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27
Aug
07

Definitely Not a Mets Fan

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York, Other People's Stories, People We Don't Like and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: ,

Jackson Heights, Queens, is one of those neighborhoods — unlike Maspeth or Rego Park, lord knows — that seem to get a lot of media attention. It is a marvelously ethnically diverse place and is often cited for its rich selection of restaurants or the reaction of its citizens to the goings-on of their homelands around the world.

It is also home to the same brand of crazies you find anywhere else in New York. Gothamist reported today on an incident that occurred on the 7 train, which runs right through the neighborhood. A guy in a Yankees shirt pretending to be asleep behind his sunglasses had his pants undone and his junk hanging out, half-concealed by a newspaper, and a woman caught him on her camera phone.

I’d say “I love New York,” but there’s nothing particularly “New York” about it. Dorks like him live everywhere.

09
May
07

Crazy Guy on Henry Street

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: ,

There’s a crazy guy I used to see every evening when I walked down Henry Street on the way to the East Broadway F train stop after work.

He’s always stationed outside a particular tenement building — if it’s not too cold, if it’s not raining — fussing around in a storage shed right out front. It took me some time to figure out that he lives there. The building, that is, not the shed — though at one point, I did think maybe he lived in the shed. At first I thought he was a homeless guy who just sort of camped out there. I think he’s the building’s super.

I wonder what he does with himself all day. He seems to be outside from morning to night, just sort of waiting, sitting in a folding chair on the sidewalk, maybe talking to someone, maybe just standing there silent and still. Sometimes he lightly sweeps the sidewalk. Sometimes he’s not there at all.

He’s one of those people you see every day. They are part of your routine. They’re like landmarks. You can measure your commute by them. (OK, I’m at the crazy guy in the shed, so I’ve got about four minutes before I hit the front door at work. Enough time to get a bacon, egg and cheese from the deli?) Some of these people you greet. Some of them you don’t greet. Either way, you recognize each other. You have to. It’s every day.

This guy, I decided, I would not greet.

I’d see him from about a block and a half away. Eventually, because I’d be looking looking forward, I’d see him look up at me. I’d look down immediately. I’d usually have my iPod on, so there was no reason to speak; I couldn’t hear him anyway. Just maintain the pace, don’t run away, but don’t look up — and don’t speak.

I’d pass him, and that would be it.

It felt ridiculous to make eye contact with a person but remain silent and expressionless. I should just say hi to him one of these times, I thought. Just some non-committal gesture, like any neighbor. But what then? New York is rife with people for whom a simple nod of the head is an invitation to a conversation, a rant or an opportunity to ask for money.

I could feel him looking at me as I passed. He wasn’t longing for me to look at him, but rather, it seemed he was incredulous that I so studiously avoided looking at him. I could see him out of the corner of my eye aggressively watching me, his head turning slowly to follow me as I passed him. It was creepy and scary and totally justified.

Then I started avoiding eye contact altogether, hoping to discourage him. I’d time my pace with other people on the sidewalk so there would be someone between him and me just as I passed him. Usually he’d be distracted, talking in an excited, raspy voice to someone, always male: a teenager, someone his 20s, someone in his 50s. What could these people have to talk to him about? I assumed they were residents, too. Were these actual conversations, or was he just the annoying weird guy taking advantage of their lag time or their smoke break? He must be lonely.

One day, with no pedestrians between me and him, and no iPod to shield me, I decided I would say hi. No big deal, right? Smile and nod and continue. So, I tried it. We made eye contact from a ways back, and I looked away. As I approached him, I looked up again and met his stare. Maintaining my gait, keeping my hands in my pockets, I nodded and grunted, “Eh,” with a submissive little smile. He cocked his head to one side and, as I passed, he broke into an impassioned, incoherent rant. I seriously do not know what he said, but it was loud and it was angry and it lasted for at least a block.

A-ha! See? This is what I was trying to avoid. That’ll learn ya, I thought.

I convinced myself that he was yelling at me for being rude or stuck up or something, but for all I know he was just telling me about something he’d seen earlier that day.

So, I changed my route. I’d walk around the other side of the block to avoid him. (The unobstructed sun on Henry Street hurts my eyes, anyway, this time of year. And it’s a more direct route to the subway.) But sometimes I’d forget, and I’d find myself on course with the old man.

I tried it again. And this time, instead of lambasting me, he simply nodded back. But with a different expression that, to my mind, said Yes. Thank you. Thanks for looking at me. See? It’s not so hard now, is it?

I walked back around the the other side of the block the next day.

02
Apr
07

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow?

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: , ,
    snip snip

Hanging out this weekend in Philadelphia the night before a rugby match against the Gryphons, one of the Philadelphians observed that New Yorkers seem to be obsessed with gentrification. I think he’s right. Three of us had used the word in separate contexts within an hour, he said.

Living in New York City, how can one not be obsessed with gentrification and rising rents? It’s why I live in Queens, even though we are now under seige. I feel safe in Jackson Heights for now, but we’re worried about Long Island City. Once there’s a Starbucks, all is lost.

The gentrification of one neighborhood in particular has finally hit me where it counts. The hair. My Lower East Side barber has raised his prices so quickly in the last year that I am wondering whether I should reconsider my loyalty.

The liquor store adjoining his barber shop is extending deeper into the little commercial strip it occupies, essentially taking over his space. So the shop has moved around the corner into an empty space in the same complex. Its front door now faces East Broadway instead of an alley between the building and the garden of an apartment complex. They have a new name, a new sign, new mirrors and cabinetry, new chairs, cute new matching cobalt blue smocks, a new flat-screen TV — with cable, by the looks of it — and a fresh coat of paint on everything. And they also must have a new, more expensive lease, because they also have a new price for a basic haircut.

One of the reasons I was so happy with this place was its low price. But this getting to be a slippery slope. For a $9 cut two years ago, it was easy to tip two bucks. When it rose to $10 a few months ago, two bucks still seemed decent. Now that it’s a hefty $12, do I need to tip three? Should I reconsider my loyalty and find a new barber? One invests time and emotion into settling into a trusted barber. It’s not so simple to move on. These guys are neighbors.

The neighborhood is beginning to draw some new commercial tenants. The other day, the barbers were discussing the merits of a Two Boots pizza going in across the street. It’s a welcome addition for those of us who work in the neighborhood and are often at a loss at lunch time. (Hmm… Bagels, pickles, McDonald’s or bad Chinese food?) They were wondering if it would increase business — you know, get a slice, get a cut. Seems a natural combination, right? One guy suggested maybe people would bring their lunch into the shop, or even eat in the chair.

I stifled a gag reflex thinking of hair clippings as pizza topping.

Is our desire for decent pizza and somewhere to go past 6 p.m. going to kill my lunchtime quickies? I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

21
Mar
07

Don’t Judge Judy

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Nostalgia and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: , ,
    <a href="http://www.parks.cityoflansingmi.com/tdodge/New.html
” target=”_blank”>Cyndi Lauper
Sit down and shut up!
[<a href="http://www.parks.cityoflansingmi.com/tdodge/New.html
” target=”_blank”>parks.cityoflansingmi.com]

This gem from the New York Daily News about bad bus drivers reminds me of my youth spent in school bus humiliation. It was a dog’s life on those buses. If you could survive the embittered old drivers, you had to then deal with the assholes who sat in the back. Only a total suck-up would be nice to a bus driver. One dared not sit near the front of the bus for fear of association with him or her. The back was invariably reserved for the ones with the trendy haircuts and nice clothes. The ones who never seemed to carry a book or have homework. The ones who set fire to things with a lighter and an aerosol hairspray can.

Facing the crowded middle of the bus, I was many times forced to hunch down next to one of the lower-el kids, even my safely ensconced friends unable to offer me much more confort than a shrug of the shoulders and a weak grin.

I felt I understood even then why the drivers were so mean. (I came out of my retirement for this?) Every single one of them was humorless and wholely unpleasant, ready to strike unmitigated terror into us with a well-aimed glare or a brief tirade shouted down the aisle. Sometimes I felt I was truly in mortal peril for not sitting down and facing forward. They probably wouldn’t threaten to ram the bus into a wall to kill everyone, but … well, you never know.

Out of a string of drivers from age 6 through 15, I don’t remember faces, just attitudes. Except for one driver. Judy.

She was a manish woman with short, tightly curled hair and large, solid features. Her brow heavy and hard, her voice sharp and piercing. She was a highly aggressive driver. She was tough as nails, that woman. And I kind of loved her.

She was the “activity bus” driver. A few hours after the school day’s official end, she’d pick up me and my nerd compatriots, who stayed after school for the school newspaper and Students Against Driving Drunk and Spirit Committee and possibly the least active chapter of the National Honor Society in the history of public schools, and deliver us to within blocks of our warm, well-lit houses.

She didn’t much like it, I could tell. The kids were ungrateful and often late to the bus, holding everyone up. Sometimes it was just a few of us. It hardly seemed worth her time some nights. With my nascent sense of class, I picked up on some differences between her and most of the kids she transported. I don’t think she had much reason to pass down the same streets in her car that she did in a bus every day.

Being an unabashed kiss-ass, I and my friend Kiran befriended her. She didn’t trust us right away, and was rather tight-lipped at first. But we’d sit in the front-most seat every time, and eventually she’d ask us what we had been up to after school. She’d tell us about her family. I couldn’t imagine her having a husband. Kids. Kids much older than us. She’d tell us stories of misbehaving kids from earlier in the day. She’d openly complain about her job, which was shocking and fascinating to me at the same time, like we were being let in on a great adult secret.

There were times when she’d had a bad day, and we knew enough to stay. The hell. Away. But usually she was quite pleasant to us. I began to look forward to our brief rides. To be friendly with a bus driver seemed to cinched some sort of outsider cachet.

One year, we gave her Christmas presents. My gift was a set of kitchen hand towels my grandmother had crocheted. It seemed like we were breaking down an invisible wall. In my experience, bus drivers just did not get gifts from kids very often. She gave us a couple of those super-fat candy canes that last all winter if you wrap them every time.

When I turned 16, I started driving to school. I never saw Judy again.

12
Mar
07

New York Lesson No. 333: Neighbors

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York Lessons and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags:

New York has a lot to teach me about how to be a good neighbor.

The morning after a rather long night not long ago, I stopped in at the corner bodega near my office for a Diet Red Bull. It’s a disgusting way to wake up, but coffee makes me jittery sometimes.

After having been a customer for two years now, I enjoy a certain a mount of familiarity there. I’m just another regular from the neighborhood, but it’s nice to be recognized. New York is a small town when taken neighborhood by neighborhood. You can feel pretty anonymous on crowded streets of the Manhattan workday, but you’ve got your deli and your cleaners and your coffee shop, and before long, folks in those places start to smile at you for real.

As I entered, I nodded at the cashier.

“Eh, boss,” he said.

I set the can on the counter. “Two dollars?”

He turned to his boss. “Two? Two-fifty?”

The boss looked over at me. “For you,” he said, his face widening into a grin, “two dollars. Because you are the best in the neighborhood.”

It was just silly. Nothing, really. The price probably really is two dollars. But things like this never happened at the suburban grocery stores of my childhood. As an adult, I find I’m often embarrassed by hospitality and friendliness. Sometimes I want to be anonymous.

I was raised a “bad” neighbor. Nothing against my parents; we just didn’t mix much with other the other families people living complete, unannounced lives across the yard and on the other side of the street. It just never came up. They were they; we were we. In the suburbs, our doors may have been unlocked, but our curtains were closed.

My mom occasionally availed herself to the babysitting talents of a few of the other moms when necessary, but even that limited interaction was short-lived. And it involved money. We were aware of the various divorces. (There was a mysterious rash of them in the mid-90s, as if families all through the neighborhood suddenly and simultaneously woke up from a dream.) I myself babysat for a few of the divorcées in the neighborhood. But we never had block parties. We never pooled our garage sales. The kids traveled in packs by day, but they returned to their quiet homes by night.

My world didn’t extend far beyond those kids and whatever life-threatening mischief we could conjure in the woods that surrounded the subdivision. It certainly did not include my friends’ parents. Parents of other kids were, without exception, formidable and utterly foreign. They occasionally drove us places. And if you couldn’t avoid it, they would sometimes talk to you. But one was always quiet and still in their presence. One did not address them directly.

So now I find myself not talking to my neighbors. I see them in the laundry room, in the elevator, on the bus. I may smile or nod. I may hold a door. But do I ever talk to them about so much as the weather? Rarely. Sometimes I feel like I should, and other times I think, what’s the point? We live in the same building — so what? We don’t choose each other. But the people in your neighborhood — the barber, the goofy guys at the bodega, the lady in the bagel shop — there is some choice involved. We make these people part of our lives on purpose. Yet I stumble whenever my barber asks me something besides “How short do you want it?”

On the bus recently a guy standing right next said to a woman just boarding the stairwell, “Sorry, we don’t let opera singers on this bus.” She recognized him and laughed, and they began a conversation — on either side of me — about some show they were rehearsing. I was jealous of their neighborly familiarity. Minutes later, the bus driver accidentally blew past a stop and a little old lady in one of the seats near the front said to him, “Lenny, you forgot me.”

“Oh, sorry, dear,” he said. He stopped at the corner and let her out. The opera singers continued all the way to the last stop. I walked from the bus to the subway and continued my silent journey.

30
Nov
06

Your Way, Right Away

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags:
 
Mmm… Juicy!

One morning last winter, walking to the train just a few blocks from my apartment, I became aware that people walking on the other side of the street were all sooner or later becoming transfixed by something on my side of the street. Whatever it was, it lay in front of me. As I approached the corner, it came within view. In front of a car parked a few yards ahead of me was the blackened, shrunken, charred husk of what was — until very recently — someone’s car.

The fire must have burned very hot, because across the sidewalk the bush against the apartment building was brittle and leafless. The screen in the window of the ground-floor apartment was burned away. The sidewalk near the wreckage was black. The asphalt around the car was covered with melted bits and pieces and something that looked like black-and-gray foam. Where the tires were the day before were now masses of something looking more like lava rock.

This is not something you see every day in my neighborhood. Understandably, it will draw some attention. It must have stunk to heaven. It must have lit the whole block. I wondered if the the gas tank exploded, if anyone was hurt. Was it revenge, a stray cigarette, insurance fraud, an unfortunately positioned magnifying glass on a sunny day?

The situation became more tragic when I noticed something more.

There was no car parked in front of the burned heap, but the car parked directly behind it … well, from the front seat forward, it looked remarkably similar. The paint was gone; the seats were good and melted; the dashboard was half missing; shattered glass lie all around.

I wonder what’s worse: owning the car that was completely consumed in flames, or owning the car that, by the luck of the draw, was parked behind it and consumed only half-way in flames? What is worth more: A half-destroyed car or a completely destroyed car?

09
Nov
06

Who Would Jesus Bribe?

By Eric 1 Comment
Categories: Religion, The People in Your Neighborhood and Work
Tags: , , ,

I work on the third floor of a little historic building on the Lower East Side. It’s technically a 19th century Federal style row house. What this means is there is no elevator and the building has a lot of character and charm. What this means is it looks like it’s falling apart in some places. But at least I have a nice little office with a door that locks and a front-facing window. What this means is that I can see a parking lot and a tree or two and some old projects.

I’m usually thankful that I have a window in the front of the building. I get good light. I get a good breeze. In summer I get the music of the ice cream truck, which is cute for about a minute. I also get the floor-rattling hip-hop bass of passing car stereo systems — and the car alarms that the vibrations set off. So it’s good, but it’s not always good.

Lately, on Thursday afternoons, I’ve been hearing a new and wholly more disturbing sound through that window.

In the minutes leading up to 5:30, when the neighborhood children are walking home from their after-school programs, someone gets on a microphone with a squeaky sound system and calls out to them to gather round. She lures them with a treat. The first time I started paying attention, it was pudding.

“Every kid who comes gets two cups of pudding. This is not one cup, but two big cups of delicious chocolate pudding. Go home and bring your friends back. Tell them they get free pudding. Two cups of pudding for every kid. We’re going to start in a little while. Just hang tight.”

She said “pudding” so many times, the word began to sound weird and slightly embarrassing to me.

It seemed odd, but I was working late. I assumed it was a legitimate after-school thing. And it was too warm indoors to close the window, so I tried to ignore it.

Five minutes later, the voice returned. First the pudding call. Then: “We have prizes, too. Fill out these pieces of paper here, and if we draw yours, you’ll win a Yankees backpack.”

This was back when the Yankees had a chance.

“We’re starting in about 10 minutes,” she continued. “So go get your friends and bring them back here for the show.”

And, of course, free pudding.

Then 5:30 hit. They started a countdown: “Five! … Four! … Three! … Two! … One!”

The next week it was pumpkins (with two cans of soda, “for you and a friend!”). The week after that, it was a “candy grab” — apparently, as much candy as the kids could stuff into their arms. Then blow pops. Then another candy grab. Every week, it’s another treat.

After the countdown, a male voice and a female shout and yell in a vaguely celebratory way for a bit — “Hey! Yeah! Who wants to play a game! You want to play a game?” — before they separate the boys from the girls.

Eventually, I was curious enough to stick my head out the window to see what was going on. I saw a man and two young women bouncing around near the side of the truck facing the building. The side of the van had been folded down to create a sort of stage or platform.

Earlier that day I had seen that truck parked in front of the building. It was painted an optimistic shade of yellow with an airbrushed picture of three cartoonish bears in street clothes — they refer to their show as “Yogi Bear” — with the words “Metro Ministries” in bright, cheerful red letters.

Ministries. They’re preaching to these kids. With candy. Is it just me, or is this a very cynical approach? Doesn’t the word of God stand on its own?

As far as recruitment schemes go, it’s a far cry from “Hell House.” They tell stories about vegetables at the supermarket that are mean to other vegetables. They sing songs, badly, with karaoke tracks to popular songs in various styles — rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop, even army style — about about praising Jesus and worshipping God. “We want to live in you. We want to please you!”

They tell them, “If you don’t live for God, if you live the way you want to live, you will not get to heaven. Don’t look at your friend. Your friend won’t save you. Only God will save you.”

They collect the kids’ names and addresses before every show. If they don’t or they don’t get the treat. And they are made to wait til the end to get the treat. They’re like taskmasters — “You won’t get your lollipop until the end!”

They’ve been doing it for a few weeks now, and I can tell they recognize most of the kids. They’re familiar enough with them that they jump right into a barrage of Hallelujahs and Amens right at 5:30. They start their shows, they shout (and I mean shout) “I love Jesus! Do you love Jesus? Who here loves Jesus? Hallelujah!“

And I can’t help but wonder a few things. Do these kids’ parents know what they’re doing on the way home? Did anyone ever tell them how to deal with strangers who offer them candy out of the side of a parked truck? Does anyone have permission to proselytize to these kids? Do the kids ever care waht they’re being told, or are they just in it for the free stuff?

07
Nov
06

Election Volunteers

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: ,

I think the charming lady who helped me at my polling place yesterday was the same woman who helped me on Primary day a few months ago. I wonder if she always works at the 25th district polling station.

After thanking someone in Spanish for voting, she told me that one of her many nephews is also named Eric and that he is a lawyer in California.

I love these little old ladies, sentinels of democracy, who guide voters through primary school gymnasia and church community rooms across the country, drawing back that plastic curtain, gazing hopefully up at us through heavy eyewear.

I love the gatherings of two or three neighbors, sometimes with a baby carriage, usually with a coffee, catching up on gossip and grandkids.

I love pulling that lever — clank! — flipping all the switches — fft! fft! fft! — and pulling that lever back — clunk!. The sound of voting is so satisfying. I hope we don’t ever go digital in my district. How ever then would the little old ladies be able to help us?

16
Jul
06

Q19 Crazy Lady

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags: , ,

When I have the good fortune of making the Q19 bus in time to get to work at a decent hour, there is often a woman there who in equal parts amuses me and embarrasses me.

She always sits in a window seat reading a dog-eared bible. I won’t notice she’s there until she folds back a page of the Good Book and declares to the bus-folk around her, “Mmmmm… o-o-o-h boy!”

A few people turn to look where the noise comes from, including myself. I usually end up standing on this bus, so I can see her clearly. She just looks down at her bible and once or twice more loudly repeats an emphatic “O-o-o-o-oh mmmmmbo-eee!” and follows it by clicking her tongue just as loudly:

“Tck tck tck tck tck tck tck tck tck tck tck!”

It’s the sound an old person might make while digging in her teeth with a toothpick, rocking in a chair on the front porch.

On public transportation, such outbursts are disquieting but widely ignored to the best of our ability. If she knows she is startling half of the passengers around her, she doesn’t let on. If she has any notion that she is making the lady sitting next to her nervous, darting her widened eyes toward her, expecting perhaps a small forest creature to leap out of her chest cavity, she does not let on. She does not seem to realize that anyone has noticed anything at all, let alone that she has made any sort of loud, incongruous, inappropriate and inexplicable noise at all.

She turns another page of her bible and resumes reading silently. We all downshift from orange alert to yellow. And then a few minutes later: “Mmmmmmmm! Mmmmmbo-o-o-o-o-ay! Tck tck tck tck tck tck tck tck!”

She really puts some effort into it, distorting her voice, getting a little raspy, a little throaty. Like she’s out back picking tomatoes off the vine in the blazing sun, and she’s tugging at her collar and pulling her wide-brimmed straw hat back off her neck to mop her forehead with a worn bandana. One almost expects a “Would you just look at that! Hoo… lawd!“

Is it something she’s read? Is she regarding the sins of mankind? Has she remembered that she left the coffee maker on back home? Is this what Tourette Syndrom looks like?

Then again: “Mmmmmmmmm… bo-o-o-o-o-eeee! Tck tck tck tck tck tck tck!”

She never looks up from the book. She doesn’t shake her head. She doesn’t take notice of anyone or anything around her. She just continues reading her book and making loud exclamations to no one.

She looks so normal. Cute, tightly curled hair arching out in all directions. Flawless, mocha skin. Manicured but unpolished fingernails. Just enough makeup to bring out some contrast in her features. Nice, cool, conservative floral printed skirt and sleeveless sweater: you know… beige, black, salmon.

And, remember: She’s reading a Bible. Totally harmless. I’m not so sure.

04
Mar
06

“Ain’t Got No Money, Ain’t Got No Honey.”

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York, Strangers Observed and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags:

Down in the subway station at 74th and Broadway in Jackson Heights, where you can get the E, V, F, G, R and 7, there’s a terribly depressing man who pops up from time to time. He wanders up and down the platform trying to sell a piece of jewelry to commuters. It’s a “gold” necklace with one of those charms on it, usually a woman’s name in scripty lettering, or something like “love” or “precious.” I never get close enough to read the thing.

The guy is old and evidently in poor health. Missing teeth. Crackling skin. If he were a fishmonger or a butcher, in my simple, little world, he might be considered haggared in a charming, story-book way, if not for one thing. His right lower eyelid sags drastically, looking like it’s turned inside-out to reveal pink, moist, swollen flesh that surrounds and obscures the eye itself and leaks fluid down his cheek. It looks like an infection that’s been split open and spread wider. I find it horrifying.

He dangles his trinket out in front of himself, stopping people as they descend the stairs or walk past on their way to the platform edge.

“Ain’t got on money, ain’t got no honey,” he calls out.

Not quite “Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag.” But I guess you gotta have a gimmick.

Apparently he’s appealing to the more shallow part of ourselves that is willing to believe that a flash piece of jewelry will be enough to win the affection (or at least the attention) of our dearest.

People do their best to ignore or avoid him. And, to his credit, he doesn’t press the sale.

I can’t imagine anyone buying this thing from him. It’s tacky. And he’s scary. Assuming he has held onto his sanity through his difficult years, I don’t imagine he expects anyone to buy it. It might just be a pretense for getting some spare change. Or maybe he’s just crazy, after all. I want to give him some Visine and an eye patch. I wonder if he’d get more attention that way.

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the untallied hours