It was a pale blue afternoon and the air felt like it could snap in two. Chloe put on her brown wool hat and stepped out onto the sidewalk, mixing in among the masses of tourists and chinese families of six or seven. She headed east down Hester Street, and as she cleared the herds crossing Chrystie Street, she broke into a stroll.
"Ahead of schedule," she thought, which was an unusual circumstance, and you bet she would take advantage of it. Passing the chinese men's club, which seemed perpetually gathered in a circle of smoke, she removed the small bag of dates from her pocket, which she held open in her hand from which to snack, and she ambled on.
Chloe was on her way to visit her friend Gabrielle who lived in a big flamingo pink building on the corner of Grand and Orchard. It sounds tacky, and she hated pink, but she liked flamingos, and it reminded her of them, so it was forgiven, as far as she was concerned. Also, the windows were huge and the whole facade was iron-wrought. It was a converted suspender factory that Gabrielle's parents, both artists, had lived in since the 60's. They bought the whole building and lived on two floors. Gabrielle grew up there, among the drug dealers and whores who populated the corner in those days. "I learned right away what real life is," she had told Chloe.
Not that Gabrielle had anything to worry about. She was well taken care of. When her parents decided to move upstate, they left the whole building to her. And so, eventually, she set up a yoga and dance studio on the second floor, below her living quarters on the third floor. The fourth floor served as everything from an art studio to a dance floor to a wine cellar of sorts. There was enough room for all of it and probably fifty of her friends.
Chloe crossed Allen Street and swung left up to the black door to Gabrielle's. It was hard to find, and as the years went on, since she had known Gabrielle, it seemed to blend more and more into the pasted-up poster and graffiti collage that had spread like wildfire all over the exterior wall where it met the sidewalk. She hadn't had a commercial tenant in the bottom floor for years, and she had basically just locked it up and let the outside go to pot. "I am doing my part to retain the character of the neighborhood," she said.
Up on the third floor, Gabrielle was drinking Bordeaux and listening to Devotchka. Chloe could tell from the speaker when she buzzed her in downstairs. The elevator didn't work, and the two flights always seemed like an eternity - the equivalent of four flights in a normal tenement building. Out of breath but very much enjoying the rush of blood through her veins, Chloe swung open the big metal door.
"Helllooooo, how is everything?" Gabrielle said, wrapping her silk kimono-swathed arms around Chloe. "Oh, fine," she replied, taking off her coat and hat and plunking herself down on one of the five couches laying about the loft. Gabrielle returned to her chaise by the giant window, where she glowed in the sunlight that streamed down.
"Promise me that they will play this song at my funeral," she said with a dramatic sigh, her head turned to gaze outside, and the glass of Bordeaux in her hand. How it Ends was playing on the speaker. It sounded so much better in her apartment. The voices bounced off the walls.
Taking the already-poured goblet siting on the table (how long has it been sitting there? she didn't care), Chloe took a sip and slumped down further on the couch, till her whole body was basking in the warmth of the sun.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
two movies and a book
It was a rainy afternoon in December. That kind of chilling, damp air that penetrates to the bone. Chloe had just gotten off the phone with her friend Georgette, who had become slightly depressed as of late. She didn't know what she wanted, in general, and was sad about most things. Chloe had tried to console her.
Pretend you are a character in a movie and look at everything from the outside, and suddenly everything will come into perspective and everything will seem small.
Chloe's boots went clip-clop over the cobblestones on Crosby Street. She preferred to walk over these instead of the narrow sidewalk, because it felt like it must have felt to walk there in the 60s, when Crosby Street was a better version of itself. And in the emptiness, it felt like her own.
The cobblestones, though, were also a melancholy reminder of how little streets there were left paved with this vestige of old New York. Just last year the city had paved over all of Grand Street, leaving a smooth and slick surface, lined with stores selling thousand dollar t-shirts. Save for Wooster, Greene, Mercer, and that two block stretch of Clinton in no-man's land below Delancey, Crosby Street was one of the last holdouts.
The day Crosby is paved over is the day I leave New York.
The echoes of her boots filled the silence, and it started to pour rain just as she pulled open the big door at Housing Works Bookstore. She was craving a useful book. Perhaps a Historical Account of Crosby Street, or A Detailed Description of How to Navigate the Canal Street Subway Station. Finding neither of her desired books (what else could be expected?), she ambled over to the 50 cent cart.
While contemplating the usefulness of The Science of Relationships, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was her friend Griselda, who had worked there for as long as Chloe had been getting her books there, which wasn't long. "I have a book for you!"
(Griselda had been keeping an eye out for certain books as they arrived, as a favor to Chloe, who had the idea that she wanted to collect all the books with the word "ocean" in the title. It was an ongoing project, but she had
collected quite a range, thanks in large part to Griselda's efforts.)
"It's called 'Near the Ocean' by Robert Lowell."
(The cover was aqua, with corners worn white with wear. The title, in a sans serif italic, sat in an off-white square, with aqua wave lines alternating each word, which were stacked one on top of another, flush left. It was very 60s.)
"Thank you, this is perfect."
Forgetting her mission to find a useful book, Chloe took off her coat and sat at a table with the volume... But first, a glass of wine, she thought. She stood up and went to the bar.
(Hello's. The order. Merlot please. Digging through her wallet. Thank you.)
Taking her seat again, she opened the cover. 1967. She couldn't help but wonder whether she would have preferred to have lived then. Maybe her happiness would have been greater. She started thinking about all that she wanted but couldn't have, and all that she had but didn't want. Drifting in thought, she sighted a man in the corner with a solitary stack of books like a skyscraper. Beyond him, she drifted up the stairs and up to the platform that stretched across the second level of the store. Gazing over the railing, she watched herself from above. And suddenly everything felt light and free, and all the bookstore and its patrons were just characters in some movie sitting on a dusty shelf.
Pretend you are a character in a movie and look at everything from the outside, and suddenly everything will come into perspective and everything will seem small.
Chloe's boots went clip-clop over the cobblestones on Crosby Street. She preferred to walk over these instead of the narrow sidewalk, because it felt like it must have felt to walk there in the 60s, when Crosby Street was a better version of itself. And in the emptiness, it felt like her own.
The cobblestones, though, were also a melancholy reminder of how little streets there were left paved with this vestige of old New York. Just last year the city had paved over all of Grand Street, leaving a smooth and slick surface, lined with stores selling thousand dollar t-shirts. Save for Wooster, Greene, Mercer, and that two block stretch of Clinton in no-man's land below Delancey, Crosby Street was one of the last holdouts.
The day Crosby is paved over is the day I leave New York.
The echoes of her boots filled the silence, and it started to pour rain just as she pulled open the big door at Housing Works Bookstore. She was craving a useful book. Perhaps a Historical Account of Crosby Street, or A Detailed Description of How to Navigate the Canal Street Subway Station. Finding neither of her desired books (what else could be expected?), she ambled over to the 50 cent cart.
While contemplating the usefulness of The Science of Relationships, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was her friend Griselda, who had worked there for as long as Chloe had been getting her books there, which wasn't long. "I have a book for you!"
(Griselda had been keeping an eye out for certain books as they arrived, as a favor to Chloe, who had the idea that she wanted to collect all the books with the word "ocean" in the title. It was an ongoing project, but she had
collected quite a range, thanks in large part to Griselda's efforts.)
"It's called 'Near the Ocean' by Robert Lowell."
(The cover was aqua, with corners worn white with wear. The title, in a sans serif italic, sat in an off-white square, with aqua wave lines alternating each word, which were stacked one on top of another, flush left. It was very 60s.)
"Thank you, this is perfect."
Forgetting her mission to find a useful book, Chloe took off her coat and sat at a table with the volume... But first, a glass of wine, she thought. She stood up and went to the bar.
(Hello's. The order. Merlot please. Digging through her wallet. Thank you.)
Taking her seat again, she opened the cover. 1967. She couldn't help but wonder whether she would have preferred to have lived then. Maybe her happiness would have been greater. She started thinking about all that she wanted but couldn't have, and all that she had but didn't want. Drifting in thought, she sighted a man in the corner with a solitary stack of books like a skyscraper. Beyond him, she drifted up the stairs and up to the platform that stretched across the second level of the store. Gazing over the railing, she watched herself from above. And suddenly everything felt light and free, and all the bookstore and its patrons were just characters in some movie sitting on a dusty shelf.
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