Or maybe it’s just this city.
The last two weeks have given me more cases in point than I want where, just a couple years ago, I might have had more faith and patience in human nature, both mine and other people’s. Both are sure being tested lately.
While she seems at least moderately impressed with me overall, Christine has always had a major complaint with me – my driving. I don’t like to give up my space, and having a couple tons of fiberglass between me and others just intensifies my resolve. Case in point:
The Thursday before last I was driving to Prospect Park so I could get in a few miles. I was in a hurry since I was supposed to meet up the Brooklyn Road Runners at 6:45 and it was already 6:50. And I couldn’t find a fucking parking spot. I should have known – it was just past rush hour, and everyone had just found their space for the night. Compounding my frustration was the fact that I’d passed up a spot 5 blocks before the meetup point thinking I could get a little closer.
Finally, though, after 5 more minutes of looking, I saw an open spot on the opposite side of the street from mine. I was on Prospect Park Southwest which is four-lane and there was one car in my lane with its hazards on, so I made a quick U-turn around that car and slid right in.
I was hopping out of my car and shuffling through my keys when I heard someone yell, “Hey, friend.” It’s probably a fair assumption when you hear a stranger call you “friend” that they don’t mean it, and this was no exception. A tallish guy in business casual had gotten out of the car with the hazards on and was walking briskly toward me. “I just wanted you to know, I was waiting for that spot.”
“I’m kind of in a hurry,” I said, locking my car door.
“So am I,” he said, standing in the middle of the street, “I was about to pull into that spot when you made an illegal u-turn and pulled in front of me.”
“Wait a second,” I said, confused, “You were on the same side of the street I was on, so you would’ve had to make the same turn to get this spot. And you had your hazards on.”
“I had them on so people behind me like you would know I was about to make the turn and wouldn’t be surprised.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” I said, walking away, “but I’m not looking out for people on the opposite side of the street from a parking spot.”
“Well, you should know, you stole my parking spot,” he yelled at my back.
“You don’t have a parking spot,” I yelled back.
And then, the following Monday morning I was putting the laundry in the machine downstairs. I intentionally do our laundry on Monday mornings to avoid the crowds jostling for the three washing machines in the building, but on this day I had a bad feeling when I heard someone coming down the stairs two flights up.
As expected, all the machines were available. We have two single-load machines in our building and one double-loader, and I promptly put a few of my whites in one single-loader and some of my colors in the other. Right as I’d claimed both of them, the door to the laundry room opened.
My building has at least a 75% hipster quotient, and one of their population was staring agape down at me with his laundry bag over his shoulder.
“You’re using those two?” he asked.
“Um,” I said, “Yeah. There’s a machine available right there.” I pointed at the double-loader.
But,” he said, unslinging his laundry bag, “I only have one load. Can’t you put both your loads in the big one?”
“Whites and colors,” I said impatiently.
“But I can’t afford the big one,” he said sadly.
Normally I’m a sucker for this shtick, but I’d just sent in our rent check. He wasn’t fooling anybody. “You can have these two in 23 minutes.”
He looked at me like I was his dad, huffed, “Thanks a lot,” and stomped back up the steps.
And then last week I was on the train on my way to work. I had my copy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and was ready to use the midday lull to grab a seat and read. When I boarded the L it was more crowded than I expected, and it was all school kids from the projects across Flushing Avenue. It was around noon on a Friday, so they were obviously getting a head start on the weekend.
Every seat was taken except one between two of the kids, one of whom had his legs spread wide in that way that says, “I’m important enough to take up two seats.” He was a fat kid too, but the kid on the other side of him was a string bean like me so I figured I could wedge my way in.
He didn’t want to move his leg when I sat down – I think he even moved it out a little, then said to no one in particular, “Look at this boy, wants to sit in my lap or some shit.”
It was then I noticed that one or both of the boys surrounding me smelled distinctly of piss, but I had my seat at least. I took shallow breaths, pulled out my book, and started reading.
Before long the fat one started talking to me while his friend on the other side of me snickered into the back of his hand. “Yo, I don’t respect yo’ movement, son. Know what I’m sayin’?”
I don’t know if he expected an answer. I kept reading.
Then he started talking to a girl sitting across from us. “You believe this nigga? Boy tryin’ to sit on toppa me. I rather you sit on toppa me.” She acted like she didn’t hear him.
When we got to the Grand Street stop he said, “Those Grand Street boys, they don’t play. They all thiefs. But they cool. We all thiefs too. F’na rob somebody when we gets to Bedford.”
The skinny one could hardly contain himself, and most everyone else on the train was moving away, but at least I knew it was only three stops to Bedford Avenue. I kept reading.
The next three stops were pretty much repeats of the same shit he’d already said, and by the time Bedford Avenue came up I felt like I knew the fat kid. I even wondered if he’d say goodbye.
After the gaggle of kids had unboarded to spend their Friday afternoon stealing from hipsters, a gay man and his female friend sat down next to me, and he started talking to her. “Did you see that gang of kids? I really like the big one – he was so masculine. Did you see the ways he was playing around with this guy? He had every one of his friends’ respect. That’s street right there. I was like that in high school. But yeah, I’ve really been getting into this spinning class at Chelsea Piers, and they have this circuit workout where we can work on our abs. Then afterwards we can go to T salon – they have the best scones…”
And finally, last Friday I was out with Christine for dinner at this seafood place on North Sixth. We were sitting at our table between two other couples, and both of the guys were loud. One was talking about how sorry he felt for this girl he knew because her dad was a drug dealer and she didn’t have a lot of money, and the other guy kept talking with a prominent lisp about how great it was to make out with her on their last date. My luck must be on the upswing, I thought. These guys are making me look REAL good.
All in all, it was a fine night – the nights are starting to not be freezing, and we were strolling jauntily across North Sixth on Bedford when this blinged out SUV turned into us, clipping Christine. Remember how I said how much she hates my aggressive driving? Well, it’s not just me. After barely avoiding getting run over by this asshole, she managed to get a foot up to kick the rear passenger door as it passed.
We were then crossing Bedford when I heard a yell. Before I could turn around I felt what seemed like a baseball hitting between my right temple and jawbone. I turned around, and some guy in baggy sweats, low-zipped hoodie and a wife beater was jumping around and swinging his arms.
“Why you wanna kick my car? Huh? You don’t touch my car!”
My head didn’t really hurt at the time, but I knew it would soon. I was about to go into damage control mode when Christine stepped in front of me. “He didn’t kick your car, I did!”
The guy stopped swinging his arms around and looked at her. “What?” Then he looked back at his SUV that was stopped in the middle of North Sixth. “Why you wanna kick my car?”
“Because you about ran us both over!” she yelled at him.
Then he looked at me and started jumping around and swinging his arms like an idiot while moving backwards toward his SUV. “What you wanna do about it? Huh?”
I looked hard at his vehicle then yelled, “GMC1105! GMC1105!”
He got in his vehicle, halfheartedly yelling “I had the right a’ way” before speeding off.
I looked back, and Christine was already calling 911. The cops were there within 5 minutes, six cars’ worth of them.
The first two out were about our age. “Let’s take a look,” one of them said. I showed him my jaw, which already had a lump on it.
“Was the guy black, white or Hispanic?” the other one asked.
“Hispanic,” I said.
“Well,” another cop who just joined us from another car said, “It coulda been worse. People get so mad about traffic shit. I seen a kid get dragged a half a block a few weeks ago.”
“Oh yeah,” another cop from another car said, as all the cops gathered in their own little huddle on the corner. “When we got the call we thought the guy’d still be here beatin’ on you when we got here.”
“We got his license number,” I offered.
“You already give it to dispatch?” one of them asked.
“Well – yeah,” I said. “Are you gonna do a search?”
“The one car that’s got the machine didn’t come out,” he said. “And who’s to say the car belonged to the driver?”
I gave up, and they could see that.
“These things happen,” one of them told Christine, then he looked at me gravely. “But you should never be afraid to call us. It’s just,” he said, looking around, “it looks like the crowd’s disbursed and without a witness, we ain’t got much to go on.”
Almost on cue, a hand touched my shoulder. “Excuse me.”
I looked back, and a short bald man with a woman taller than him was looking at me in concern. A witness. At last, something was going my way.
He looked at the cop, then leaned into me. “Do you know where we can find a good Indian vegetarian place on this block?”
