wandering in the sunshine. No need for conversation. The tunes, the sun and the stroll and they had it made. Just two big-city lovers down with music and each other. It was nice to see.

We pulled up to Jamie's house, and my first inward thought was a picture of how nice the inside would be if the outside was any indication to what lay beyond it's front door. We all got out and jiggled our limbs to make sure they hadn't atrophied, grabbed our bags and scattered belongings, and approached the front stoop. This was actually a terrifying sequence for me. I'm not terribly fond of meeting fathers, not having been raised by one myself grown men tend to frigthen me in a foolishly profound way. Don't try to rationalize this apprehension. It's completely abnormal and unprovoked....but it's there, and I've never been able to do anything about it. The concern over meeting Jamie's father had grown from a nervous feeling to a flagrant phobia from the time she first told me about him, to this moment of walking into his fortress. Of course it was a fortress! The fifteen second walk from the truck to the door had contorted my senses from relief of arrival to that climactic scene from Ghostbusters II. I was Bill Murray walking into the museum and Jamie's dad was Viggo. "Please don't let Sigourney Weaver be unconscious on the floor", I said to myself.......As it happened, I was met by consolation and disappointment; the former brought on by Jamie's dad having been at work, the latter by the extended suspense produced by his absence. We were met instead by Jamie's mother Evelyn, whose warm and welcoming gestures toward me melted away my momentary jitters and induced me to launch full-tilt into complements of the resplendent interior. These weren't feigned appraisals either. It was a beautiful house; without and within, and I was its guest.

End of Part 1

To be concluded next weekend....6/27 ~ 6/28

Hope you come back....