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To commemorate 3 months of
in print, we've decided to share with you a few of the subway riding somebodies who wound up on the cutting room floor.
To all the commuters, sight seers, and derelicts on the NYC Subway, ILOANBooks thanks you for keeping it real.
i was walking away from a taxicab, towards home, when carlo and i spotted each other. he was standing in the doorway of waterlaunge smoking a cigarette with one of the club's pretty young girls (who may or may not be hooking, the jury is still out on that). it was about 2am which meant the night was young for waterlaunge.
carlo had a scarf draped stylishly around his hooodie and a glazed, happy look in his eyes. we hadn't seen each other in a year but i could tell he was moving from his thugged out teens into soft and silly drug twenties - which was relatively good news.
he and the girl were familiar with each other and seemed to be friends, like alumni from the same orphanage. it was hard to imagine carlo had been living by himself in bed-stuy for over a year now but he had been. it was my first time at waterlaunge, which was the newborn neighborhood monster. every honest, working family on the block wanted the place closed down. besides accusations of prostitution, the place was known to sell beer to minors, blast music until dawn, and fights were common out front.
i bought us a couple six dollar coronas to drink in plastic chairs at a card table and i thought about prohibition. carlo told me his brother was working at wholefoods in manhattan and sometimes sees famous people. his mother was doing good. he hadn't seen brian in a minute but the two of them were cool now.
there were about twenty people at waterlaunge. all males except the bartenders and the girls dancing to the reggaeton below the light fixtures next to the stereo. you had to yell in order to be heard. everyone knew the police had been scoping the place for weeks and i could have been a cop if not for all the ways that i wasn't. carlo introduced me to some of his friends, one was the son of the owner. he asked me how i knew carlo and i wanted to say...
back in 2005 carlo was a chubby little inconvenience in the package deal of life on jefferson avenue. he and his friend wilbur: taunting the weird white neighbors from behind the handlebars of their bicycles, calling us hipstas from the afternoon stoop in varying degrees of hostility. by 2007 wilbur had disappeared and carlo was in high school. his was the first family of jefferson ave. then there was 2008 when he got moody and spent his nights on h-block. by 2009 i didn't even ask his mom about him because she would say she had no idea what he was up to. in 2010 i moved and so had he.
...but it was easier to just yell, "neighbors."
Like the ghost of Jacob Marley, the mid-90's have returned from the dormant fog of yesteryear to inquire what's become of the present. I've been spending my afternoons obsessively researching basketball shoes from the era - it's no secret this was a golden age for b-ball kicks. It started with some idle eBay window shopping - the Jason Kidds, the Penny 1's and 2's, the Grant Hills... of course the Jordan 11's (probably the first basketball shoe to ever attend a prom).
But it didn't stop there. I became enthralled with shoes I hadn't thought about in 15 years; the Shawn Kemps, the hideous Reebok Shaqnosis, the Air Uptempos with the giant AIR written on the side, the counter-intuitively awesome looking Dikembe Mutumbos, the Converse Larry Johnsons... Looking at these shoes transported me to a forgotten time. A time of Beavis and Butthead and microwaved cheese sandwiches. A time of physical and psychological awkwardness so full of uncertainty that I almost never consult its memories. A relatively shapeless time between Ninja Turtles and drivers licenses.
Revisiting those days through the lens of basketball shoes gives those memories structure and stability in the same way hoops helped me go from childhood to full blown adolescence with minimal insanity. In 1994, after a lifetime of public education, I started 7th grade in Catholic school. We had to wear uniforms so what you wore on your feet became disproportionately critical to how you wanted to present yourself. In other words: shoes were all we had.
It was during this time that I had my all-time favorite kicks. They were blue, black, and white: the colors of the Orlando Magic, my favorite basketball team. I didn't know what the shoes were called but I remember how good they felt. They were super lightweight, with a mesh top and support that made them comfortable as slippers. In fact, during summer these were the first shoes I ever habitually wore without socks. A classmate of mine was wearing the Jordan 11 low tops in Bulls colors and they were structurally similar; our shoes shared the same fundamental appeal.
The Bulls and Magic were the two best teams in the NBA. The Magic had a young Shaquille O'Neal and a pre-injury-plagued Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway who was only getting better. Penny was my favorite player; a lanky point guard with inventive passing skills and a penchant for dunking on fools. I wrote him a letter that year enclosing his rookie card, (in case he didn't already have it) and he sent back a signed 8x10 which I still have. My shoes were representative of my authority as an Orlando Magic fan, likewise my friend with the Jordans was the Bulls expert. In a way only 13 year old boys can, we based our identities on professional athletes.
Now, in 2011, Shaq is a gelatinous looking mound of week old leftover steak and on Facebook my middle school classmates are organizing our 15 year reunion. They are posting pictures of us in the playground, at sporting events, pizza parties... photographs of people I remember from the same era as the shoes, indeed these were
their
shoes. I had forgotten what most of these kids looked like, in my mind they were older - they aged within my memories. In these photographs I can see them exactly as they were back then; like a pair of Pippen Max Uptempo's never taken out of the box.
Through these photographs I am returning to the past with an objectivity that softens everything. What had once been a whirlwind blur is now a patchwork of moments interwoven by distance and tempered by perspective. The smell of a stairwell. The ridges on an aluminum bench. A tongue burnt from hot chocolate. Laying in bed at night and listening to The Five Stairsteps on 94.9's "Turn Off the Lights" with Xavier the X Man. Having a crush and catching a whiff of her hair. The girls, by the way, avoided basketball shoes altogether and wore all-white sneakers, usually K-Swiss or Keds. I quickly learned to worship those little white shoes, too.
In my research I've discovered those old blue and black shoes I loved so much. They were called the Nike Air Lambaste and it turns out Penny Hardaway actually wore them in his first All-Star game before he ever had a shoe contract of his own.
The shoes are virtually forgotten now; not a single pair on eBay. They just sort of disappeared in the midst of so many legendary basketball shoes. Nobody preserved them the way 'collectible' shoes were preserved - these shoes got worn and worn
out
. One guy wrote about how
the Air Lambastes were for actually playing basketball - this endears me to the shoe even more because I was no Jerry Stackhouse myself.
The Air Lambaste and I had a lot in common. We were witnesses to greatness and if our own potential was not immediately visible we still knew it was there. I saw the 95-96 Bulls become the greatest team in NBA history and the Nike Air Lambaste sat on store shelves among some of the best basketball shoes ever produced. The shoe is also a precursor to the Penny Hardaway signature series, (which is comparable to being, say, Salvador Dali's dad).
My interest in sneakers was a byproduct of my interest in basketball. Shoes were
part of
basketball - they probably still are. One of the beautiful things about basketball is that it has a clearly defined set of rules. You can have a conversation about basketball and not be at a loss for words. You can tell the truth. It is statistical and for the tough calls there's a referee. That trumps the entropy of real life.
In 1995 my dream job was to become a sportscaster. When I think back on that dream I believe it was based on the fear that sports were the only thing that made sense, (and that making sense mattered). Generally speaking, things have continued to not make much sense but I'm more comfortable with that these days.
That kid I used to be - obsessing over his basketball card collection, memorizing numbers from the official NBA Encyclopedia, playing endless hours of NBA Jam - that kid and I have missed each other. I can remember when he used to work the nacho stand at the school's home games just to bask in the glow of the game.
Cuddles like a snuggie
thuggie as Fergie on a porcupine's birthday
Can you smell my soul incense
dancing rainbows in my he- he- head?
roof-tin piddle
Big dog hanging on the side of the market w/ shoulder hair
gears newspaper holder you got 4 kids
umbrella in my meal
float Kardashian why up the hill
soup for a fraction of my windex summer split
PANT LEGS
Grooming on the styrofoam crane of cobbler
scream church songs like a tinkle of pee
figurine & fingers like a sexy utensil
My well-groomed toe hairs blow in her direction when the moonshines in my jasmine tea cup
blossoms like onion rings
Oprah bookclub baby
Acoustic camp fire lottery dream
my love trust argyle lizard lemons
flipping through channels without your comments
thirty years of trash-bags smell
gas up the Miada I got gas
My post modern cappuccino curator self-stamping teddy bear
I just want to dance with your pent-up aggression, baby
na-na na-na na
Hey Chaz
the lake is frozen over
but Albany won't come
they don't want to skate with us
maybe we're not good enough
oh no no no
we're just as good as Albany
we're halfway between New York City and the Paris of Canada
we're as good as Albany, Chazy
it happens all the time
i glance at a word,
in the most recent case it was Simply
and just as i read Simply
i hear the word Simply
in the song i was listening to
this has happened to you too
, hasn't it
i was laying in bed and heard a careful footstep slowly pressing down a loose floorboard in the living room. the delicacy of the creaking noise made me suspicious so i carefully turned over and saw the shadow of a person on the outside part of my door from the light bleeding in from the window. i was preparing myself to say in a loud voice, "that you, percy?" (cause that's what your supposed to do when you suspect cat burglars) but the person went away. as the quiet resumed i decided it was probably just a roommate so i went to sleep...
some reputable film maker was releasing his second feature film and i went to see it. everyone was very excited -- it was an exclusive preview showing... i forget the title but it was dark, sort of tim burtonesque but much much scarier -- well, most of it was boring but parts of it were terrifying. i was in the film, which must have been why i was admitted. at one point me and the protagonist -- some frail and pale cartoon girl with black hair and black clothes -- flew, using our arms, to europe in the black of night. the earth was pitch black and silent while we flapped our arms through the nothingness... it was magnificent.
when we got to europe the entire continent was lit up in insane vegas-like lights and sky scrapers and -- this was the scariest part -- two giant dolls that were bigger and brighter than anything else, swaying lifelike in the wind in the manner of those inflatable neon people at used car lots. we came down and landed at the right foot of one of them, on the roof of the belgian museum of freemasonry.
the final scene involved an ancient egyptian artifact with 5 little dashes running across its face. the protagonist, the sickly girl, began swiping her finger across the dashes thereby transforming them into E's. each E was a little different -- some had tildes and macrons, some were lower case, some upper case. the process of revealing these E's was inexplicably horrifying so i begged her to stop. she refused and when the fifth one was scratched off i awoke with a jolt and a sweat.
i went into the living room and said goodmorning to my roommate. i asked him if he'd been walking around near my doorway the previous night. he 'definitely had not.' on the living room table where there were two unopened jugs of pino noir and a DVD copy of the film i'd just watched / been in. my roommate had picked it up from one of the bootleg guys in the subway. i told him how scary it was and we sat down to watch it. suddenly it was night and although it was the same movie it was totally different ...it was now some kind of ice cube hip-hop comedy, complete with midgets and fumbling police officers.
Somehow I left the house without a scarf on Tuesday. After work I went to Trader Joe's, which is a bit of a walk from the station. I bought a new scarf for $5. What's odd is that when I got home my old scarf was nowhere to be found. My scarf had not been missing and when I bought the new one I did not consider it a 'replacement.' Bob Dylan talks about Robert Johnson in his Chronicles vol. 1, he describes a farm boy who is "mysteriously" undocumented historically, Ike Zinnerman, who taught Johnson how to play the blues. Whenever I read that passage I can't help thinking that Dylan is implying that he is the reincarnation of Ike Zinnerman. As far as my scarf is concerned, I'm now faced with the tough question: did it simply transform into another pattern and color?
Hottie and Mean-Face are nicknames my former roommate and I gave the baristas at our former local coffee shop. I realize these crude labels probably say more about us than they do about them but that's beside the point. Hottie, so named because my roommate had a crush on her, had been reading Plato's Republic for over two years. Mean-Face, (who was actually friendlier than Hottie, but more severe looking) was constantly talking about man problems. Neither of them ever gave us the time of day. Sometimes I would order a cup of coffee, pay for it, put a dollar in the tip jar, say thank-you, and leave, all without the slightest gesture from either of them. One day which stands out, they had an unbroken conversation about their periods over my transaction.
Months later a new coffee shop opened in a property that had previously been a soup kitchen. It was slightly closer to our apartment, significantly larger, and the baristas were friendly, (both dudes). The coffee was even better in the new place. We started going there and the Park Slope lifestyle was in full swing. The guys at the new place knew my name and were interested in who I was - they even sold my band's CD's behind the counter... so it was a shock to go in there one day and discover Hottie and Mean-Face had been hired. My first impulse was to apologize for abandoning the old cafe, which would obviously have been absurd. I also wanted to tell them that that it was my band whose album they were selling... but none of this ever happened. They intimidated me and the new cafe essentially became the old cafe.
I was back down there for the first time since August a couple weeks ago, just to reminisce. I didn't recognize the barista. The coffee really is exceptional, good coffee is a perfectly valid reason to move to Park Slope. I tried to read my book but wound up repeating the same few paragraphs, totally absorbed in the banal conversation the barista was having with an older guy who apparently went there on a daily basis but never stuck around. Today he decided to stay. He talked with the barista about the Oscar nominees, about how high school seems to perpetuate itself in adult life, about 'difficult but gratifying' novels... he was a big Jeff Bridges fan. The barista, who I didn't recognize, was convincingly interested in the dialogue and I resented their mutual dullness. The resentment I felt, I then realized, is a perfectly valid reason for getting out of Park Slope and into the anonymous polish diners of Ridgewood, Queens. Which is where my scarves should be.
Walking along the stillness of a winter morning sidewalk. Muscles tight, steps small - careful not to slip. We are all at our most pale, our skin is dry and our clothes are heavy. Descending the steps into the station I think the cold wet stairs seem to belong in a prison, it's amazing that people never slip on them and crack their heads open. Early morning rush hour on the train, lucky to get a spot standing in the doorway that only opens at Myrtle Ave, and Bedford Ave. Everybody scowling. It's the first day of February and we all miss our bedrooms.
I'm listening to my headphones loud, hardly aware of the music. We pull into Montrose Ave and a large, young mother enters the train with her son, maybe seven years of age. They are both heavily bundled up. The child tries to move away from his mother and she grabs him hard, scolding him inaudibly below my fortress of noise. She has a piercing near her lip that gives her the look of an overgrown teenager. The child tries again to defy her and she shakes him with greater rage than before, squeezing his shoulders. For a moment I pretend she is his older sister. She is carrying a bag with watercolor looking roses printed on it. Her jacket is a very light plaid, just thin stripes of primary colors crossing each other like a spacious suburban city. I remember my childhood bedroom, which had similar wallpaper. It was my "older-kid" wallpaper, it replaced the scary wallpaper with the toys and dolls all over it.
For 19 years I'd been living out of bedrooms with purely painted walls, no wallpaper. My current bedroom has one wall that is wallpapered, you can call it an 'accent wall.' The rest of my room is white with five and a half Mellow Orange dodecagons, which is the term for a twelve-sided figure. The mother and her son both wore vibrant rubber rain boots. I can only imagine how wise an investment those have proven to be but it's February now and much too late for me.