Hitotoki
New York Tales from Curious Borough Dwellers- Tokyo (en)
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image: Flavio Dessandre
“I save my spit for the next block so they don't mistake a cold for an insult.”
I walk up the avenue toward the lights of Times Square, stopping to spit in the gutter, fighting a summer cold on a warm night with a breeze. I wrote five headlines that will be in tomorrow’s newspaper. Nothing happy. Now I’m meeting my girlfriend in a place I usually avoid, the part of New York that is the least like New York, the part of New York that is hardest for me to love, the part of New York that is the most like the rest of America. I sip a cold beer in a paper bag, and weave between wandering tourists, their eyes toward the sky. Glowing lights ahead, cabbies honking their horns, brakes squealing, random laughter echoing off skyscraper walls, rising above the grinding city noise. I toss an empty can into the trash, and survey the corners for another deli to buy another beer, $2, $2.10, $1.60. Beats bar prices. Shouldn’t be sick still—it’s been a week. Feeling old. Or like a baby. But each sip refreshes. Music, like a marching band, but it’s coming from a bar. A young woman with a purse slung over her shoulder, flip-flops flipping and flopping, glances in every trash can, finally stopping to pluck a large half-eaten pretzel before continuing up the avenue. She doesn’t look homeless or strung out, but she scans the garbage. I walk under scaffolding, through a group of guys wearing cleaning crew uniforms, talking about women, loudly evaluating them as they pass, including the girl with the pretzel. They take up half the sidewalk, bottlenecking the spot. I save my spit for the next block so they don’t mistake a cold for an insult. My girlfriend calls. I tell her to meet me catty-corner from a restaurant with a giant, glowing lobster over its door. I explain what catty-corner means[1]. Then I wait for her in the light of ads beaming suggestions into the outskirts of Times Square. A Coke does sound nice, shimmering red and white Pavlovian lights. There are ads for booze, drugs, clothes, video games, music, all being sold with sex. There are chain restaurants that promise the very same meal here that you can eat in Topeka and L.A. There are signs for businesses that claim to take care of your money, and places to spend your money to take care of your business. No gimmicks like sex needed. Cash is cash, and this is the neon fruit supermarket. I spit in the gutter, and my lungs have new space for air, and I feel better, because it’s the opposite of more is less, and the opposite of subtraction by addition. A mosquito bites me. My girlfriend calls. She’s on the corner waving. She runs toward me, kisses me, hugs me, and I forget about the ads, finish my beer, ride the subway home. But in bed, next to her in the dark, all I see are the lights, and the lights, and the lights. 
referenced works
- Catty corner (or kitty corner) means diagonally opposite. At an intersection, you'd say catty corner to mean the corner diagonally opposite another corner, as in the south-west corner if you're standing on the north-east corner. Also, the term is said to be derived from the French word for four -- quatre -- as in four corners. Et voila. ↩
location information
- Name: Times Square
- Address: 5 Times Sq, New York, NY 10036
- Time of story: evening
- Latitude: 40.756728
- Longitude: -73.986504
- Map: Google Maps
026 “'Can I taste your vanilla?'”
025 “I save my spit for the next block so they don't mistake a cold for an insult.”
024 “The cruise passed close, with laughter loud over the water...”
023 “His children came to him but his wife, bird-like and sad-looking, did not.”
022 “I've been shot twenty-seven times!”
021 “The entrance at the top of the stairs is locked, but another staircase leads to the basement.”
020 “Danny busted out a bottle of Brut 33 aftershave...”
019 “I clutch the rusting, peeling hulk of the globe and hang on tight.”
018 “The naked man’s hands only mimicked a fondling.”
017 “That's when I knew I wanted to live in New York: in the midst of those fragile bralets and bodysuits.”
016 “The guns, we tell the police later, were black like ice.”
015 “...my own talisman against the folly of my youth.”
014 “Y'all in a band'r somethin'?”
013 “Perhaps it was the lanky teenager with the bright red book-bag that made me think I saw Adam.”
012 “I remember flattening myself against the streaky windows of the PATH train like an insect.”
011 “I glanced up to see another shape hit the sand.”
010 “Vibrating almost imperceptibly in the breeze like a woody tuning fork.”
009 “Then the jazz stopped and the radio said the war had started in the Middle East. ”
008 “Shirtless Boris Yeltsin’s skin reddens as he reads a book.”
007 “Port Authority was there with open, non-judging arms.”
006 “His almost-loss was my almost- nonexistence.”
005 “On the cold hard floor of the orphanage, I sang, longing for the day that they would come and rescue me.”
004 “He was a lawyer, after all.”
003 “The parking lot gate was open, and we ran in with the skateboard.”
002 “We arrived on completely Russian streets, with Russian signs and a familiar rudeness.”
001 “...the hourly clicking of Oxfords and high heels across the parking lot.”
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