Country Bumpkin Returns to the Big Apple

 

Country Bumpkin Returns to The Big Apple
by Dave Wright

“Listen up, everyone!”

The greeting came from a bald man with crazy eyes. He stepped into the subway at 34^th just before the doors closed behind him. I didn’t see a gun, but I imagined he had one in the pocket of his soiled khakis. What the heck? Will I be the victim of another mass shooting?

The man grabbed the bar above his head as the train lurched forward. He cast a piercing stare over the coach. “I could use some change,” he shouted. “Anybody have some change?” Then he strode through the car daring anyone to meet his accusing eyes.

I focused my gaze on a stray gum wrapper on the floor of the train.

A few minutes earlier when we had boarded the southbound at 42^nd and Broadway, a young woman with wild, dark hair made a less intimidating plea: “Can anyone spare some loose change? Any little bit will help.”

Persuasion is in the delivery. Sue dug in her purse. Not finding any change or small bills, she handed the woman a ten.

“Thank you so much,” said the woman quietly. She cast her eyes to the floor and hustled to the end of the car.

Each grifter in New York City has his own schtick. A man on Broadway a block south of Times Square huddled behind a cardboard sign. On it was scrawled, “I’m a worthless shit and I know it. Help me anyway.” I doubt this was the self-awareness encouraged by his counselor.

A few blocks away an old man with an unkempt beard and rumpled trousers sat on a three-legged stool. His sign was painted in neat letters: “Lord Jesus, I’m homeless. Help me.” An appeal to Christian guilt.

A man whose corduroys crept above his mismatched socks, and who I suspected to be of Jamaican descent, earned his way with music. He sat on a Home Depot bucket and straddled another between his legs. He happily serenaded his passing guests by beating out a calypso rhythm with his hands.

Sue and I were in the city to see our niece, Sarah Killough who had landed her first principal role in a Broadway play. Leopoldstadt is a moving story about the rise and fall of two large Jewish families. The first of five scenes takes place in 1899 when both families were thriving. The last scene is set in 1955. By then, the two families had been reduced to only three survivors.

One of the surviving characters is loosely based on the life of the playwright, Tom Stoppard who found out late in life that he has a Jewish heritage. He was born in Czechoslovakia in the late 1930’s and was spirited out of the country by his parents to escape the persecution that was underway in Europe. His father died in the war, and his mother remarried. It wasn’t until Stoppard was in his mid-fifties that he learned that all of his grandparents were Jews who perished in the camps. It was the most moving play I have ever seen.

We celebrated Sarah’s performance with drinks at Hurley’s a couple doors from the theater. After toasts and well-wishes, the family walked her to the subway. A friend of Sarah’s emerged from the station as everyone hugged her goodbye. He said the trains were running fifteen to thirty minutes late, so Sarah called a Lyft.

“I’ll cover the cost,” said one uncle.

“No need,” laughed Sarah. “I’m employed for a change.”

“We’ll walk you to your pickup location,” said another.

“I’m fine. I do this all the time.”

“Your dad will be more comfortable knowing you had an escort tonight,” said the third.

“Okay, fine.”

Ten minutes later, the driver pulled next to the curb. Three old men glared at him as if he might be some kind of predator.

New York City is not the place for a cheap date. Sarah landed us reserved seats at the play for a hundred bucks a pop, which was a bargain, considering some spent over two-fifty a ticket. Delta absconded with all of our frequent-flyer miles and $384 in cash for two round-trip tickets to LaGuardia. Breakfast at Friedman’s consumed the better part of a hundred-dollar bill. Two nights at the Hilton Garden Inn topped $700. We paid a premium for location. The hotel was within walking distance of Longacre Theater, Times Square, and Bryant Park.

We still did not pay enough for a room with a view. I wouldn’t know, but maybe this is the difference between four and five stars. We looked down on 45^th where plastic bags and other rubbish floated between delivery trucks. Across the street stood a towering wall of soiled bricks decorated with graffiti. The wall was spotted with viewless windows that were plugged with air conditioning units and white shades. It appeared that no natural light was allowed into the hidden apartments.

Our room felt sterile—which was far better than grubby, but not what I would call homey. Modern art (or someone’s impression of modern art) decorated the walls—orange and mauve prints of paint that flowed down the paper like dried blood. Hmm.

The room was equipped with a microwave, a refrigerator, and a closet, but they were so discreetly hidden behind wood inlays that we had to call the desk to find them.

The toilet flushed with the suction of a jet engine. They must have modeled it after the one on Apollo 13—no trace left behind. I was relieved not to have been sitting on it or I would have been guaranteed a fresh hemorrhoid.

Despite all of my complaints, it was good to be back. Twenty-two years ago, we had spent quite a bit of time in the city. It was the year our oldest son, Tristan graduated from high school and attended GATE acting conservatory.

It was 2001. Sue and I had travelled to New York to help Tris get situated a week before his classes began in early September. We left him and his luggage at his apartment across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. That evening we dragged our luggage onto a bus to Grand Central Station. From there we boarded a subway that we hoped would take us to within walking distance of our lodging for the week. Not knowing how the subway system worked and anxious to get off the platform, we jumped onto the first train that stopped.

A woman sitting across from us on the nearly empty car eyed us suspiciously. “Where ya’ll headin’?” she asked.

“We’re trying to get to the YMCA hostel next to Central Park,” I said.

“In that case, you on the wrong train. This one goin’ to Queens. You don’t wanna go there. Listen ta me. You get off at the next stop, take the stairs to the next level up, get on the Uptown B train, and get off on 72^nd. That’ll get you close.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You might have saved our life.”

“Just might have,” she said with a smile. “I could tell you ain’t from here.”

We got off the subway, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close call,” I said to Sue. “Goes to show there are good people everywhere.”

“And when you least expect it,” she added.

The YMCA hostel is a couple of blocks north of Trump Tower. Aside from its location near Central Park, the Y had few similarities to its rival down the street. Our double bed felt like we were sleeping on a cardboard box. There was just enough room to walk sideways between the bed and the wall. It had a television, but it was bolted to an upper corner that was out of reach unless you were six feet tall. We shared a communal bathroom down the hall with the rest of the guests. A few were adventurist middle-agers like us, but most were globetrotting backpackers who spoke anything but English.

We played the role of tourists the rest of that week: We hiked Central Park. We took in the view from the Empire State Building. We bought rush tickets for a couple of Broadway plays. We wandered the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Tris suggested that museums should have oxygen bars next to the drinking fountains. We stuck our heads into the echoing halls of St. John’s Cathedral. We ordered a pastrami sandwich at Katz's Delicatessen and wished we had double-hinged jaws to take a bite. We ordered gelato in Little Italy, and we window-shopped the fresh fish and pressed duck in Chinatown.  

We did it up.

Saturday evening, the last evening we were going to spend with Tristan, we asked him what else he’d like to do before we left. “Maybe we should walk along Wall Street and see the Twin Towers,” he said. “We haven’t been down there yet.”

Our plane didn’t leave until late Sunday afternoon. We had plenty of time, so Sue and I navigated the public transit system to get to Newark Airport. After multiple long city bus transfers and one short flight, we arrived home Sunday evening. I returned to work on Monday. On Tuesday morning the world changed forever.

I was in the middle of a displaced abomasum surgery on a cow at a dairy near town. WCCO interrupted its market report with a special news bulletin: One of the Twin Towers in New York City has been struck by a civilian passenger jet. By the time I closed my incision and tied a square knot in my last stitch, the first tower had fallen to the ground in a pile of ash. The second tower had been hit. A third plane had crashed before it made it to the Pentagon.

For some reason I did not panic. I knew that Tristan’s school was a mile south of Times Square and a mile north of the Twin Towers. The last subway stop on his route was Wall Street. As long as he got off at the right station, he would be okay.

We got a brief message from Tristan’s cell phone that morning: “Ma. Call me.”

He found a way through the overloaded cell circuits again by 10:45. He said he was fine.

Tris could not get to his apartment in New Jersey on Tuesday because the Lincoln tunnel under the Hudson River was closed for security concerns. The subway was closed for the same reason and the buses were overloaded. He walked six miles north and stayed with a classmate in Manhattan that night. Wednesday, the following morning, rather than dwell on the depressing, omnipresent television coverage, he returned to class. He caught a bus south and walked through Times Square. He described it as being on an apocalyptic movie set. The most famous intersection on earth was deserted—no businessmen with their attaché cases, no street vendors hawking hotdogs or pretzels, not even a homeless panhandler.

At nineteen, Tristan must have coped by compartmentalizing the trauma. It was not until I visited him in the spring that he shared more details. He and his classmates had been upstairs in their classroom when the first tower was hit. They all ran down to the street and watched the first tower burn and fall to the ground. Then a second plane crashed into the second tower. A few minutes later, it collapsed too. As he and his classmates walked north, firetrucks returned from the scene carrying firemen covered in dust wearing vacant, hopeless expressions.

Tristan left New York and moved to Los Angeles the following year. When he called me to explain the difference between New York and LA, he quipped, “Dad, there’s the same number of people here in LA…but you don’t have to touch ‘em.”

Since our regular visits in 2001-2002, New Yorkers have endured COVID and survived. They embrace the vitality of city life that I find hard to understand. Restaurants require reservations—even for breakfast. The smell of street vendors mix with exhaust. Honking horns fill the streets. And hundreds of downward-dog-positioned yoga fans clutter Times Square with leotard-clad butts.

I do have something in common with New Yorkers. We all seek the comfort of elusive greenspace. We didn’t make it to Central Park this trip, but our consolation prize was a walk on the Manhattan High Line. It is a beautifully landscaped elevated walkway that runs from 34^th Street on the Hudson south to the Whitney Museum of American Art on 12^th.

More elusive than greenspace are public restrooms. We were told there were three of them along the High Line, but there were no signs. It’s the only thing not advertised in New York. I had to feel desperate enough to ask directions from a stranger. She pointed to an obscure opening that looked like the entrance to a prison. For all I know, it could have been a portal to a new dimension. Oh well. At this point I was ready to risk any place secluded from the crowd.

My family will agree that any time I travel with a group, I should take a patience pill.

“It’s time to go.”

“Okay. Meet you in the lobby. Wait. I have to use the bathroom—and start my new novel.”

“I need sunscreen. No, not that brand. Let’s try another pharmacy.”

“I forgot a hat. Maybe I can find one in this shop.”

“My knee is sore. I think a dose of CBD will help.”

“Boy, was that expensive.”

“Didn’t work worth a damn.”

“Is there a guarantee?”

No worries. I was there for the experience. It was like a rainy day in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I still enjoyed it, but I had to change my expectations. I sat on a park bench, assumed a meditative yoga position, and recited the mantra posted on every city bus:

I ❤️ NY

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