one way of saying/new york
Riding an unfamiliar bike is kind of like borrowing someone’s shoes that have been worn in specifically to their feet, but you can’t complain about it because if it weren’t for the ill-fitting shoes you’d be barefoot and cut.
The chain on this bike is so rusty that it screeches and clicks and grinds as I pedal so that everyone on the sidewalk turns to stare. This is embarrassing while it’s happening but it might also prevent me from sneaking up on someone.
For instance: the day before I acquired the bike, my brother got stung by a stingray in Mexico, and it was because he was walking through the water when he should have been shuffling and kicking up sand. He did not alert the stingray he was coming and so it attacked.
I said to my friend: If anything happens to my brother, I won’t keep going.
At least it wasn’t in the heart, my friend said.
There’s a place in Mexico called Iztapalapa where they reenact the crucifixion each year. There’s a cave there called The Devil’s Cave because people who went in never came out again and finally they put bars over the entrance to prevent this loss. They say that in the cemetery people with nowhere else to stay dig their way into the tombs to sleep.
Here they close the cemetery at five thirty and you can’t ride a bike through but you if you walk far enough you get the best view in Brooklyn, or so I’m told.
And in parts of Queens you could swear you were in Mexico if it weren’t for the men whispering, socio, socio, socio.
I’m talking to my friend while we cross the Gowanus Canal and she’s saying about someone: don’t ask me whether or not I believe in ghosts and then try to challenge me if I say yes.
There are many places that I assume no longer exist and then I pass them exactly as they were nine years ago like the garden on 4th street where a Puerto Rican woman clasped my hand in crisis and beat a drum at the same time. Quite unlike me I have not thought until this moment to wonder where she is now.
Three days ago I rode noisily from Crown Heights to Park Slope, turned right on 15th street and slowed at the stoplight on 8th Avenue. It was 2 am and quiet and when I turned I watched a kid collapse on the sidewalk sobbing. He had a pizza box in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.
I went over and he started talking.
He said to me: If anything happens to my mom, I won’t keep going.
After a while he looked up to see who he was talking to.
That’s a nice bike, he said.
Then I wrote something on his pizza box.
More than once (and only here) I’ve been asked for directions in Polish and with some effort we’ve found a way to get the asker where she’s going.
Nice, Melina. This could be turned into a pretty cool short memoir/essay.
Isn’t it already?
Also, Dokąd zmierzamy?
Marcus, you’re absolutely right. Sorry – I’ve been in, “everything is a work in progress and can always be revised!” mode lately. Good for thesis, bad for tact. Melina knows what’s up.
I wish.
above comment meant for marcus’s second question.
and thanks both of you…
I want more of this! You’ve inspired me!
so glad. you’ve done so for me once or twice as well.
Nice.
What Sam said. Indeed.
If anything happens to my sister, I won’t keep going.