Manhattan—My City

“Baby, out in the street,

I walk the way I wanna walk,

Baby out in the street,

I talk the way I wanna talk…

When I’m out in the street, girl,

Well, I never feel alone,

When I’m out in the street, girl,

In the crowd I feel at home…”

                                                                              

                                                                 “Out in The Street,” Bruce Springsteen

     When my feet touch down on the streets of my city, I know I am home.  Iron scaffolding surrounds many of my buildings, in a skeletal embrace, and I wish my arms could open as wide so that I may do the same.  I take in the architecture, buildings broad and grand, ancient and antiqued with history, new and shiny as if just unwrapped, twisted spirals, art deco camp, dome-capped, aerial-topped, swooping tidal waves of buildings, and not one I can say is non-descript.  I know the dirty-water dogs I eat here taste better than more ornate feasts I’ve had, and a hot pretzel with mustard makes my tongue tingle before it even hits my mouth.  I walk these streets like I own them—because I do, as they own me, for no other place in the world can claim me, define me, disturb or delight me like my city. 

    

     To those who know me from their different places, I am “The Brooklyn Bridge,” and just today I got to marvel at it, having seen it at least a million times, and yet, it is always new to me.  My heart fans out like the wire-iron ropes that create the art that spans more than boroughs, but worlds inside and outside of me.  There is much in the mortar between the stones of its arches.  I am in the mixture John Roebling fashioned for the web it holds that always catches me and holds me, suspends me, if you will.  Near completion one hundred years before the Summer of Love, the year I attended my first concert with my mother, my cousins, Maria and Susan, and my sister, Ann, at Central Park where Gary Puckett and The Union Gap played, flowers painted on our faces by Maria, love beads she made around our necks, even my mother’s—who, incidentally, took the Bell and Howell movie camera (no audio and grainy film only making its production more precious to me, and was the same camera that we snuck into an Elton John concert in 1974, when John Lennon came out, and Elton surprised him by bringing out Yoko, and, yes, we got the footage)—while my father parked the boat-like ’63  Impala that took us there somewhere nearby and waited patiently for us, well that year, one hundred years before, I did not know what I know now, and  I thank John Roebling for spinning his web of glory, knowing he gave his life in its making, having been injured in 1867 in an accident that brought on the tetanus that would kill him.  Mr. Roebling, here is your living memorial.

     Today I had a doctor’s appointment, which was more like a reprieve from the debt debate (I will not start, I promise, BUT, just one thing I gotta say, because I’m reveling  in my city and I can talk the way I wanna talk:  Tea Party Congressmen, ANY and ALL Congressmen, Senators, too,  you are servants, WE are the masters.  I say you give us your health care benefits, your retirement benefits, your free gym memberships, your expense accounts—because, after all, WE have paid for them for you— and no more of your bullshit.  Masters are not to have less than servants, after all. (please no nasty emails; I am not into that kind of class thing, and I only get joy from letting loose on our “legislators,” with whom I “pull rank” every chance I get.  This week, I called our congressman for a donation of 100 pocket Constitutions to give students, which I could not pay for because THEY cut the education budget, and lectured an office staffer to tell our congressman that when you vote against funding for education you are threatening our national security because idiots can’t run a country—like we are learning everyday.  Today the congressman’s finance director called me to say I have a package of 100 Constitutions waiting for me to pick up any time.  Ok, a confession: so I told the staffer I have leverage with voting-age students en masse, and that I would be sure to let them know what their congressman would or would not do for them.  Whatever.)  And, back to you, our elected ones:   remember, no constituent put you where you are to destroy our economy and our stature in the eyes of the world, so STOP lying –Congressman Walsh, you hear that?—and serve us for the betterment of our country.  And, Obama, are you kidding me?  Cuts from everywhere it would hurt us, and no revenue? GE didn’t pay any taxes this year, but you didn’t even go for some closing of corporate loopholes?  Not even the jets?   I just do not understand you.  Ok, I can feel myself going on a tear, so I’ll stop here. BUT, I hate them. Not so much Obama, but he PISSED me off, royally).

      So, I had this doctor’s appointment, got 11 shots in between two lumbar spine disks, and my torn up shoulder—hurt like hell—and, upon walking out, we stopped to answer questions from two elderly people waiting to go in.  They said this was their first time in a long time into the city. They asked about my doctor—told them I loved him—and my meds, which strained them to hear because they do not have much, and Medicare, which will be cut, does not pay for all they need.  They said they were from Staten Island, and were going back on the last Access-A-Ride stop.  My girlfriend and I were going to take them home, but they had a wait ahead of them, and we had our Emmie at home waiting for us. I wish we had, though, but, I exchanged information with them, having to write for them because they were too feeble to hold the pen, and, telling them to ask the doctor about supplements, I offered to put together a care package for them on me.  Their eyes lit up like mine would have if Reid and Obama didn’t cave before the Republicans.  They will be calling me to tell me if the doc said it’s ok. When we got out in the street, the church across from the office struck its bells, sonorously announcing the hour.  I stood still, looked up, and I could feel a smile come on.  I guess holding pens, offering rides, making care packages, crossing bridges of all kinds make moments that make days and places holy.  Like my city.

 Helen and Joe, I hope you call.  If you don’t in a few days, I will be calling you.  Expect me, with a care package.  And, I just wanted to say, meeting you today made a moment that made a day holy, like my city, and I just wanted to thank you.  And, if you ever need a ride, I’ll be right outside in the street.