October 27, 2008
An October Afternoon In
Manhattan: Welcome to the Real Real America
Emerging from Penn Station with their wheeled luggage rattling along
behind them, a balding and vaguely frightened-looking father speaks in
excited German over his shoulder to his bewildered wife and their two
young sons, who are in total sensory overload. His fanny pack is turned
to the front to help him avoid becoming a victim of American crime,
probably a helpful tip taken from the Reiseführer New York
City paperback book sticking out of his back pocket.
He
walks up 32nd Street directly in front of me, wearing a long
gray cloth coat, faded blue jeans, new-looking work boots and a black
leather civil war cap. A reddish pony tail hangs down his back and a
wispy red beard flares out on both sides. As he marches along, he
carries on an animated conversation with an invisible friend.
She has long brown hair, and she is considerably less than five feet
tall, even in her spiked high heel shoes. She is pretty in that
cute-but-shy-girl-you-knew-in-high-school way, striding along with
her eyes firmly aimed at the pavement. Her life strategy at the moment
is to keep moving, and above all never make eye contact. She is not
afraid, just smart. The portfolio under her left arm might contain her
artwork, or her head shot, or her lunch.
Two middle-aged Hasidic men in their black wool suits, flat-brimmed
black hats, and untamed beards stand at the stop light, waving their
arms and shouting at each other in Yiddish. The tone of the conversation
is not angry – just loud. One of them clutches a bright red Macy’s bag.
The other one holds up an index finger to call a temporary time out,
then answers his iPhone.
They are the best dressed couple among the Water Taxi passengers, young
and beautiful and tanned and black-haired, wearing lots of gold jewelry
and cologne. He has the craggy good-looking face and amazing nose of a
Native American. She speaks with a faint Spanish accent. They’ve brought
along their very tiny baby daughter in a stroller for the one-hour tour
up the East River, hoping to get a peek at the Statue of Liberty and the
Staten Island Ferry.
They tell the Water Taxi Tour Guide, an animated young black man in
Reeboks and a Yankees cap strutting around the front of the boat and
rhyming his Water Taxi Tour Guide speech into his cordless microphone
that they are from New Mexico.
She is tall, at least a quarter Asian, and breathtaking. The tail of her
green plaid flannel shirt sticks out beneath her tight waist-length
black leather jacket, forming a kind of skirt over her black tights.
Tooled brown cowboy boots and a blood red handbag complete a look that
reflects either fashion genius or a broken mirror at home.
The two young men sitting at the tiny round table in the Starbucks
window touch each other a little too often and a little too fondly for
them to be just guys who like to watch New York Giants games together.
They are completely oblivious the mocha-scented world around them, and
it is oblivious to them.
She shuffles along, her ancient slippers like a pair of sky blue flocked
ice breakers pushing aside the occasional cigarette butt or crumpled
Lunch Buffet Special flier. Her moth-ravaged fake fur coat leaves only
her bare pale-white ankles exposed. It is not all that cold, but she has
a bright green wool scarf wrapped around her neck, trapping her
carefully brushed gray hair. She stops at a card table by the curb where
two young Hispanic women are soliciting donations to feed the homeless,
then drops a $20 bill and a handful of pennies into their thick-glassed
big green bottle.
This day like every day, the cosmos of Manhattan, tinged with the scents
of street vendor kielbasa and bus fumes, touches and swirls past these
people – and 7,999,983 others. It never pauses, and it never passes
judgment.
Welcome to the real Real America.
Copyright ©2008
Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.
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