6 miles
I felt like a walk yesterday after work. I just sold the moped on Wednesday, so my vilified feet wanted to prove that they can still be a justified means of transport. I didn’t want to figure out where Claudia was, drinking empty words and drinks, opening the door into the weekend void. She forgot her phone at home anyways, splayed out on her bed when I got home, poor girl. She’s had a rough week. It was something about the changing of the seasons in the city that made me pause before the subway entrance.
It was such an exhilarating afternoon, one that made me want to belt out a throaty hoot as the promise of autumn hit me in the jaw. The trees bent to the sidewalks as their creased leaves tugged and pulled the graying branches towards the ground in their annual journey to dirt and roots. City dwellers lock-stepped briskly as their coattails fluttered behind, their faces pink from the gusty winds. There is a collective turning over, a pulling of the blanket closer to savor another moment of warmth while waiting for the impending chill of miserable winter. Autumn means coming back, coming together, a reliance on inter-activity to keep sane, a self induced jolt in preparation for the frosty winds of externalities.
There were no plans except to stop by a café in order to write quickly, writing in sketch. I walked down Fifth from the Flatiron building, passed the glowing shops and crush of people leaving work – they were rushing towards happy hours and first date cocktails and TV dinners in practical homes. I found myself under the Washington arch and, wanting to get away from the crowd of eager students on their way to sticky weekend watering holes, I crossed through Greenwich Village and onto Waverly, stepping through contemplation in the quiet ivy-covered street and to the erosion of mental checklists and worrisome to-do’s before finally landing on the steps of Doma, one of my favorite West Village coffee shops.
The bakery and semi-art gallery wafted pumpkin spice and fresh coffee through its French windows. Black and white charcoal studies of barren muscular trees preened on white walls, while young women pored over their ratty books, and older men chatted quietly over tea. A neighbor came in with his black and white husky, framing an otherwise inconsequential random visit to a coffeehouse in a picture perfect New York photo of literary serendipity. I sat on a bench and dialed Dad. Seems like my first books shipment home arrived – only the beginning of my two month project to divest myself of all material possessions. A couple of Japanese girls came in twittering and chirping, an explosion of dark long hair and knee high boots.
I walked through the far West Village, retracing in some parts the walks that Candice and I used to take. Walked to Hudson and curved over to Bleecker and Christopher. Jaunted passed the spas and dimly lit boutiques and onto the cobblestones of Grove. Passed Chez Michallet at the serene Bedford intersection. Plunged passed kids pulling away from their parents and couples flirting into noisy W. 4th and its random assortments of restaurants, erotica shops and cheap tourist trinkets. The Empire State needle glowed crimson in the northern distance when I ambled Tio Pepe. A fat couple sat where Candice and I once sat, munching calamari over a bottle of some cheap red.
Covered another mile through the desolate despairing streets of lower Greenwich Village and Soho. The shops were shuttered close, and weeds-covered lots hid their irrelevant secrets. Passed Double Down on University Place, where Kerry once bar-backed; it has since been closed and abandoned, the owner refusing to pay utilities fees.
Soho is like a high end call girl. It bustles in the daytime with activities and engagements, sparkling with crown jewel stores and attracting a flurry of tourists and hipsters wanting to be on the cutting edge of fashion. At night, the buyers depart, and sultry bars and dark restaurants remain, tucked away on side streets away from the larger avenues where shops have lowered their chain-linked shutters. Clusters of revelers in unbuttoned dress shirts and slinky dresses slither next to neon bars as the techno-hip hop music crescendos in the background. Soho at night undresses from its proper attire and gives in to the heady weightlessness of dark mournful night-time caresses.
Walked down Elizabeth to a noodleshop in Chinatown. I love to order the Cambodian noodles. Didn’t quite get full but that just made more room for a jaunt over to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Headed out into the cool September night, a cone and scoop of banana goodness in hand. Ambulance sirens wailed and a smattering of drunken yells and guitar riffs echoed from the Bowery Ballroom. A man with a salt and pepper beard slouched on a municipal park bench, his shopping cart stuffed with black plastic bags. Red and yellow signs advertised home products and halaal meats.
A couple of NYPD cops cruised on their mopeds out from the Williamsburg bridge as I entered the walkway. The bridge, usually full of runners and families in the day, was eerily empty. An occasional biker streaked by, speeding down the ramp towards the thousand eyes of Manhattan or struggling against the sloping path towards dark Brooklyn. The red fence framed the inky East River in regular squares, each a segment of the chaotic forces churning beneath. Only 3 miles until home.
Blinking lights floated overhead as airplanes, from a thousand experiences to a thousand lives, wiggled their way to La Guardia.