![[>]](../../images/next.gif)
It was Tuesday night and I was leaning against a chain link fence in Greenwich Village, waiting for Bryan to show up. My parents had gone out to see, so help me, Les Miserables. I'd called up Bryan to arrange a get-together Thursday, but when he'd suggested getting together tonight, it had seemed like a good idea. I'd ridden the subway to get to this neighborhood. I'd ridden the subway on my own without getting lost or anything. That was an item on my checklist of Things to Experience in New York. I was so pleased.
So I was leaning on the fence around an outdoor basketball court. There was also a lady waiting--she seemed to be waiting for her two male companions to finish a conversation they were having a little ways away. I suppose she was feeling a little upset about something because she called in their direction: "I don't need to take this, you suit-and-tie-wearing mother fucker!"
I tensed. Was there going to be a fight?
I'd already seen one fight that day. On our way to an Indian restaurant to order a take-out dinner, there was a little produce store. My parents had gone inside. I'd waited outside when I saw the men across the street throwing punches at one another. Unable to think of a way to break up a fight from across a street, I'd figured I'd better cross the street. I looked both ways to check on the traffic, which was moving fast. Then my brain had registered what my eyes had seen while checking traffic.
I looked back at it--a police car, parked. With two police officers in it. They hadn't seemed too concerned with the fight. One of them had lit a cigarette. I'd stopped thinking about how to cross the street and started wondering if I should. Perhaps a more willful man would have crossed the street anyhow, tried to break up the fight, shamed the police officers into doing something. I had hesitated. I suppose I hadn't reached the stage of officially hesitating--the traffic had still blocked my forward progress. Still, a few seconds later, when my parents had emerged from the grocer's and clucked at me to continue on towards the restaurant, I had followed.
Would there be a fight now? No, the lady and her companions were content to glare at one another for a few seconds. I was content to lean back and wonder about those police officers earlier in the evening. I suppose I should have been glad that they hadn't gone all Guilani on everyone's asses and broken everyone's legs, but theirs was now striking me as an excess of sang froid.
Bryan showed up. We walked around Greenwich Village, the East Village, and the Lower East Side. The East Village was perhaps the most interesting in terms of coffee shops and restaurants and such. Still, it was in the Lower East Side that I was able to check an item off of my mental checklist of Things to Experience in New York. I saw a rat. "Oooo, looky, looky, it's my first New York rat!" Bryan seemed surprised that I was so pleased, and seemed to think I hadn't chosen the items on my checklist that sanely.
I had no time for this naysaying, and was already blathering happily about my first New York cockroach, which I'd seen only that evening. I hadn't really felt up to talking about it at the time.
I had been waiting with my parents in that Indian restaurant. We'd placed our order a few minutes before, and by now it must surely be almost ready. And that's when I'd seen the cockroach stumbling down the wall of the dining area. I had watched it stumble and fall off the wall, fall to the floor. I could have pointed it out, but I hadn't known how my parents would react. What if they had freaked out and stormed out without dinner? This had been our best prospect for a restaurant on this block; as we got hungrier, our ability to choose a restaurant had deteriorated. I had tracked the roach's progress across the floor. A customer had walked in. He had looked young, maybe a college student. He had appeared to know the manager, they had exchanged friendly words. I had looked back down at the ground with the sudden realization that I'd lost track of the cockroach. My eyes had flown over the floor, desperately seeking it. I'd drawn up my feet under my chair. The student had sat down at the place I'd last seen the roach; would he soon leap from his chair with a startled yelp? My eyes had darted everywhere, trying to keep track of all possible threats. Then our food had emerged from the kitchen, and we had left. It had been a nervewracking experience, but you want a memorable experience around an event as important as your First New York Cockroach.
Bryan and I continued our walk through the Lower East Side. We approached what looked like a closed up grocery store. But there was a lady sitting on a stool outside. It wasn't making much sense until everything clicked into place. I craned my neck and looked up at the place's sign, and sure enough, "Hey, it's Arlene Grocery," I said. Bryan looked at me funny. "It's a nightclub," I said. "Sometimes they have bands here." Bryan was impressed; he'd never heard of the place. I wriggled with the pleasure of a scholar with an obscure factoid. Bryan asked me if I wanted to go in. Suddenly my pleasure came crashing down. It occurred to me that I couldn't remember what sort of bands played at Arlene Grocery. Oh well. Bryan and I ended our evening in a Russian Diner going over a Village Voice hot off the press, figuring out a show we could go see that weekend.
Wow, I thought, I'm going through the entertainment ads in the Village Voice. And I checked another item off of my list.