On the 24th floor of the Kings County federal court house, Julie walked to a wall of windows that looked over Central Brooklyn. Even though the windows were tinted gray, she could tell it was sunny. She believed it was the first stereotypical spring day of the season: warm sun, cool air. She imagined taking that first invigorating, deep breath of fresh air, the type of inhalation that enlivened her lungs after hours of canned, stale air, the type she took after opening the front door of a 747, the type she would take right now if she could.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Destine said.

Julie’s sails deflated and a searing flare burned the skin on the back of her neck. That woman, the talker, was talking directly to her. “It was,” Julie quipped and walked away toward the ladies’ room.

In an acceptably clean stall, Julie sat down with her head in her hands to give herself the semblance of privacy and comfort, and then she decided to text Roger. “OMG, this crazy, overly friendly woman is like stepping up to me.”
Roger was in a meeting at the office, but he still texted back immediately with unequivocal empathy, “Oh no! That sucks.”
“WTF do I do?!” she texted back.

Then she heard the bathroom door open and a woman settle into the stall next to hers.

“Excuse me. Would you be so kind as to pass me a bit of toilet paper? My stall seems to be out.”

Julie froze as though someone had just accidentally opened her stall door. She recognized the voice. But before she could choose an apt response, Destine continued. “Guess we don’t pay enough taxes to keep ample toilet paper in here. Or maybe it’s just a sign of the recession. Who knows?”

Destine’s loquaciousness gave Julie time to realize that while she knew it was Destine, Destine probably didn’t know it was her. So Julie wadded up a handful of paper and reached under the stall wall. A hand grabbed it. “Thank you so, so much,” she said. “It’s always a little awkward when that sort of thing happens, but it does remind us that we’re here for each other. Life isn’t a game of solitaire.”

“No problem,” Julie said concurrently flushing the toilet to cover any recognizable quality of her voice. Then she rushed to the sink to wash her hands. As she hit the lever for the soap, Destine’s toilet flushed. An almost-too-small glop of coral-colored soap dropped into her hand. It would have to be enough. Julie quickly tried to lather it between her dry hands. Then she waved them in front of the black eye of the automatic water faucet. It wouldn’t turn on. Julie noticed the sink was dry. She moved over to the other sink on her right.

Destine opened her stall door and walked up to the dry sink. Julie felt heavy in her ballet flats. It was as though she were stuck to the floor, weighted down by the pressure of the moment. Then her water turned on. She rapidly rubbed her frothy hands together in the stream. Julie felt Destine’s energy. But Destine’s automatic faucet did not. Less than a foot away, Destine was struggling to get the faucet on.

“What is going on here?” Destine said to Julie. Julie interpreted it as rhetorical. “No paper, no water. I do say so myself. Guess I’ll just use yours when you’re done.”

“Ok?” Julie said slowly with a tone that meant “I think you’re weird.”

Destine saw this as an invitation. “I do have two daughters. I know that tone. I know that tone very well. There’s no reason to use that tone with me. I’ve only been friendly to you.”

Julie put on the cold, authoritative and alert face she would use if a passenger had had one too many self-servings of liquor, and then she gave Destine a chance to dissolve the tension. “Excuse me?” she said.

“I’m just saying, I’ve been nothing but kind. This city is filled to the brim, to the brim with people. The common thread between them all?

Each and every one of them wants to feel good, wants to feel accepted. What makes someone feel good? Friendliness. What makes someone feel bad? Impatience. Rudeness. That is what I try to teach my girls. That is what Oprah’s success has taught the world. That is how I live,” Destine said.

Julie’s clean hands dripped into the sink. “Look, I don’t want to start with you. I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t want to be enemies with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, and I don’t want you to force yourself on me. Pretend I’m not here, pretend I’m just a piece of the furniture, pretend I don’t exist, alright?”

Destine stood still startled and confused. Her daughters, her regular challengers, never presented her with a quandary like this.

“Are you telling me you want to die?” Destine asked.

“That’s precious,” Julie said.

No matter how angry they got, how much fire they spit at her, they wanted and needed their mommy. This woman is different. She doesn’t need me, Destine thought.

Julie continued, “Because I don’t want to deal with you, you think I don’t want to be alive? Are you really that narcissistic?”

“No, um. That didn’t come out right,” Destine said. “I just can’t imagine, I just wanted to help, that’s all. You seem unhappy and I just wanted to help. But you don’t want to let me help, you don’t want my help, you don’t want to be happy, that’s fine I guess.”

“Now because I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to be happy?” After these words hissed from Julie’s mouth, she realized Destine wasn’t capable of seeing things from her perspective. “Look, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you think. All I care is that you leave me alone. Go away from me.”

“Well,” Destine said noncommittally.

“Now!” Julie commanded.

“Ok then,” she said, and left the bathroom.

Julie walked back into her original stall, closed the door and sat back down. She lifted her shirt and wrapped her arms around herself beneath the warmth of her breasts. Surprise, frustration, powerlessness, humiliation, anger, dejection and relief simmered through her and nearly spilled out as tears. She checked her phone. Roger had texted back, “I wish I could help you but I can’t. Try telling a bailiff??”

“Why doesn’t everyone just leave me alone? I just want to be alone,” she murmured. But even she didn’t fully believe it.

To play him in a movie, all Philip Seymour Hoffman would have needed to do was replace his black suit from the movie Doubt with a faded grey one and a pea green tie. The clerk had pale, soft cheeks like the underbelly of a pregnant pig. Light orange hair like a watermark receded from his crown. He shuffled papers behind the judge’s desk in the front of the airplane hanger of a waiting room filled with a few hundred Brooklynites.

Tomato juice, no ice, Julie a flight attendant judged. He looked like the type that drank salt and retained a river under his plushy skin, she decided. She sat 8 rows away studying his every move, as though he were an actor in a mystery providing the audience with a subtle but important clue. Sitting in her pleather chair for nearly three hours, she was desperate for a sign about what was going on, what would happen next.

The clerk sat at the desk and moved the long, thin microphone down to his ruddy, rubber-band lips. “If I call your name, please collect your belongings and walk through this door to my right, your left. There’ll be someone there to tell you what to do next.” He picked up a two-inch-tall stack of note cards.

Julie thought she recognized the paperwork. The stack looked like the perforated portion of the jurors’ summons that each person had ripped off and handed to a clerk at the start of the day. Hers could be included in the pile. This could directly affect her. She held on to her Blackberry just a little bit tighter preparing to text Roger about the news.

“Christine Khang,” he read. A thick-bodied Korean woman raised her hand. “Collect your belongings and go through the door,” he said pointing to his right.

She stood up and left a light-weight jacket and tote bag behind her in a pile on her chair, as she shimmed past the few people in her row. “I told you to take your belongings,” the clerk said still using the microphone.

No privacy in here, Julie thought.

The tidy Asian man finished a cold sip of his grande Americano and began to rush toward Christine. “Mu-ŏ-sŭl do-wa-dŭ-ril-kka-yo?” he shouted out.

She instinctually paused and turned toward him.

“I don’t think she speaks English!” Destine called out to the clerk from her seat.

“Thank you. I can see that,” the clerk said. “You two,” he said to Christine and her new translator. “Go stand over here. Sir, even if I call
your name just wait right there.” He pointed to his left and the momentary lapse of entertainment passed.

“John Mulberry. Vincenzo Valentino. Leonard George. Shelby Granowksi. Destine Copland.”

“That’s me. Off I go!” Destine announced to the room. Someone in the background applauded. “What a poor, miserable soul,” she thought. But she chose to say, “Watch’em call your name next!” The comeback wasn’t good enough on Brooklyn standards to elicit even a grunt of approval from the crowd.

“Kathryn Bould. Antonio Ricci. Muhammad Akram Khosa. Jennifer Bland. Marilyne Walker. Julie Smith.”

Julie’s blood which had long been pumping to the steady, slow, natural beat of her heart jumped to attention and hurried to her face, knees and hands. She trembled as she zipped her Blackberry into her purse, smoothed her hair, draped her trench coat over her arm, walked to the front of the room, and hoped no one could see the line of her underwear through the back of her slacks.

When she opened the door, a bailiff and another clerk directed her into a smaller waiting room. This one had about 50 seats and resembled an overcrowded classroom. Destine was already there chatting away with her new neighbors, two women. Julie watched her bend her head down and dig into her scalp to show the women the seams of her weave. Julie sat as far as away as possible from her on an aisle seat.

People continued to file into the room. The bailiff took a seat at the front facing the crowd.

“Is it good or bad that we’re in this room?” Destine hollered at him from the third row back.

The bailiff, a slight man with 5 o’clock shadow at only 11 am, chuckled. “That depends on you.”

“I see. I gotcha,” Destine said.

But Julie didn’t understand what Destine thought she understood. It was a totally cryptic, meaningless answer, thought Julie—and she knew meaningless answers. Whenever someone asked her why they had to turn off their electronics for take-off and landing, she would say, “For the safety of everyone on board.” Then she’d walk away before the agitator could ask for a real answer.

By the time this secondary waiting room was full, Julie had had to shift in her seat 6 times to let people into her row. One man had body odor, an uneven shave and hair so greasy and speckled with dandruff, he appeared almost homeless.
Julie did not consider herself squeamish of the public. Every day on her flights, she would touch the sticky rims of hundreds of dirty plastic glasses and damp napkins. She would look for seatbelts between the creases of clothing and the gross overflow of American bellies. But her passengers were never this type of public. This jury duty level of public didn’t fly on airplanes. They took the Greyhound, she figured.

The bailiff stood up once everyone was in. “Ok, now. We’re going up to the 24th floor. We all won’t fit in one elevator so we’ll have to go up in groups. And there’s only one of me. This means that I can’t lead every single one of you up there. I’ll make sure you get into the right elevator. When you get up to the 24th floor walk out and wait in the hall. Don’t go anywhere.”

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Destine asked.

“You’ll have the opportunity to go up on 24. They’ve got all the amenities you need.”

“Do they have coffee?” she asked.

“Ha ha, you got me there,” he said showing his good nature, patience and charm. “No, but there is a drinking fountain.”

“Oh well then why didn’t you say so?” Destine joked.

Julie rolled her eyes and sighed, “Oh for Christ’s sake,” just like one of Destine’s teenage daughters would have done. Destine heard her and yelled out, “Kill ‘em with kindness,” as she gave Julie a broad, gummy grin.

“Excuse me,” Destine said to an Asian man wearing a starched light blue button-up shirt and holding a grande Starbucks cup in his hand. “Where’d you get that cup of coffee?”

He paused on his way back to his seat still empty from when he left it 9 minutes ago. He knew it had been 9 minutes because he had to sign-out and sign-in at the front of the jury duty waiting room.

“Starbucks,” he said pointing out the obvious. “But there’s also a coffee vending machine over by the bathrooms.” He took a quick step toward his seat, but she caught him.

“Where’s the Starbucks?”

“You have to leave the building. It’s just down the block toward the subway.”

“Oh, ok. I love Starbucks. All of those flavorful syrups? Yum.” The Asian gentleman was already walking away, so Destine finished her thought to a man sitting on the aisle across from her. “Turns coffee into a treat, don’t you think?”

“Well, I like Dunkin’ Donuts,” offered the guy from across the aisle. He cracked his knuckles as though to loosen up for the conversation. “Then I get a bear claw with the coffee. Breakfast and coffee all in one stop.” He wore thick glasses and worn-in Carhartts above unscuffed, untied Timberland boots.

“You have a point there,” Destine said. “I can’t argue about the value of a good donut. You know what I mean? It’s hard to find a bad one.” Her voice reached the ears of at least 150 people. It bounced from seat to another like a bouncy ball from a grocery store toy vending machine.

Destine fancied herself a warm-blooded, friendly person. Each of the few hundred people in the room was from Brooklyn and was sharing this jury duty experience together, and that was enough of a commonality to make all of them her next of kin. This warmth, she believed, was important to living a happy life in a city where you’re surrounded by new people every day. This she had tried to teach her twin daughters. “Look at Oprah,” she would tell them. “The most powerful woman in the world is all about compassion.” On a good day, the girls would roll their eyes. On a bad day, they’d accuse her of wanting to get them kidnapped, raped and killed by all of the crazies in the city. Destine could make friends with strangers, but not with her own two daughters. To people who witnessed these arguments on the train, in stores, on the sidewalk, she’d dismiss her girls’ argument and create a tighter bond between herself and the passersby. “It must just be their age. I was a pain in the butt when I was 12 also. I bet you were too,” she’d say to the nearest warm body.

She shifted in her seat to talk to Donut-man more directly. “Ever been to Peter Pan Bakery in Greenpoint? They have the best donuts. Of course, I’m talking on a scale of good to best. Like I said, no donut is really bad.”

“You speak the truth. No donut is a bad donut. Never been up to Greenpoint, though. I live out east in Canarsie,” he said.

“I live in Flatbush, but I go up to Greenpoint for those donuts. It’s worth the trip—not on the G train though. Nothing’s worth that pain in the butt. I have my boyfriend drive me up there sometimes. So why do you think you’re here?”

“Well, I think it’s just pure luck. My number got called. And now I’m here.”

“Did you go out and register to vote so that you could vote for Obama? That’s what I did. And I think that’s how I got on the county’s radar. This has happened to three other people I know. Register to vote, support Obama, get called to jury duty.”

Donut-man considered being put-off by the question. He was never one to talk politics. But he did like the way she smiled. “Actually I didn’t have a chance to vote. I had to work all day and never made it to the polling place in time. I’ve been postponing jury duty for a couple years now. And they wouldn’t let me postpone anymore. So here I am. Losing money by the minute.”

“You mean your job won’t pay you while you’re here?”

“No they won’t. So this is me paying more taxes. I just hope I don’t get called for a long trial. Then I won’t be able to pay my bills. I’ve got a daughter too to support. And as I’m sure you know, they aren’t cheap. Need the newest things, every month it’s something new.”

Destine wanted to reach out to hold his hand as she said, “Lord, don’t I know it. Little girls are hard to please. No one gives me as hard a time as my two girls.”

But she had yet to meet Julie.

Julie, a flight attendant, was grounded. It was as though there was a blizzard spanning the whole Eastern half of the U.S. and she had to get home from O’Hare, but every New York airport was temporarily closed. She fidgeted in her pleather chair that was connected to 24 other pleather chairs by shared arm rests. But it wasn’t winter. It was the first warm day of spring, when all of New York dusted off and glowed refreshed. And it wasn’t the airport. It was a King’s County courthouse—jury duty. And she had never wanted to go home as much as she wanted to get out of that room right at that moment.

The walls of her one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope were white, unpunctured by nails, unfettered by artwork. Her refrigerator had only natural peanut butter, blueberry jam, a Britta filter and honey mustard. The kitchen cabinet where the previous tenant kept pots and pans, she stored washed plastic takeout containers. The dishes in the cabinet were unscratched. The coffee table, kitchen counter and bathroom sink remained unstained. The couch a mod design in bright red from Ikea, but uncomfortable to sit in for long stretches, sat stark like a sudden stoplight on a dark, country road. A fruit bowl held bright oranges and Granny Smith apples. This was how she liked it—like a picture from a catalog.

And that’s how Roger kept it. He just wanted to fit in to her life, to burrow out a nook and stay there till death did they part. She loved him more than his own mother did, he thought. So he slept, brushed his teeth, shaved, showered, stretched out on the couch to watch TV, and poured himself evening drinks of Jonny Walker Black, without leaving a mark. At least 60 percent of his time at home was spent wiping, sweeping and smoothing. He loved her.

In the courthouse Julie stretched in her seat to try to see the street without getting up, but couldn’t, even though she had placed herself at the outer edge of the row. She only saw the stationary and bland second floor of nearby buildings. So she decided to watch the activity of this bottled up swath of Brooklyn around her, a few hundred of her strangest neighbors sitting under the fluorescent lights waiting just like her. Some people read the Daily News. A minority read The New York Times. About 20 percent of the people were engrossed in books and 50 percent were on laptops. There was one man making what she knew to be friendship bracelets out of thread the colors of the Jamaican flag; one young woman with thick eyeliner and combat boots slept deeply; one overweight black woman struck up conversations with every person within a 10-foot radius from her seat; and yawns. There were many, many yawns rolling through the room like far-off thunder.

She had brought her computer with her. But to get it out of her bag, open it and boot it up would be to commit to her spot, to build her chair into a little nest. That in Julie’s mind would be like surrendering to her situation, to her container. So she decided to text Roger. He didn’t need to wake up until 10:30 this morning, but he wouldn’t mind hearing from her even though it was only 8:33. “Holy Christ, this sucks,” she sent. And then she waited.

Ralph’s butternut-squash head hangs down. The yellow kitchen light reflects off his oily bald crown. He looks at the deep blue stain on the thigh of his jeans. Last spring, the pen he kept in his hip pocket sprung a leak. It was the one he used to fill out invoices for his handyman jobs. “Ralph the Right Man for the Job” was printed on the pen’s side. He had bought 500 of them. He hopes no one else’s “Ralph” pen leaked. He hopes Rose will feel better soon. But Ralph is old enough to know that hoping does no good. He has to accept what he can’t change and change what he knows he can improve. Rose’s outlook he can probably improve.

They were married at age 19 in 1966 at a VFW in South Brooklyn. He knew her so well she was like a puzzle piece he could always shape himself around. He knew how to support her no matter what she said, no matter what was on her mind. They had evolved together over a lifetime.

“And there’s nothing of me anywhere else,” she says fingering a neon yellow square of yarn she’d knitted together and used like a trivet. He looks up at her. She is missing something; she had been for a long time. But now the deficiency had gone on too long. He knew what she needed—a meaningful job.

When he accepted the offer for early retirement last year, he drummed up a handyman business lickity split. He liked to help people and finally could do so without the beast to feed. His longtime albatross: the cable company. The cable company just wanted to make money. Ralph just wanted to make people happy. The pursuits overlapped when he was able to fix people’s cable connections without having to charge them more for the service. This didn’t happen nearly often enough for his liking. Then came the Internet. Cable customers wanted to ask him all about their modems, their connection speed, their WiFi, and to Ralph it was all gibberish. The cable company said training Ralph and the other older gentleman wasn’t a good investment. The cable company was done with Ralph, and Ralph was done with the cable company. As his pension kicked in, his next endeavor was clear. He made himself into the ultimate Mr. Fix-It—a hero in Carhartts. He made people happy by making their sliding doors slide, drains drain, creaky door that woke the visiting grandchildren quiet as a yawn. His work lived on in all of the problems he solved with his calluses. He was improving people’s lives. But Rose? He couldn’t say that Rose found the same satisfaction in work.

Rose cleaned homes—the same homes over and over again. When she’d leave a home smelling of bleach and ammonia, the walls unscuffed, the wood floors shiny, the windows translucent and streak-free, the stubborn spot of petrified burnt onion off the stovetop, she felt accomplished. Task done. Goals met. But then she’d go to that same house a week or two later, and it would be a mess. Her hard work from before non-existent. And it was this Sisyphean battle that kept the money coming in. If families didn’t ruin her work, they wouldn’t need her anymore. Ralph knew it disappointed her.

Ralph knows Rose needs to hear him say something. She needs to hear that he has heard her. He pushes his brain hard to come up with something helpful to say. But he comes up empty. “It’s like how you can’t remember something when you’re trying to remember it,” Ralph says.

“What?” Rose isn’t sure if she should be excited, relieved or frustrated by what he just said. A twinge of hope picks her head off her hand. She looks at him expectantly.

“Oh, shoot. Just thinking out loud, I guess.”

“Oh.” Rose’s eyes go back down.

Snowy Subway Stair Running

Originally this event was the New York City version of the luge, bobsled and skeleton competitions present in the international Winter Olympics. The event was accidentally facilitated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which wasn’t quick to clear snow away from subway stairs. The result? A perfectly, slippery hill. In the first several NYC Winter Olympic Games, competitors would race down the snowy stairwells wearing greased up leather, traction-free soles. The goal was to be the first competitor to arrive on the subway platform ready to board a train. But after a fractured coccyx, several dislocated shoulders (from grabbing onto a railing during a fall) and a broken neck, the Olympic Committee changed the nature of the competition. Now it more closely resembles a track and field event. Competitors must run down the stairs without slipping as quickly as possible. Each competitor must make a foot print on every step. Tracking the footprints has been made easier by the regulation that competitors wear shoes with their initials stamped into the soles.

Identify/Save the Homeless Person

In New York City, there are 37,282 total homeless individuals. Of this, 7,566 are single adults. To stay warm in the frigid weather, these adults cover themselves with tarps, jackets, blankets, newspapers, boxes and other items. This creates a mound of stuff that to passersby might appear to be garbage waiting for pick-up. Clearly, this is not always the case. In this Olympic event, courageous, competitive altruists rush through the city trying to spot homeless men and women. They receive one point for each homeless person they correctly identify from 50 feet away. Once the identification has been made, the competitor must sprint to the homeless individual. The competitor must then quickly assess whether the homeless person needs immediate medical attention. If so, the competitor calls 911 and waits for the arrival of an ambulance. If not, the competitor must bring the individual to a shelter that has vacancies. Shelters with vacancies can be identified by approved cell phone use. This process continues for a grueling 24 hours. The competitor who has saved the most homeless people wins. Scoring is tracked by Olympic judges who follow the competitor throughout the day. Judges are assigned to a competitor in pairs to avoid exhaustion.

Puddle Jumping

Puddle jumping tests agility, speed and leg strength. It is most similar to the long jump event in the international Summer Olympic Games. In this event, competitors start by standing at an intersection made impassable by a giant puddle. When the walk sign lights up, the competitors must jump over the puddle from a stand still. Points are given for distance; points are subtracted for splash. The intersection used for the event is selected by the Committee. Because there are so many of these puddles, the event has never been held at the same location twice. This year’s event will take place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the intersection of Lorimer and Meeker.

Subway Balancing

This is the only year-round event. It is a favorite in the city and not dependent on the weather. In this event, competitors must ride a subway train standing up without holding on to anything for as long as possible. The competitor who goes the longest without steadying themselves via pole, a person, or wall likely wins the event. In recent years, the Committee has ramped up the difficulty by requiring that participants play Tetris on their cell phones while balancing in the train. Once all competitors have completed their ride, Tetris scores are analyzed by the judges. Competitors with the top three Tetris scores, weighted for difficulty, get 3 minutes added to their scores. The record holder is a 15-year-old boy who honed his balancing skills breakdancing through subway cars for handouts.

Eating: Hot Ramen

Once a year, New Yorkers flock to Coney Island to watch Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest. But that’s not enough to satisfy New York’s taste for eating competitions. After much demand from the public, the Olympic Committee created its own signature eating event. Each year, the food is different, but it’s always popular New York fare. This year competitive eaters must gorge themselves on bowls of hot, pork-based Ramen. Other years, competitors have had to eat cannolis, roasted nuts, cheese pizza and pretzels. A big upset took place 17 years ago when the Committee selected coffee as the food. After the event, several over-caffeinated participants created havoc. Acidic urine burnt holes in the stage. One innocent bystander was killed when a participant who was sprinting to the nearest toilet literally ran him over.

It had been three weeks. There was no way to know for sure if Nate’s schedule was the same. It was just an assumption, an educated guess, a plausible hypothesis. She had no reason to believe that his routine had changed. As often as she had quizzed their mutual friends, no one said anything about him switching jobs. Either they were all in cahoots and lying, unlikely, or it was true that he still had the same routine as always. “It has to be true,” Molly murmured as she resumed a more calm but still somewhat sad coziness.

A few minutes later, she forced herself up from the bed—a feat more difficult in this bed than any other she’d ever slept in. A large groove in the center consumed her 5-foot 2-inch, 120-pound frame. Someone much bigger than her had made the indentation, or rather, the canyon. To get up, she literally had to claw at the bottom sheet. At least that was hers. Nate let her take the soft, jersey bottom sheet with her even though it was part of a set his mother had bought him.

Once seated at the edge of the bed, her comfy, nearly worn-out, yellow-striped pajama pants hung widely down around her feet. Another remnant from Nate’s mother. She had bought them for her 4 years ago for Christmas. The hems were now grayed and frayed. The butt pilled. The elastic waistband stretched. But it didn’t matter. There was no one to impress. She finally lived alone.

Over the last 8 months of their relationship, she and Nate had fought a lot. In the momentum of these late-in-the-game fights, she would accuse him of cheating her out of the freedom of living alone, of her independence. More and more often this was the first bullet in her arsenal of his wrongs. “I never had the freedom most women have before settling down. And don’t play it off like it’s nothing. It’s why women cheat. It’s why 40-year-old women dress like 16-year-olds. Not that I would do any of those things, but I’m just saying. You took my youth,” she would cry.

“You aren’t making any sense! I never asked you to give me anything. And, by the way, I never sowed my wild oats, either. I gave you my wild oats!” he would rebut.

“Yes, and that scares the living shit out of me!” she would say. A pang of guilt and guttural sincerity punctured her fight. Gone were the sensational dysphemisms. This was how she really felt. And so she would then pucker and hiccup with tears. And then he would hug her. And then it would be ok.

Until one day when he ruined it all.

“You are so paranoid, so annoying. You have pushed me to the point that I don’t love you anymore. It’s over, you fucking psycho,” he said crying from his side of the bed. He also called her obsessive, possessive, vain and tyrannical. He said she acted like Saddam Hussein, like King Jong-Il, that she was a crazy, paranoid dictator. Whether it was meaningless hate spouted from a geyser of his anger or full of meaning from a deluge of his real feelings, it didn’t matter. That was it. His gush of horrible words sunk into her system and pumped through her over and over again like cancerous blood. “I don’t love you.” “It’s over.” She deserved someone who she could trust to love her unconditionally and at all times. She decided she had to leave him.

Within three days of those utterances, she took a break from an unusually laborious freelance web development project and actually, finally, relievingly, scarily searched craigslist for affordable studio apartments in her neighborhood.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/

apts / housing
all apartments (includes by-owner + no-fee broker + fee broker)
“Park Slope” Rent min: $0 Rent max: $800 0+ BR
Search

Forty-seven results were found. But each one was a sliver of false advertising. The location misrepresented. The number of bedrooms wrong. The rent inaccurate. Not one real result for an apartment in her price range in her neighborhood.

I tilt my head back and relax as the cab takes me and my boyfriend down Houston Street to a dinner party at the home of old friends. I look up at the sheet metal sky. Night is just getting started. I’m so lucky, I muse. Some kid in Tokyo with East Village dreams yearns to live just once in my neighborhood. At ground level, the squiggles of graffiti on the sides of muted grey and tan buildings look like small, dark red, green and black explosions and feel beautiful. This is the rapid place and time I call home.

But as much as I love New York, New York refuses to be loved. Whenever I’m all warm, fuzzy and ready to give the city a carefree, trusting bear hug, it repels me with some crazy, only-in-New-York type of crap to deal with—like our cab, suddenly speeding up and swerving from lane to lane as though we’re being chased. And I think we are.

Jesus. I wake from my Southern back-porch moment only to see a thick, rugby-faced guy in a dark blue Subaru shaking his fist at our cab driver. Blonde hair is smeared down his forehead. He spits a New Jersey blessing out his window. Our driver speeds up. The blonde guy swerves to get behind us. He’s really close. We turn onto Allen Street. The Subaru turns following us. Our driver slams on the breaks. The Subaru slams to a stop. The maniac barely misses rear-ending us.

Now we’re stopped bumper to bumper like a blood clot in the middle of Allen Street. Other drivers are pulling around us continuing on their way. I try to catch their attention with my eyes. “Help us,” I want the other drivers to hear. “Help. We have no idea what is going on.” My boyfriend, God bless him with his honorable French genes, is genetically obligated to accept any duel. He is quietly but not calmly watching the situation play out. I feel him taking short, quick breaths.

Then our driver gets out. He leaves the door hanging open like an awkwardly unfinished thought. He’s wearing wide white pants, shirt, a long, beige vest and white skull-cap. All of it accentuates his long black beard. We watch him calmly walk up to the Subaru’s driver-side window. The blonde maniac is rabidly cursing. Our driver pauses and then plainly, simply shakes his fist. Then he turns and walks back to his cab the same way most people carry files around an office, like it’s a casual, common chore. Cars, new to the scene, honk as they drive by.

The blonde maniac gets out of his car. Our driver closes himself and us in the cab. The blonde moves stiffly, deliberately, like a hulk, and spits a loogie on the yellow trunk. The taillights glow red against his enraged face.

And then I do it. I flip him off. Me, the California girl brought up on anti-war protests and hugs. I flip off the burly, angry hulk with only a thin sheet of glass between us.

I catch eyes with the driver through the rearview mirror. He saw me do it. I sink down in my seat. I’m a little bit embarrassed, a little bit shocked at myself and more than a little bit scared of what is going to happen next. I look up at my boyfriend for camaraderie and compassion. He protectively grabs my hand.

Our driver’s fight had just turned into mine. Having lived here for some time, often in the far stretches of Brooklyn and Queens that you need a cab to reach late at night, I have a special place in my heart for cab drivers. I’ve gotten to know them, have taken them out to dinner, learned about their homes in Ghana, Turkey, Pakistan, San Francisco as they took me down the BQE. I spoke my broken French when they spoke French; I practiced the few bits of Turkish I knew. I often tipped well as my own good-luck charm and to help ensure their sanity. I imagined myself the self-appointed patron saint of cab drivers in a city that makes them go postal.

The driver doesn’t wait for the hulk’s reaction. He steps on the gas. But within a few measly feet a red light stops us. And without fail, the Subaru pulls up to our side. I notice for the first time there’s a woman in the back seat. The hulk is screaming at us again.

Our driver ignores him. But I watch him closely, incredulously and do think I notice him lightly flinching, doing the behind the scenes work that goes into ignoring someone.

Enough! This is my fight.

The remnants of the Californian in me rise up to call forth spiritual unity and neutralize potential violence. And with the unhinged vigor of a New Yorker, I stick my head out the window and yell, “Peace! Peace! Yoga! You need to do yoga! Breathe!”

Me: we still on?

Josh: oh yeah. It’s a double date.

Me: cool.

Josh: any ideas where to go?

Me: someplace that won’t have a wait and doesn’t take reservations.

Josh: true, true it’s prolly too late for that.

Me: yeah and lines suck

Josh: agree

Me: where are you guys coming from again?

Josh: upper west side. and you’re still in brooklyn right?

Me: yeah park slope. well sorta park slope, south slope

Josh: what train’s near you?

Me: the F. everything’s inconvenient except the lower east side

Josh: oh, well there’s a lot there

Me: but isn’t that a pain for the two of you?

Josh: it’s ok. you’re coming all the way in from brooklyn

Me: it’s not that far

Josh: it’s far enough

Me: ok ok

Me: btw, did you tell me your girl Miriam is vegan?

Josh: yep no dairy, eggs, fish, meat

Me: ok…well at least that narrows it down

Josh: do you like thai?

Me: can’t. i’m allergic to peanuts

Josh: oh I forgot

Me: and fresh fruit that grows on trees.

Josh: how about mexican?

Me: could do. but isn’t that what we did last time?

Josh: oh yeah

Me: there’s got to be something else that works

Josh: k, I’m going through menu pages

Me: me too.

Options on menu pages: African, American (New), American (Traditional), Argentinean, Asian, Australian, Austrian, Bagels, Bar Food, Barbecue, Bistro, Burgers, Caribbean, Cheesesteaks, Chinese, Coffeehouses, Cuban, Delis, Desserts & Bakeries, Dim Sum, Diners & Coffee Shops, Eastern European, Eclectic International, English, French, German, Health Food, Indian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kosher, Latin American, Malaysian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Moroccan, Noodle Shops, Nuevo Latino, Other, Pan-Asian & Pacific Rim, Pizza, Sandwiches, Scandinavian, Seafood, Smoothies/Juice Bar, South American, Southern & Soul, Spanish, Steakhouses, Sushi, Tapas, Teahouses, Thai, Turkish, Vegan, Vegetarian, Vietnamese, Wild Game, Wine Bar Wings

Me: I was thinking ethiopian would work, but I don’t see it on here.

Josh: maybe under african

Me: true, duh

Me: no ethiopian in the LES just french inspired african

Josh: ok. what about health food? does that sound boring? I figure then we can ask about the ingredients and they’ll prolly be aware of allergies etc.

Me: ok with me

Josh: k

Me: what about peace café?

Josh: any place except peace café. I’ve been there. it totally sucks.

Me: hahaha oh no