me. It’s hotter than hell in my apartment, but I can strip to my panties if I want to, which, at the moment, is eminently appealing.
I turn east on 96th Street, trek up the hill toward Broadway. A hot breeze off the river slaps me in the back like a nasty little kid pushing me in line. I pass several people lurching downhill toward Riverside Park: a young couple with a toddler in a stroller, a pair of joggers, a middle-aged man with a Russell terrier. Well-dressed, affluent, secure. A far cry from the people who used to inhabit most of these buildings when I was a kid, until gentrification in the early eighties purged the legion of seedy SRO—single room occupancy—hotels on the Upper West Side of their decidedly unaffluent inhabitants.
As I pass the recently sandblasted buildings with their newly installed glass doors, their fatherly doormen, I remember my parents’ horror as, one by one, the helpless, hopeless occupants of these buildings were simply turned out onto the streets like thousands of roaches after extermination. Joining the already burgeoning ranks of the homeless, many of them were left with no recourse but to panhandle from the very people who now lived in what had once been their homes.
Over the past decade, the homeless aren’t in as much evidence as they were. I’m not sure where most of them went, since God knows there are even less places in Manhattan for the poor to live than there ever were. Even apartments in so-called “dangerous” neighborhoods now command rents far out of the reach of the middle class, let alone those struggling by on poverty level wages. But the dedicated homeless are still around, a life-form unto themselves, with their encrusted, shredded clothing and shopping carts and bags piled with whatever they can glean from garbage cans and Dumpsters, hauling their meager possessions about with them like a turtle its shell.
And yes, they make me uncomfortable, as they do most New Yorkers fortunate enough to not count themselves among their number, mainly because I’m not sure how to react to their plight. I’m as guilty as anyone of ignoring them, of looking the other way, as if, if I don’t see them, their problem isn’t real. At least, not real to me.
I know the vast majority of these poeple are not responsible for their present condition. Who the hell would choose to live on the street, after all? Many are mentally ill, incapable of achieving any success in a city in which that concept is measured in terms most of them couldn’t even begin to comprehend, let alone aspire to. Others have been beaten down so often, and so far, over so many years, that I doubt they have the slightest notion of how to even begin digging themselves out. So I do feel compassion. Just not enough to override my inertia. Or my guilt.
I used to think winter was the worst time to be without someplace to go. The wind that whips crosstown between the rivers can be brutal, icing a person’s veins instantly. But today, as heat pulses off the cement, as the humidity threatens to suffocate me, I’m not sure summer is much better.
And I suppose I’m thinking about all this because, as I’m standing under the Plexiglas shelter at 96th and Broadway, in a clump of six or seven other people waiting for the bus, one of these men approaches us. I watch as, as discreetly as possible, everyone else casually removes themselves from his path, turning from him, deep in their cell phone conversations, their newspaper articles, their own clean, neat lives.
The urge to follow their lead is so strong I nearly scream with it, even as I’m disgusted at my own reaction. But the man reeks, making it nearly impossible for me not to recoil. As I have most of my life, I wear my shoulder bag with the strap angling my chest to deter would-be purse-snatchers; however, my hand instinctively clutches the strap, hugging the bag to me.
Mine, the gesture says, and I am sorry for it.
I am now the only person still under the shelter, although dozens of people swarm the intersection like lethargic ants. The other bus waiters, undoubtedly relieved that I’ve been singled out and they can breathe more easily—literally—hug the curb and storefronts a few feet away, still close enough to easily catch the bus when it comes.
The man creeps closer, forcing me to look at him. He is filthy and unshaven, his posture stooped. Nearly black toes peer out from rips in athletic shoes only a shade lighter, a good two sizes too large. I cannot tell his age, but behind his moth-eaten beard, I can see how thin he is.
He holds out his hand. It is shaking. From the heat, hunger, the DT’s…? I have no way of knowing. I do, however, feel his embarrassment.
Nedra would have emptied her wallet into that hand, I know that, without a moment’s hesitation. But then, my mother’s crazy.
I glance away, my mouth dry, then back.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, the words scraping my throat. I notice a well-dressed Asian woman a few feet away turn slightly in our direction. But I only half see her frown, her head shake, because my gaze is hooked in the gray one in front of me, buried under folds of eyelids. Hope blooms in those eyes, along with a smile. He nods.
The rational part of me thinks, I should take him to a cheap restaurant, feed him myself. If I just give him money, what will he spend it on?
And then I think, who am I to judge?
But before I can make up my mind, a cop comes along and hustles the protesting man away, at the same time my bus squeals up to the stop. I board, behind the disapproving Asian lady, who asks me, as we take seats across the aisle from each other, if I was afraid. I say no.
The bus is air-conditioned and nearly empty, and I feel some of the tension that’s wormed its way into my head over the past few days slink away. We pull away from the stop; outside the man shuffles off toward Amsterdam Avenue, and my insides cramp.
As unsettled as I feel, as unhappy as I am, I still have a job. I still have a home. I still have my friends and my shoe collection and even, I have to acknowledge, my family. Life might be a little bizarre at the moment, but it’s far from horrible.
I pull out my novel, try to reimmerse myself in Gunther and Abigayle’s trials and tribulations, which has the unfortunate effect of only yanking my thoughts back to the men-and-women discussion of earlier. At the moment, I have to admit I’m inclined to side with Terrie on one thing: men are expendable. Their sperm might not be, but they are. I personally don’t need one to survive, or even flourish. I guess, if push came to shove, I could even go without sex. Nuns do. And it’s not as if I haven’t had my share of dry spells. And then there’s my mother, who’s gone without for, gee, how long is it now? Fifteen years?
I mean, really—are they worth the aggravation? Because, much as I’m inclined to agree with Terrie’s theory about how things should be between men and women, I think Shelby’s the realist. Oh, maybe there are true equalitarian male-female relationships out there, but by and large, women do have to defer to the men in their lives in order to keep harmony, don’t they? At the moment, I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, it just is. And right now, I don’t have the energy to be a feminist. I’m having enough trouble dealing with being a woman.
I give up on the book, stick it back in my purse. The Asian woman gets off at Central Park West; I settle in for the short ride through the Park, as I mentally settle in for the next phase of my life. Tomorrow, I go back to work. Tomorrow, I resume my normal, predictable, pre-Greg life. Selecting wall colors, I can handle. Sketching window treatments, I can handle. Charming the pants off a new client, I can handle. Granted, I’m not exactly eagerly anticipating the idea of facing Brice Fanning—my egomaniacal boss of the past seven years—and his inevitable snideties, but at least my work is one area of my life I can count on. I bring in a helluva lot of business, so we both know I’m not going to leave, and he’s not going to get rid of me. So. My plan is to reimmerse myself in my work, which, if not exactly exciting, is at least fulfilling and stimulating.
