Manhattan — “I've been shot twenty-seven times!”

022 : Jónas Knútsson On Waverly Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Born 20th Century in Reykjavik, Iceland. Jónas Knútsson currently works as a filmmaker, a translator and a journalist. Why New York? The Modern Rome. He digs the following Gotham bits: The Lower East Side, pickles, museums, Broadway and Italian cherry ices. Jónas Knútsson's favorite meal in New York is a cheeseburger deluxe, with a big juicy pickle in a diner with a name like "Cozy Burger," followed by a slice of cheesecake. For more info on Jónas Knútsson you should send an email or visit www.blueprintreview.de/about_Jonas_Knutsson.htm.

image: Reid Schwartz
“I've been shot twenty-seven times!”

Next door to my apartment in the Village is a private ballroom. On weekends the patrons invade the neighborhood in stretch limos and whoop it up in the perfectly sound-proof den of iniquity, only to pour into the street as the feast draws to a close. The rest is pandemonium, a few feet from my one-way bedroom window. I never peek out as the incorporeal chorus lulls me to sleep.

A brawl. An older man keeps hollering, but the flow of his riff is never broken. I assume no one chooses to engage him.

“I’ve been shot twenty-seven times. Twenty-seven times I’ve been shot.”

During the ruckus, no one says a word except the guy bellowing, “I’ve been shot, twenty-seven times.”

The racket dies down. But the man keeps on shouting about being shot twenty-seven times. The ramblers have either gone home or been beaten to a pulp. But the man goes on shrieking, “I’ve been shot twenty-seven times.”

At last he falls silent.

Maybe he had been shot twenty-seven times.

“We need treatment.”

The woman is hysterical. She calls the man “son of a bitch,” “motherfucker.”

Every accusation is countered with the mantra, “We need treatment, baby. We need therapy.”

The man starts crying. The woman breaks into tears as well, but her torrent of rage flows uninterrupted: “You motherfucking son of a bitch. You son of a bitch motherfucker.”

“We need treatment,” the man concludes.

A long silence follows.

As I drift off into my long-deserved slumber, a lonely grumble ruptures the fragile silence outside:

“I’ve been shot twenty-seven times.”

location information

Name: Waverly Place, Greenwich Village
Address: Waverly Place, Greenwich Village
Time of story: late night
Latitude: 40.733292
Longitude: -73.999642
Map: Google Maps

commentary

026 “'Can I taste your vanilla?'” — Maya Gat

025 “I save my spit for the next block so they don't mistake a cold for an insult.” — Robb Todd

024 “The cruise passed close, with laughter loud over the water...” — Paul Weidknecht

023 “His children came to him but his wife, bird-like and sad-looking, did not.” — David Licata

022 “I've been shot twenty-seven times!” — Jónas Knútsson

021 “The entrance at the top of the stairs is locked, but another staircase leads to the basement.” — Jill Widner

020 “Danny busted out a bottle of Brut 33 aftershave...” — Kit Born

019 “I clutch the rusting, peeling hulk of the globe and hang on tight.” — Denise Reich

018 “The naked man’s hands only mimicked a fondling.” — Anne Germanacos

017 “That's when I knew I wanted to live in New York: in the midst of those fragile bralets and bodysuits.” — Ling Ma

016 “The guns, we tell the police later, were black like ice.” — Tara Deal

015 “...my own talisman against the folly of my youth.” — Andrea Jarrell

014 “Y'all in a band'r somethin'?” — Abraham

013 “Perhaps it was the lanky teenager with the bright red book-bag that made me think I saw Adam.” — Carrie Teicher

012 “I remember flattening myself against the streaky windows of the PATH train like an insect.” — Erin Fisher

011 “I glanced up to see another shape hit the sand.” — Ken H. Judy

010 “Vibrating almost imperceptibly in the breeze like a woody tuning fork.” — Rob Giampietro

009 “Then the jazz stopped and the radio said the war had started in the Middle East. ” — Roland Kelts

008 “Shirtless Boris Yeltsin’s skin reddens as he reads a book.” — Michael Maiello

007 “Port Authority was there with open, non-judging arms.” — Khoi Vinh

006 “His almost-loss was my almost- nonexistence.” — Matthew Rand

005 “On the cold hard floor of the orphanage, I sang, longing for the day that they would come and rescue me.” — Jen Egan

004 “He was a lawyer, after all.” — Kristin Gardner

003 “The parking lot gate was open, and we ran in with the skateboard.” — Lorraine Martindale

002 “We arrived on completely Russian streets, with Russian signs and a familiar rudeness.” — Kseniya Melnik

001 “...the hourly clicking of Oxfords and high heels across the parking lot.” — Tam Nomgum

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