Every night around midnight I walk the 2 ˝ miles from work (48th
street) down to my home (Greenwich Village). It’s not a very interesting walk;
whichever route I take, it will run mostly through midtown. There are a few routines. My
step will quicken as I pass the beggar who always stands in from of the PATH train
entrance (I feel that if I gave him money once, I would have established a relationship
with him which would mean I’d feel guilty if I didn’t give him something every
night). I always take every handbill that’s offered to me, and politely hold it in my
hand until I reach a garbage can (I read that the poor souls who pass out these ads are
condemned to stand on the streets forever or until all of them are passed out).
Each night I’m again surprised that I walk at the same speed. After waiting for
the light to change on 34th street (a light that favors the cross-town traffic)
I walk a few blocks until my steady pace invariably brings me to the flashing
"don’t walk" sign of 30th street, where I turn rather than
waiting for the go ahead. This block I know so well—if you woke me up in the middle
of the night, I could recite every detail about it—is home to the midtown traffic
control division. With its crenated turrets and its majestic wood and iron, arched gate
the building resembles a medieval castle. Scaffolding stretches the length of the
building, like the equipage of a besieging army, but it does not conceal the proud motto,
TCD, which I like to think stands for something more interesting than the obvious. Its
sturdy sentinels of justice specialize in highway patrols and driving faux taxi cabs
(also, and to their credit, they are more polite and more responsive than the typical
does-your-asking-me-something-mean-I-have-to-get-off-my-ass cops, which is why I’m
giving them a plug).
The most interesting thing I ever saw on my walk was a fight between a male dwarf and a
homeless woman in front of a deli in Chelsea. Though an even battle, it ended quickly with
only a scratch (the dwarf) on one side and some pulled hair on the other. It was fortunate
I didn’t have time to intervene, as they turned out to be a couple and doubtless
would have turned their energies against an interloper. For weeks later, I carried a
camera hoping to see something as entertaining as this.
Another night a car of young men asked me the time and though I knew it was a trick, I
gave it to them, at which point they started to say something and before they could get it
out I began laughing manically so that there would be no chance of my hearing it.
It’s better to err on the side of naiveté when it comes to helping people. You
don’t want to reinforce any stereotypes.
Every night I pray that some adventure will befall me. When passing by sets I’m
always ˝ convinced the director will look at me and say: "wait! He’s absolutely
perfect for the part."
But this is the most pedestrian of my fantasies. I have also wished that a Mercedes
limousine (black and classy, not tacky and overlong; this is the vehicle of someone with
taste) would stop, a long fishnet-stockinged leg would extend from the limousine, and then
a beckoning hand…
I would also like it if a mysterious fellow with a mustache and turban handed me golden
colored card, not a card advertising "barely legal co-eds," but one bearing
simply my name and an address.
I picture myself propping up a coughing old man, who turns out not to be merely drunk,
but dying: the knife still protruding from his back. He manages to gasps out one word
before dying: "Lillith".
But as I walk the final stretch of my route, amidst the familiar low brownstones, so
much more homely than the skyscrapers from which I and others perch above the city, these
fantasies fade. Approaching me, I see a familiar dog, attached to a friendly face, a
friend in fact.
"Why don’t we stop and have a drink before turning in?" he suggests.
"I can’t think of a better way of ending the evening."
