Back in the City

I wondered what it would be like to be back in the City, to be like another red blood cell in a runner's artery, after living so long like sun-tanning skin cell... and think I stepped right back into place. What a wonderful city New York is. After landing in JFK, my dad drove us up through the Bronx and down through Jersey to deliver Dana to her bed and me to their home. It wasn't until after Woodloch Pines that I was back on a subterranean railroad to New York.

NJ Transit is NY enough, but what was real NY was what I experienced as soon as I surfaced in Penn Station. There were three generations of women making a gripe with a Port Authority cop. The middle-aged one was screaming, the youngest was covering her face and the oldest was trying to talk reason with the cop. It sounded like they lost a bag with Amtrak or something, but soon I was overtaken by a new sound: a man playing an electric stand-up bass. Not long after I was back in the subway on my way to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Emerging at the Bedford stop of the L I became reacquanted with an old, familiar smell: New York urine. Maybe it's the water, but NY urine has a very distinct aroma. And there I was thinking about it under Bedford Street in Billyburg. Dana and I stayed at our friend Jon's place for a few nights before heading back to Dirty Jersey. Pictures will come real soon, I swear.