East of A

I'd been out of town, upstate in Syracuse, nine days snatching whatever sun and country atmosphere I could between court appearances in a child-custody case, presenting surveillance evidence against the natural mother. After the case finally settled late Thursday afternoon, I dropped off the rental and caught an evening bus back to the city. Slept most of the way, dozing off listening to a tape of Joe Mantegna reading Farewell, My Lovely till the batteries ran down: "I was a swell guy. I en-joyyed...be-inng...mmmmmm--" The Peter Pan bus downshifted and swerved, slowing to approach the Lincoln Tunnel. Out my darkly tinted window, the etched-black skyline of Manhattan stood imposing and beautiful against a moonless May night. At first glimpse, my heart surged (almost alive again, not quite) like the last time I saw her--Clair, my sweet Air--fresh and lovely as I always remembered. From that distance, the city stays the city of your imagination: a scintillating island of promises, of hope, of love renewed. Not until you get closer is the sobering truth revealed: you're happier to see her than she is you. Not angry, not resentful. Worse. Uninterested, dispassionate, preoccupied; her reticence inspires myth. But eventually you get over it, they say, because reality (whatever that happens to be) sets in, and you take her for what she is: not yours--never your city--but just a city of her own. I got into my office/apartment overlooking Twelfth Street and Second Avenue at half-past one in the morning with a week's worth of mail in my hand. While I was gone, no one had broken in. I counted the answering machine's flashes--nine--and decided I needed to eat something first, which meant going right back out again. The fridge naturally was empty, nothing but a single ice cube in the ice tray and an open box of baking soda. I was overdressed for the East Village after midnight, still in my dark blue suit, narrow maroon tie, and shiny black shoes from my final court appearance. But I didn't change into street clothes because I was only going down to the Chungs' all-night deli, and I thought they'd get a kick out of seeing me looking so respectable. I was going to kid Mrs. Chung that the outfit was one of my disguises. Then she'd rattle off some English I couldn't follow one word of, but I'd laugh when she laughed. Except when I got to the deli, the rusted accordian gates barred the doors and a big for rent sign hung behind the plate glass in the darkened window. I peered in. The aisles and shelves were bare. One solitary fluorescent light fixture blinked on and off, spasmodically. Couldn't digest it at first--I'd only been gone nine days. I still owed them for a pack of cigarettes. Why would they...' I'd have to ask around in the morning. The more immediate problem was, where to shop now? Less than a block away, another convenience store on Second, but they overcharged (probably why they were still in business), so instead I turned west on East Twelfth, toward an indelectable deli on Third Avenue. The cashier who rang up my cigarettes, gallon of milk, and box of Cheerios wasn't the least bit impressed by my suit. Rather than walk back the way I'd come, I went home on Eleventh. For no other reason, I suppose, than that I have an inclination to complete circles. At the Third Avenue corner was the wide stone-block entrance to an NYU dorm, lit up stark orange by sodium-vapor floodlamps. Farther down Eleventh, the sidewalks narrowed and the lighting grew softer. Every five feet a thin, budding tree cast a spidery shadow--like cataracts--across a brick-face wall, the walls mostly belonging to prewar townhouses undergoing reconstruction. No lights on in any windows. It was a minor through street, at that hour no traffic at all. Quaint and peaceful. For a moment I even forgot where I was, imagining myself back in Syracuse, strolling down a country lAtwood, Russell is the author of 'East of A' with ISBN 9780345427786 and ISBN 0345427785.