A Hot and Heavy Week in New York
The black Escalade steamrolled through the crumbling highway from JFK to Williamsburg.
After flattening three fixie riders, we pulled up to my stop. I said to the Russian, “yo homes, smell you later.”
I looked at my smartphone; I was finally there. I needed to sit on a throne and vacate my derrière.
Underground steam hissed through yellow vent pipes to join the humid, stinky air of New York. The Big Apple was boiling under unusual fall heat: both garbage and investment bankers stunk, Oscar the Grouch suffocated inside his can, and Theo was forced to take off his Gordon Gartrell and prance around the city with his modest pecks in full view.
Like Theo, I enjoy to walk. But unlike Theo, I sweat like a female dog. Combined with heat, my strolls became slick like a platypus that someone accidentally spilled oils on.
This isn’t the kind of slickness that attracts chicks. In fact, my wet back and blushing, swollen face repelled them. It wasn’t doing me any favors with the bros either.
“You walked from where to where? Why didn’t you just take the subway?” asked the douche.
I wrung my shirt, dripping brine on his trendy shoes.
“Because I’m not a subway sucker,” I replied slyly.
I began walking away, mumbling a sharp barb just inside earshot.
“Dooooooooooouche.”
On the subway ride back to my friend’s flat, I tried not to let the stranger get to me.
I didn’t have time for small talk on this trip, I had too many friends to visit and too much big talking to do.
Plus, there were agents to meet, dinners to be had, industrial areas to explore, and 52 mile upstate bike trails to ride.
City basil.
Temple fortress.
Community board.
A warning for all trespassing coconuts.
Under the Manhattan Bridge.
A sweltering stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ripping off Korea, people are leaving locks all over the Brookyln Bridge.
A step below locks: sentimental trash.
Crash pad.
A view killer.
Fire truck.
Mysterious police device.
Trying to figure out how to take a bad photo with an iPad.
Never forget how much taller I look on TV.
Harvesting underground urban street yams.
Sausage buns, Momofuku style.
Hasidic apartment complex.
Star wall.
City wide dumpster isn’t as wide as it advertises.
Following D into Chinatown.
Dusty storefront.
Longan looker.
Alley.
Cooling the sewers.
A failed parlor.
Bilingual.
Embedded.
Flaccid fast food.
Blue gate.
Blue bins.
Fence.
Industrial wonderland.
Sunflowers of the Gowanus.
Floater.
Old Ford.
Draw bridge mechanism.
The canal.
The little cube.
Indie band music video.
Urban corn.
Dharma Initiative?
Decommissioned crane.
View obscuring mesh on the IKEA water taxi.
Abandoned fish market.
River fishing.
Pinned crab.
Pad thai.
Layering.
Gold! Gold everywhere!
Practical advice.
Ribbon tagging.
So many drugs.
Window failure.
On the train, heading upstate.
Last minute adjustments.
The path.
The bikers.
A bridge.
Stopping to smell the trees.
Small section of damage trail? Why not fence off the whole path with no way to get around other than climb the fences.
Lake.
Tailgate warnings.
Functioning car.
Brownstones.
A timeline of doorbells.
Smushed.
An overgrown brownstone.
Lens snarl.
Jockey.
Dusk lettering.
Waterfront warehouses near ice-cream source.
My hosts.
Goodnight Manhattan.
On Monday, it was time to gain back the timezones I had lost.
Immediately after landing, I inhaled deeply. The fond smells of seaweed, sourdough, crazy hobos, and the cast of Full House comforted me.
I was home. I was in flux.