Via Google street view, my first apartment in NYC was in this building on 21st street between 8th and 9th Avenues. It was a co-op building and I rented, across the street from a school and also the street all the geighs used to walk to The Spike.
The metalwork on the stairs is new. When I lived there it was solid walls and you could sit on the stairs and make out (or whatever) and no one could see you.
This was 84-89 and the rent was $750. Oy.
I want to be a Superhero.
Naturally, I’ll have a Cape. The rare opportunity to wear something goofy without looking inappropriate will not be missed. Tights, masks - we see those all the time. So Last Issue. But a Cape, that’s an outfit. Whenever and wherever I leave, my Cape will flow gracefully behind me like a brief reminder of where I was.
These will be my SuperPowers:
1. I will be able to repair my car with my SuperMechanicBeam. Hands on hips, Cape fluttering patriotically behind me, the SMB will envelop my car and that weird knock will vanish. It ‘s imperative I have a SuperCar to get to my duties and the Dog Park. Humming smoothly down the road, Polly and I proudly posing in the gleaming windows, we’ll pass Citizens asking “Who was that?” Not now! On a Mission! Good ta see ya!
2. I won’t be able to fly but I will hover. Hovering seems vastly underrated for Superheros but that will change. Hovering will be the New SuperPower Black. No bumps to worry about, no mud, no wet grass. I’ll serenely float above the Earth while Polly crisscrosses beneath me, demonstrating my talent like a Magician’s Assistant with a large hoop. I’ll call her and she’ll jump into my arms to hover with me, both of us able to better appreciate the sky due to our new advantage.
3. I will not have to trim my nails. This isn’t important other than the fact I hate doing it. Blech. You do it and then they grow right back! Who thought of that? Perhaps the clippings will have some SuperUse to be determined at a later time.
4. My SuperHands will ooze with patience, compassion, relief, space and yes, Hula Boola. Full strength, all the time. I’ll gently touch someone’s arm or shoulder and they’ll instantly be full of my world and I will see theirs. I’ll leave behind a Band-Aid featuring my cartoon likeness so that even after I’m gone, they’ll have a memento of our meeting.
Of course, I’ll need a SuperName. Buzz Lightloafer. Tall Guy. The Funster. Hula Boola Man. The Hughminator. Hughman.
It’s a good gig for at least twenty years, after all I am only human. One day I’ll pick up the Cape from it’s shelf and feel it’s warmth like a blanket left in the sun or a cotton shirt fresh from the dryer. This time, my SuperHands will not release but absorb all the light and wonder. Polly will rest beside me like she always does while we fondly recall our SuperBehaviour. Thinking about what we have accomplished makes us both very happy.
ONE Memory (I’m tired)
I’m in an acting class with the one member of the Stella Adler Conservatory’s staff who actually worked with Stella Adler. It’s the last week of the semester and we run out of stuff to do and we all ask for a Stella story, like she’s our famous grandma:
“Okay. Well. Stella’s directing two students on the stage. It’s the balcony scene from ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ And the actor is - well - he is one of our more obvious homosexuals. And the whole thing is just a disaster. She walks onto the stage and starts screaming and waving her cigarette around.
“She’s saying, ‘This scene is about heat! Hormones! The stage should be on fire with sex! And, honey, if the audience doesn’t even believe Romeo is a man, well…they may as well kill themselves! You’re prancing around like Audrey Hepburn and they’re gonna see you’ve got no interest in the girl from the back row. Get off the stage.’
“So, the boy and the girl sit down. And everyone is very quiet. And Stella just moves on to another scene. But the boy is obviously quite upset - trying not to cry, his shoulders are shaking.
“So she stops. She calls him back onto the stage and he’s just standing there, all sad and scared thinking she’s going to ream him out some more. And we’re all scared for him, of course.
“And Stella just says, ‘Pick me up.’ Very lightly like that. ‘Pick me up,’ she says. And he says, ‘What?’ And she turns to him and says, ‘Pick. Me. Up.’ Very serious.
“So he - very gently - lifts Stella into his arms. One arm under her knees and the other around her shoulder. Cradling this woman like a baby.
“And she looks to him and grabs his cheeks with both her hands and says, ‘See?’.
“And he says, ‘What?’.
“And she says, ‘See how strong you are?’”
(Source: vinboz)
CHAKA KHAN / UNTIL YOU COME BACK TO ME
The Jacksons - Walk Right Now
Love love love this song. But let’s break it down.
One - It seems awfully fast. I don’t remember it being this fast. Maybe this is a fast recording? Also, my brain was possibly so drug-addled when it came out and I danced to it on the dancefloor that it seemed slower at the time. In my head, this song was always considered “early morning music” you’d hear towards the end of the dance evening but when I heard this I was like, yikes. CLEAR IT OUT PEOPLE.
Two - It’s a relatively upbeat song, no? And yet… the main lyric is “I don’t care” which is not usually a phrase one associates with happy thoughts. “I’m having doubts about our romantic involvement”. I DON’T CARE. “My car has exploded and my house has burned to the ground.” I DON’T CARE. Hard to see how one gets joy from this sentiment but, whatever.
Three - This was one of the last songs I remember being by “The Jacksons” and not a “Michael Jackson Song”. Which was really great because it wasn’t all about Him, etc. THERE WERE JACKSON SONGS THAT WERE BRILL, PEOPLE. This is one of them.
Finally, on the dancefloor this was great as a “lose your shit” song. Arms akimbo, twirling, whatever. All was fair in this song and war. This song made you sweat. Which, yeah. Brill.
It wasn’t John, it wasn’t her frustration with her life, it was the bees. She hadn’t found the hidden nest and now, everywhere she turned, was a bee. They seemed to meander aimlessly around the kitchen, not logically sticking to food. She would open the cabinet under the sink for Comet and there was a bee. She’d open a box of cereal and out would fly a bee like a small toy surprise. Once she even opened the fridge and there was a bee, drunkenly crisscrossing the lid on the butter.
She insisted no one kill them. John never paid them much interest anyway but when she was faced with squashing one or life, she chose life. To her they were just creatures trying to survive, do their job, get through their bee life. They were just doing what they could to get through their bee days. She felt them hover near the ceiling light, watching her and critiquing her dinner plans. She’d spread butter on her toast and grasped the knife harder in righteous frustration. Who were they to judge her cooking? What did they ever do to help?
Once she found three of them huddling together on the window screen, their front legs twisting like the hands of villains. She looked out the window expecting thousands of bees flying towards her. Word’s out! Big bee party in the house kitchen! After she was dead, all they would remember was she was the woman with the bees. Were she to slide a knife in the toaster and die of electric shock, her last thoughts would be if she’d ever find the nest.
John came in for something to eat before school. A bee was on the fridge handle but he merely brushed it off and pulled the door, taking out a can of Diet Coke and a bagel. The bees hovered above asking if she was allowing soda at this hour. Doesn’t Diet Coke have that bad sweetener? Didn’t you buy orange juice?
She watched him flip thought the morning paper looking for comics while eating. No butter. No cream cheese. She studied him like a bug she’d found crawling on the lawn, with black shiny armor and menacing horns. She could find nothing that led back to her.
“Mom, I need some money.”
The bees dove and circled the scene like TV news with a car chase. She wished the bees could take her brain like nectar from a flower and climb inside of John to make honey. She would be doing her job correctly and the entire nest would praise her work.
“I just gave you a twenty.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
“I spent that. I need ten more for pizza after school. I get hungry.”
One bee landed near her hand on the counter before walking closer then away like a dog testing water. Perhaps it was a friend of John’s creeping up to remind her again how late she worked. She lifted her finger and the bee jumped back before slowly inching foward. It felt vibrations from her skin, the low humming leaking from the nest inside her head. Millions of bees circling around and buzzing like a neighbor’s chainsaw.
“You shouldn’t be eating pizza.”
She shook her head and the bees inside began swirling in a frenzy. Their weaving bodies formed a figure who was there but not there, pure Bee Energy. One who was home all the time, who shopped once for the whole week, who laid it’s Bee hand on John’s arm while listening to him talk about school. Outside she would pretend she was normal but inside her Bee Self constantly reminded her of who she couldn’t be.
She reached for her purse and it fell, loose change shooting out to spin in circles on the floor. The bees all arose and circled as well, surrounding her with things spinning out of control. She picked up her wallet and riffled through the green bills before setting a ten on the table.
John ignored the change on the floor to push back his chair and walk out. A bee landed on her thigh and she angrily slapped her leg, killing it but not before it stung her. She lifted her hand and it’s dead body fell to the linoleum. Where she’d been stung began to turn red and swell. The pain gave her an excuse to cry and tears began to well and drip down her face like honey from a comb.
She hid her face in her hands, not wanting the bees to see her this way. She’d failed the hive, she’d killed one of them. She took the morning paper and pushed the dead bee onto it before opening the back door and flinging it into the yard. The other bees accusingly ignored the open air and kept their distance.
She finally went to get ready for work, some of the bees lazily following behind her like pets. She heard the front door slam and John leaving for school. She sat on her bed and wondered what to do now that she’d been stung. What do people use to rid themselves of the tenderness, the pain? How do you hold still when you always feel them swarming around you like things you never get done?
Surrender, she thought, there’s no place to hide. The bees will always win.
Alton McClain & Destiny - It Must Be Love
“I’ve got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle…”
That was the only line she knew, so she assumed spurs were charm bracelets. She watched her mother stand in front of her dresser and lift the top of her satin jewelry box. First were earrings, giant beaded clip-ons, then one of her watches and finally her spurs. Her mother would lift her hands in the air as if donning surgical gloves, shaking them so her spurs slid down her arm. Like loose coins, like an ornament falling from the tree, they’d delicately jingle, steely jangle then the grace of jingle again. She’d find her mother’s spurs on the kitchen table in the morning. She’d slide them on, surprised at their weight, and fan out her fingers so the spurs wouldn’t drop to the floor.
When her mother realized her ignorance, she told her about bracelets. “Spurs”, she said as she pulled out a chair and lit a cigarette, “go on your shoes.” She left her mother in the kitchen and snuck upstairs to examine her father’s shoes. She thought of the way he rolled change in his pocket, a habit proving he liked things that jangle. Surely, she thought, her father would have spurs. She inspected his soles but found them free of noise, his steps were bags of potatoes not sleigh bells, not spurs.
She stayed up late to watch The Ed Sullivan Show and Sammy Davis Jr. His were the only shoes she knew that made noise. The next day, she went out to the garage and her father’s toolbox. She opened the lid and a shelf unfolded to reveal a cardboard box with thumbtacks. She arranged eight in a pattern the size of her feet on the garage floor and carefully stood on them all at once. She worried the spikes might sink through and prick her toes, like an Indian lying on a bed of nails, but when she felt them sink into her rubber soles without reaching her, she confidently rocked back and forth.
She started to walk, slowly at first, like she was wading through water. The tackheads made an awkward clack, clack, clack. Soon she began to shuffle her feet, tossing them over the cement like jacks, like there was music. Her spurs began singing a song about her legs while they scattered over the floor, writing notes in chalk on a blackboard. Click, click, click.
She decide she would put spurs on all her shoes. She took out an old class poster she’d made (Birds of Florida) and laid it face down on the floor. Using her shoes as guides, she outlined each foot and marked where to set tacks. The heads would rest on the ground with the sharp points sticking in the air like umbrellas abandoned in the street. She wondered if there was a secret pattern to spurs, an ancient way of arranging tacks which enhanced the effect. There could be a chart in National Geographic next to pictures of primitive shoes or a blueprint (under S for Spurs) in her World Book. “Here is how Aztecs made Spurs…”
She walked to the kitchen where her mother was still sitting at the table, coffee cold and her third cigarette. She tried shuffling silently across the floor, hoping her Spurs wouldn’t mark the linoleum. She wanted her Spurs all to herself, at least now, until she was confident their power was real. Her mother watched and squinted slightly as if trying to hear a phone ringing far away.
“Why are you walking like that?” she asked. Her eyes scanned her daughter’s body until they rested on her small shoes. She froze in front of her mother, feet flat on the floor, the thumbtacks mute as snails under a rock. She forced the soles of her feet to press them against her body like keys in her pocket.
“I’m doing something.”
Her mother seemed ready to doubt her answer, raising her eyebrows while her cigarette smoke snuck around looking for the truth. Finally resigned to the statement (she was, after all, doing something) she smiled slightly and cut off her questions like stray limbs from a tree. This is going nowhere, her mother realized, and she ended her curiosity with a swift clip.
“Can you love anything?” her daughter suddenly asked.
She loved Spurs. She loved the way they jingled, jangled, jingled. She wanted Spurs all the time. She wanted to pretend to listen while she shook her Spurs in her pocket.
Her mother paused like a gypsy reading a crystal ball, her young daughter stiffly waiting for an answer. She had stopped reading this girl’s mind but even in the face of questions about Love, she felt she was still hers. “Always”, that’s what Love felt like. You could lock the door and take the key where you wanted. Feel it pressing in your palm while waiting in line at the bank, in a store, smiling and nodding to people passing by. Love is a door to a house.
“I suppose.” she finally replied, still unsure of what they were talking about. “After all, I love you”, she said before rolling her eyes. “Come here.” As her daughter walked over to her waiting arms so she could wrap her and take her back, she could hear the faint clicking of the clock on the stove.
—
Sade | No Ordinary Love
(via hoodoothatvoodoo)
