There’s a lot of mythology pertaining to New York City, some of which is based on fact, but a lot of which is pure bullshit. There’s so much media here in the City that you can pretty-much perpetuate any marketing scheme that serves your interest until illusion becomes accepted as truth.
For example, have you heard that New York has the best pizza in the world? Well that’s true, if you go to the right place. But I can assure you that New York also produces some of the worst dog-shit pizza you’ve ever tasted. There are so many pizzerias here that if you don’t know where to go its a complete crapshoot. So on average, our pizza’s no better than Chicago or Philly. In fact, the best pizza I ever had was in La Crosse, Wisconsin at a place called Big Al’s. So please, just say New York’s got really great pizza and leave it at that.
New York is the only place to live if you’re an artist. I suppose this is true if you’re one of these theater people, but theater’s going the same direction as the fax machine. An old dinosaur that will soon be about as popular as poetry books. Hollywood’s still the movie capital and pretty-much all TV shows are shot in Los Angeles. So considering the outrageous rents here in Manhattan, I’d highly suggest you get your Broadway gig lined-up before you pack your bags and leave Kansas.
Only in New York is a line you hear a lot. I guess this line hearkens back to the old days when Greenwich Village served as the refuge for our nations mixed-race couples and homosexuals; or perhaps back to the 1970’s when the City went bankrupt and became the wild west. There was definitely a time when New York was at the forefront of alternative American culture and all things freaky; but since the Giuliani administration and the Wall Street boom of the Clinton years, the city itself is populated by almost nothing but stockbrokers and trust-fund kids. No one else can afford it. If you want a real freak town you need to go to Portland, Oregon; or San Francisco; or possibly New Orleans, though I haven’t seen it post-Katrina.
Speaking of Wall Street, its been interesting over these last months to watch the market descend and approach crash level. As goes Wall Street so goes New York, so it hasn’t been upbeat as we head into summer. In fact, I recently bumped into an old girlfriend that I hadn’t seen since those still-heady times of three years ago and it was sort of sad.
‘Cause when we first met, Katija was one of those If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere types who rode into New York to take it by storm like a million others who come out here to become a success or get a record deal; or just be one of the beautiful people. She’d have laughed in your face if you even suggested she could wind up like those losers who leave New York on a plane or bus ride home with their tail between their defeated legs, or sucking off the governor for a month’s rent. No way, not this chick. No way she could fail.
And I can assure you that I’d have never bet against her. Not only did she look like she just stepped out of a Bollywood movie, but she’d graduated with honors from ______ College out in London. When I met her, she was starting at some high-profile position with Bear Stearns or Morgan Stanley (or maybe it was Merril Lynch). Whatever it was, she’d just moved to New York from London that week, and wasn’t shy about revealing her six-figure income and her intention of retiring before she was forty to travel round the world.
Well, like I said, that was a few years back. The fact that she’d only been here a week was why I could score a date. By next weekend she’d already moved onward and upward and truth was I couldn’t blame her. Katija dating me was like Kobe Bryant playing for my company’s intramural basketball team. I wasn’t under any illusions.
And truth is she was a bit of an arrogant bitch. More than bit. Thats why it wasn’t as painful to watch her go. The way she’d described her plans to travel the world were as though it were a done deal that had already been bought and paid for. Just a matter of fate or Merril Lynch working out the logistics. And the disdain she had for me when she realized I knew nothing about the stock market was palpable. She pretty-much dismissed me with a wave of her Brahman hand like I was the help who should have been clearing her dishes.
But man, the touch of that hand was an instant hard-on! And when I saw her two weeks ago it was just like that first time. Bam! Striking, exotic beauty. Stunning femininity. I was actually proud of myself for having dated a woman that fine--even if it was only twice. That girl willingly kissed you, I said to myself with a mental pat on the back.
Of course I recognized her long before she noticed me. But I made sure I got close enough for her to do a double-take; and at that moment of recognition she reluctantly emitted a stifled laugh.
“Hey Katija,” I said without breaking stride. “How are you?”
“Lodo,” she said with her London accent, obviously disappointed at having to deal with my Plebian bloodlines. “That crazy name.”
I don’t think our conversation was particularly memorable; but standing on that street corner I remember thinking that she was down. Sad. Such different energy than when we’d first met three years ago. In fact, I probably couldn’t have approached that girl of three years ago; but now she had a weak energy. And she said she’d just got off the 1 train, which is something I never thought she’d do since she her company had a car service for her to use. But she’d obviously lost that job, though she never admitted it and I never pushed it.
We would have parted ways immediately, but I bought myself some extra time. Got lucky. There were these guys in the bank on the corner staring out at her through its translucent glass windows. Not only could you see them plain as day, but they couldn’t have been more than two or three feet from us--simply on the opposite side of the glass. And they weren’t going anywhere. Just staring and exchanging comments between themselves.
“You’re so hot that those guys are just going to stand there and stare for as long as we talk,” I said.
“Shut up!” she said with a tight laugh.
“No, really. C’mon, stick around for a minute so everyone can see me talking with you. “
So yeah, those guys gave me an sort of an in to get her to stick around. And amazingly Katija didn’t go anywhere. She was a good sport and wanted to test my theory. Perhaps her ego needed the attention right about then.
But like I said, there’s no need to feel too bad for this chick. She’s plenty confident and is gonna go places and see things that I’ll never get to see. Its just that people can say New York is great or London’s great or Paris is great, but until you go yourself and have your experience you don’t know; and whatever Katija thought New York was gonna be obviously it didn’t pan out and “...you know, she was flying back to London in two months...”
She sort of drifted off there, but at least I got to bask in her beauty and stare at our reflection in the polished glass; until it was time to say “Well,..see ya, I guess,” which sounds like the exact kind of moronic thing I’d say in a situation where it was obviously goodbye for life.
Only she looked at me sort of strange, I think because she remembered that I’d seen her when she first came out to New York. Like she was measuring herself by my reaction to her now, which kind of spooked me since she was so beautiful yet staring deep into my eyes as she appeared to try and gauge something only she could see. A pregnant pause that lasted until I suddenly felt a whiff of air or a puff of sand like a small sandbag had dropped from above. Like a kicked hackey-sack against one of the windows that plopped down like a soaked tea-bag immediately adjacent to the two of us there on the sidewalk.
Katija and I looked to each other in baffled wonderment, then simultaneously crouched down toward the sidewalk to inspect what had fallen.
“Oh no,” I said, turning in her direction, “Its a bird.”
But by the time I’d turned to face her Katija was already walking away, clutching herself as if it were cold outside despite the heat.
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