Chronicles of New York

A woman smiles at them. A baby points. A 20-something guy on a cell phone switches the phone to his far ear.

“Keep going, keep going,” Ralph prods.

“Ok, but you can’t stop to tell me that. Because we have to keep going,” Rose says.

So they keep going. And every so often Rose and Ralph take turns looking at glancing at each to see if the other one needs to take a break. Each time Rose feels Ralph looking at her, she pushes up a smile. Each time Ralph feels Rose’s eyes on him, he yells a little bit louder.

Without a breather, Rose and Ralph continue. After about a half an hour, their sales pitch degrades into a monotone chant. “Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar. Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar.” The only time the note changes is on the phrase’s last syllable “lar” when they dip to a lower tone and hold it for an extra beat. And then they start all over again. “Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar. Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar. Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar. Yarn hot plates, two for a dollar.” Rose switches the hand that’s holding up the trivet, but never lets it fall. She wants people to see her handy work—and they do. Everyone who walks out of the subway station sees them. Men and women smile, nod, look curious, or try to ignore them by walking just a bit faster. A group of teenagers stop a few feet away to watch the show. They giggle and appear to Rose as though they are telling each other jokes about it. This almost makes Rose feel bad. But then she realizes, she is making kids laugh—something she never has had the fortune to do.

Three hours go by. Rose finally gives in. She turns to face Ralph and interrupts him mid-chant. “I’m tired. I want to go home. I don’t like this any more.” He kisses her on the top of her grey head. “Ok, my dear.”

Rose and Ralph didn’t sell a single trivet. But by the time Rose woke up the next day and quietly, stoically made Ralph his morning cup of coffee, 153,428 people had watched the two of them singing their hot plate song on YouTube.

Pages: 1 2 3

This entry was posted by Willow on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 11:38 am. It is filed under On The Street and has these tags: brooklyn, career, consumerism, daily life, fiction, frustration, marriage, new york city, old age, parenthood, poverty, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.