5/7
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| Thank you Eleanor |
I stop in one of the African dollar store on 116th to buy some scotch tape. Walk up an aisle, trying to go wide past the woman who is there. “You walked up my aisle just to mess with me,” she says. “I see what you did.” I’m taken aback, but stay calm. “I apologize,” I say. “Yeah, you sorry ,you sorry ass mother fucker. My people don’t play with no white people, you creepy ass white ass motherfucker.” I repeat again slowly, “I apologize” and move further away. I stay well more than six feet away in the check out line. She gets to the clerk. “I don’t know why you even let those creepy ass white mother fuckers in your store. Let them go to they own store.” She leaves. The clerk shakes his head. I stay silent. There’s anger out there. It’s always there, a baseline. This coronavirus makes it worse. I’ve lived here over four years now. Still feel like an interloper sometimes.
Walking down 114th, there are food tables set up in a vacant lot. Turns out the A Philip Randolph Senior Center is distributing food.
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| Food for the people |
I talk to the coordinator, quickly return with two dozen masks made by Eleanor De Leon of Ft.Lauderdale, partner of my old friend Steve W. She sent them wanting to help New York City. Now they will go to seniors and homeless people who need them.
My friend Milica made some very classy masks. In the last bunch were two orange ones. My son Dan took one. I knew who the other had to go to. My old friend Joe, or Mandola Joe, loves orange. It belonged to him the minute I saw it. I knew Joe first as a musician. Then as the best tour guide to Central Park I know. He knows it like the back of his hand, flora and fauna, history, monuments. He may be the only guy I know who actually saw two games at Ebbets Field. And he carves great walking sticks from found wood in Central Park. I meet him in Teddy Roosevelt Park north of the Museum of Natural History. He’s very happy with the masks.
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| a mask for Joe |
He points out some beautiful flowers peeking through the fence.
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| peeking through |
We sit a bench six feet...a walking stick length apart ...and talk. He’s anxious for the next round of sumo wrestling from Japan. I ask about social distancing. Well there’s no audience, he says, The referee wears a mask. It was very weird for about four days, but the wrestlers have adjusted. I’m wondering what we’re facing when sports re-open. My mom calls, Joe is on his way.
I decide to walk home up Central Park West, Sometimes I forget the grandiosity of that string of Art Deco buildings and the park.
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| gargoyle |
The well appointed…and masked…doormen standing in wait outside their buildings. (When I lived here on Riverside in 1982, My friend Philip said, “Be good to the doormen, they’ll watch your car…”) I go past 110th and reenter Harlem. Notice thank you's to our "essential workers."
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| thank you |
At 114th, I find Bean and Barley has reopened. That is, there’s a table in the door, and they’re serving drinks if you walk up with a mask. I ask, how long have you been back open? And they say, “Just today, it feels good.” Buy a margarita and sit down and watch some young folks…masked..using every ounce of self control to keep their distance. They mime air hugs and laugh. Been a long time since they’ve seen each other. B&B’s reopening gave them an excuse for a pop up gathering.
I’m feeling good about my day with masks. It’s a part of this life. In other parts of the country, people have been shot and arrested over masks. Some Republican congressman from Ohio is refusing to wear one on “religious principles.” Don’t ask. Sigh. I think of Toole’s wonderful novel, A confederacy of dunces. I’ve spent the better part of the day trying not to think about it, but its hard.
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| Bodega life in Coronavirusworld |
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