in the hot, still august of 2005 i moved to new york from san francisco into an apartment kitty-corner from a bodega called cheveres. in san francisco we called them corner stores or liquor stores but here they are bodegas and i liked that a lot. they played merengue music all the time at cheveres and they sold 24 ounce coors tallboys for a dollar even. the neighborhood was mostly lower-middle class dominicans, blacks, and hispanics. when my roommates and i left the house we caused a small scene. several 10-13 year old kids hung out and taunted us, "hey hipsters!" we laughed about it but secretly i think we were all horrified by the attention.
i spent christmas eve, 2005 in brooklyn. some friends and i went to a bar and then i returned to my apartment. it was about 11pm as i approached my front stoop. there was a small party happening in a building opposite mine and someone yelled, "get out of my neighborhood, weirdo!" i probably looked strange wearing my multi-colored beanie and long black coat. the beanie was a gift and i got the coat from the local thrift store, (which is now located down the street from its old location.)
across from cheveres was another store called super meat market. there were nice people who worked there, a kid named lionel and an older guy who was also friendly and unassuming. that was in 2005. since then super meat market has closed down. the kids who taunted us have mostly grown up and moved to bed-stuy. we see a couple of them at the annual block parties, overgrown and shuffling among their mothers and younger siblings. the chinese food place has changed its name from new happy to chen yuen. there used to be a bearded homeless man who sat on the sidewalks all day long, sometimes he had groceries with him, in winter he buried himself in huge blankets... he disappeared around 2008. cheveres is now called jaileen and the tallboys are $1.50.
the same clerk works at jaileen who always worked at cheveres. in the first couple years i asked his name a few times but it always came out incomprehensible and i finally stopped asking. he and i are friends of six years with no idea what each other's name is.
one afternoon, maybe 2009, he informed me that he likes to go down to myrtle on the weekends and get an iced coffee from dunkin donuts and walk up and down the promenade. i do pretty much the same thing. myrtle is about eight blocks away from that old apartment but it took a little over a year of living there before i got comfortable going down there. you can imagine how hard this was when you consider how hard it was to leave the house at all. in those very early days my only destinations was cheveres, or else the subway which took me into another world altogether.
Brillante Car Wash
i see the bristling mustaches
of Eastern European philosophers
in the revolving brushes
on the underbelly
of street sweeping machines
cracker crumbing the
wet gray angles of Gates Avenue
i see the Mesopotamian wheel-barrows
filled to the brim with watermelons
all tumbling and bumbling
in the belly of cement trucks
passed incredible below my window
cars woosh by and
you can almost hear their headlights
reflecting against the road
Steven
He asked me what I thought of John Gotti. I didn't think about John Gotti so I asked if we could rephrase the question as: what do you think about the mafia mentality? and he said that worked just fine but I didn't have thoughts about that either. "I just don't know." I was only there to watch the basketball game.
So he told me a story, I think it took place in the 70's. He and some some friends went to Howards Beach for a BBQ. they rode their bikes into John Gotti's block party so John Gotti walked up to them with a body guard and asked them why they were there and did Steven know who he was? Steven did not so John Gotti said, 'I'm John Gotti.' Steven's hot headed friend Hector behaved like a saint and Jon Gotti liked how respectful everybody was so he got them plates of food to eat. When they finished, John Gotti suggested they get the fuck off his block and they did.
The telling of that story must have reminded Steven of the story he told next: back in middle school he'd been good friends with a girl named Antionette - just friends - he ate dinner at her house sometimes. At some point her crazy brother Timmy got out of jail (for killing people) and so he'd be at the table too. One day some girls beat up Antionette at school. Timmy said he would handle it. The parents said, 'No Timmy! Let us handle it!' but Timmy went to the middle school the next day (he was about 25 years old) and he brought a bullhorn. He said, 'I wanna know who beat up my sister!' several times until a teacher came out. This was in Bay Terrace, by the way, Steven tells me. Timmy said, 'are you the principal of this school?' she said no, so he said 'get her out here right now or I'm gonna blow this whole school to kingdom come!' so she got the principal but then someone called the police! So the principal was out there with Timmy and then a million cop cars arrived. They tried to re-arrest Timmy but he said 'if anybody shoots, I'll kill the principal!' so... just like that... all the cop cars drove away. "They all drove away?"
"Yup." Steve laughed and sipped his beer. "So he got away?" "MOST of the cop cars drove away, but some stayed." So what happened? "Timmy used the principal as a hostage until he got into his car and drove away." "Did they ever get him?" "I'm sure they probably did."
Later Steven told me about the time he met Stevie Wonder. It was at a music festival. Stevie came out to talk to the fans. It was great! and then someone tapped Steven on his shoulder while he was mid conversation with Stevie. She said 'do you know who i am?' and Steven was so amazed, he said 'Yes! you are Diana Ross!' and that was how he met Diana Ross, right before he met Gladys Knight.
Clara
buildings wilt and bloom like all things planted in the earth
but while a flower always sprouts on the top of a plant, so it is the opposite with buildings
whose shop awnings emerge colorful, age, and are replaced uniformly from the bottom.
if you really want to see how old a building is you have to look up.
sometimes when she has nothing else to do, clara takes mason jars,
sprays the insides with the dim flashes of a weeknight talk show,
and fills them with bouquets of buildings.
she leaves them on the fire escapes of her neighbors.
if you look up at the right time, you can see her gently tugging them ou
from the sky and assigning them unpronounceable names.
she was born in 1892 when her name was the 9th most popular woman's name in brooklyn.
The benches outside Passport Photo
a mother pokes her four year old son in the ribs
"don't touch me!"
a mother pokes her four year old son in the ribs
"don't touch me!"
a mother pokes her four year old son in the ribs
"what the hell did i do to you!?"
the mother smirks, turning to her husband
the four year old kisses her
"don't kiss me!"
Orange pelican
things that cost a quarter are basically free. we got these kinds of things on myrtle. firetrucks, ponies with stars painted on their sides, giraffes in top hats, squirrels in sunglasses... they look like porcelain but are actually made of a much more durable space-age material. the children ride them and then they go to the store and buy ice cube trays with their mothers.
a lone, bug-eyed cow on the sidewalk, moving gently in a small, mechanical motion, playing music from atlantis. a just-barely-not-mickey-mouse mouse outside the drapes and blankets store. sometimes the kids are filmed as they ride them, up and down, up and down, smiling patiently into their father's telephone. i know that small children consider these rides a perk of strolling along myrtle. as an adult i know these rides are sacred things. they remind me of an irrelevant portion of my childhood that never took place. i walk past these things, i am doing something else.
i walked past an orange pelican ride and nobody was on it. the music was playing and the pelican was moving slowly up and down in the way it's paid to move, but there was nobody around except for me. i'm almost thirty years old and i am not the rider this orange pelican is looking for. a guilty feeling overcomes me like ignoring a beggar in your path. there were invisible children at the coffee shop that afternoon.
Gutter punks
within the last month there has been a change on myrtle avenue. the population has opened up to a small eccentric minority: gutter punks. the first time i saw one i was approaching her from behind, walking faster and on my way to san remo, i thought she was a normal girl coming off a rough night, but then i saw her face and realized she was deadly serious in her tormented wanderings, she wore a ragged Germs t-shirt and i marveled at how truly filthy she looked. she was heading in no direction, moving slowly. it fascinated me. what in the world was she doing on myrtle avenue? she was definitely not shopping for an oscillating fan. was she lost?
the last thing i expected would be for her to stay, but she has. in fact she has a friend, a man who sits with her. the two of them have a cat, a very small and loyal kitten. the cat cleans himself while the gutter punks stare out into oblivion, their cardboard request for money in front of them. the good people of myrtle avenue gazing in disbelief at the three of them. sometimes the girl reads newspapers, right there on the sidewalk outside the mandee store.
one time i saw the guy walking down myrtle opposite me. he was wearing a back pack. a police car pulled up next to him and the cop said, "where's your girl?" and he replied laughing, "she ain't my girl. she's up that way" and pointed towards queens. the cops smiled, waived, and pulled away in the opposite direction. it was as if they were old friends. the gutter punk proceeded to stop a man who had just left a store and asked him if he could spare a cigarette. the man didn't think twice, he gave him a cigarette.
i believe everyone on myrtle is secretly fascinated by, and gently obsessed with, these gutter punks. what does their presence imply about our neighborhood strip? punk culture aside, i've also noticed standard grade deadbeats high as a kite on heroin, barely capable of holding themselves up. one guy was sitting outside the carvel ice cream shop with his face completely euphoric and tilted to the sky, he was only there in body. yesterday i saw a man slumped over outside mcdonalds somehow suspending an unlit cigarette between his lips, and another time i watched some derelict puke his guts out into the garbage can on the corner outside deli catering. these kinds of things simply never happened on myrtle until about a month ago.
there are an inordinate number of closed down shops on myrtle, but people are still shopping and the rent in the area is going up. brooklyn transplants have taken notice of myrtle's proximity to manhattan and people from all over the country are winding up here. all of us, the hispanics, the blacks, the polish, and the white college grads... we all share the experience of this phenomenon. the gutter punks are iconic, newly arrived. the rest of us have shared this avenue for years in relative anonymity and perhaps there is some jealousy there.
we are familiar with crime and we know how to protect ourselves from danger, but these junkies and gutter punks seem to be harmless to everyone except themselves. what are we to do with them? do our thugs rob them? do our police harass them? do we shun them and pity their little cat friend? no. if anything they are a testament to our recent success. they are here to ask for our change. we are a demographic worth mooching off. we are a prosperous and inviting community.
New things
it was an overcast afternoon. three kids were out of school and en route to the domestic universe by way of myrtle. hunched over outside of a women's clothing store, very eagerly examining what any former child knows could only have been an insect. the three of them, crouching around a sidewalk tree. two girls and one little brother, huddled down beneath the branches and oblivious to the pedestrians.
they were doing child experiments on the bug, seeing how it reacted to various stimuli. one of the girls stomped the ground next to the bug to see if she could get a rise out of it. the other two leaned in on their knees to see what would come of this. these little people did not exist in the twentieth century.
Home
it's not that
until you can walk
to the bathroom
in the dark
without bumping
into anything
new york
is not that
until you start
dodging pigeons
who fly too slowly
out of your way
The Rome Express
there is a 24 hour bodega on the corner of myrtle and forest road. they carry zywiec beer, $2.25 for a tall bottle. that's a good polish beer. i used to go there all the time and purchase these late at night, two of them. i'd take them back to my apartment and drink them while quietly watching british sketch comedies from the 90's on the internet, trying to drown out the sound of my 41 year old roommate having sex with her boyfriend.
going to the 24 hour bodega was only pleasant 50% of the time. it depended on which clerk was working. the nice clerk or the unfriendly clerk. the nice clerk said things to me that were not entirely pertinent to our transaction. he replied when i asked him how he was doing. you could just tell he was a good guy. he watched sports during his shifts and guys from the neighborhood would hang around and watch with him. the unfriendly clerk uniformly frowned at me like i was all the bad news he'd ever heard. he always seemed to be listening to katy perry songs and i don't think he enjoyed them.
i bought beer from the unfriendly clerk moments after finding out osama bin laden had been killed. he was the very first person i told. i walked in there, it was almost eleven o'clock at night, feeling some form of surreal patriotic disbelief. i am pretty sure i was one of the first 700,000 people to hear the news, so i was excited to let them know at the 24 hour bodega. i thought this could mark a shift in our strained relationship.
did you hear the news?
he looked up at me forlornly as if to say, the only news i'm hearing is the bad news of your presence.
they got bin laden! a special group of soldiers. they had a helicopter. isn't that amazing?
he shrugged and took my five, bagged my zywiecs and handed me my change. maybe he thought i was tricking him or else innocent in my insanity. i went home feeling like maybe i was wrong about bin laden being killed. maybe i misunderstood the news and would have to apologize to the unfriendly clerk next time i saw him.
during the day, the 24 hour bodega was another place entirely. the bamboo plants and flowers outside sparkled in the myrtle sun and there was a lady clerk who was never there at nights. she presided over the sun kingdom, not the moon kingdom. it was weird to be in the same place and be somewhere different. it was like a friend who lived in an apartment where you used to only like half the tenants.
i would order a fantastic sandwich from her called the rome express. she would turn around and say to the shadowy man in the sandwich area, "one rome express on a roll" and then i would look around, admire the new chef boyardee logo and read the headlines on the newspapers. i would marvel at the lesser known / more exotic flavors of top ramen and scoff at the price of tostitos cheese dip. then my sandwich would be ready and she would smile at me, "rome express." it was like buying a train ticket.