Hidden World
Dear Diary:
My phone died on 23rd Street, leaving me stranded with a dead battery and zero sense of direction in Manhattan’s supposedly foolproof grid system.
“Hudson Yards?” I asked a man walking past me.
“Jimmy,” he said, introducing himself and shaking my hand. “You’re headed the wrong way, friend.”
He turned west, and I fell into step beside him. Within two blocks, he had opened a window into a world I’d never noticed.
“See the circles?” he said, gesturing to the manhole covers beneath our feet. “That’s Con Edison, electrical stuff. The hexagons are telephone lines.”
“Con Edison’s got thousands of these scattered around,” he continued. “N.Y.C. sewer covers too.”
I looked down. Every cover told a different story.
“People think I’m odd,” Jimmy said with a gentle smile, “but I collect pictures of these things. Got about three hundred so far. My daughter says it’s strange, but I tell her somebody’s got to pay attention to what keeps this city breathing.”
We passed a Duane Reade. Jimmy waved at the cashier through the window.
“That’s Miguel,” he said. “Been there eight years. Heart of gold.”
At 30th Street, Jimmy pointed ahead.
“See those towers?” he said. “That’s your Hudson Yards. Not much to look at, but you can’t miss them.”
Before I could thank him properly, he was on his way, probably to discover more hidden patterns.
— Ishani Patel
Run It Back
Dear Diary:
Every weekday morning when I lived in Morningside Heights, I would come out of the elevator, walk through my building’s cavernous lobby and across Riverside Drive to wait for the downtown M5 bus.
At least once a week, I’d realize I had forgotten something I needed. Back I would go: across Riverside Drive, through the lobby, into the elevator and upstairs to grab whatever I’d forgotten.
Invariably, when I came back downstairs and into the lobby, our doorman would say: “Mrs. Wilde, Scene 1, Take 2.”
— Wendy Schmalz Wilde
High Five
Dear Diary:
Most mornings, I run in Central Park. One day, I noticed an unusual sight as I chugged along: a father running toward me pushing a twin stroller with a dog in tow on a leash.
As we got closer to each other, I noticed a paper sign attached to the front of the stroller: “High Five,” it said, with a big arrow pointing to the toddler sitting inside.
Sure enough, the child was raising a small, gloved hand. He noticed me noticing him.
“High five?” he asked in squeaky voice.
I gave him a whopper.
— Qais Iqbal
Familiar Face
Dear Diary:
My son, James, and I walked into Milady’s on Prince Street in May 1988. We sat down at a two-top and ordered chicken sandwiches and a couple of beers.
My back was to the door, so my view was all interior, with a pool table and jukebox in my sight line. A very familiar figure was chalking a cue.
I had seen him before, but only in huge arenas where I had to watch him on screens because I was so far from the stage. Once, I won two front-row seats in a radio call-in contest to see him at Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque when he was doing an acoustic tour.
He was a musical beacon who guided me through tough years of single motherhood, the reason I spent money on concerts I couldn’t afford in Denver and Oakland.
I bit at my sandwich slowly, surprised I could eat at all. When we had finished the food and downed our beers, we ordered another round.
James had chalked our names on the board, and when it was our turn, we picked up our bottles and walked toward the pool table. (He walked; I felt like I was floating.)
We shot a game of pool, and we all played poorly, even him. We laughed at our ineptitude, and he gave me a sort of shy hug at the end.
Other names were called, and we sat back down. A loud guy came in with his kid and put money in the jukebox, and “Jungleland” came on.
— Marla West
Just Enough
Dear Diary:
I grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn. My mother shopped at the corner grocery store, which sold lox by the pound.
She would often buy enough for one or two bagels, not unusual in our relatively poor neighborhood. She called it a half of a quarter of a pound.
Many years later, when I was an adult and living in Flatbush, I had the urge for a bagel with lox.
I stopped off at a nearby supermarket, went to the counter where the fish was sold and ordered an eighth of a pound of lox.
The gentleman cutting the lox paused and looked at me.
“Having company?” he asked.
— Howard Rubin
Read all recent entries and our submissions guidelines. Reach us via email [email protected] or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter.
Illustrations by Agnes Lee
The post ‘He Turned West, and I Fell Into Step Beside Him’ appeared first on New York Times.
