Two New Yorkers shared a park bench one November morning,
taking respite from the hustle of the early rush hour. One sipped her homemade coffee from a travel
mug. The other picked at the remnants of
a bagel. They each sat silently as to
not disturb the other as the city filled in all the space around them. There’s a parade of busses jockeying in and
out of the bus lane – a narrow river of blue and yellow. Trucks parked illegally hustled out their
deliveries. One busboy pushing two carts
piled high with an assortment of breakfast pastries and coffee urns. He keeps them both moving at an even clip to
avert slippage. It’ s an
underappreciated skill. My companion
eyes the mountain of pastries, pyramid-like and shellacked in glistening layers
of saran wrap. “Impenetrable”, I
say. “Too much plastic wrap and that
guy’s pretty quick”. My bench mate
lowers his eyes in defeat. Behind us,
the swooshing of plastic coveralls catches our ear. Two men in white protective gear walk past us
and then approach, mount, and begin to power wash a nearby fountain. They work systematically, each taking a side
of the fountain and working towards the middle.
The noise of the pressure washer is noticeable above the din of rush
hour and pedestrian chatter; it’s kind of annoying.
I look at my bench mate, and he re-perches himself along the
back railing, as if the noise will lessen if he moves 4 inches in my
direction. I give him a look as if to
say, should we get out of here? He bobs
his head towards my notebook and then stares directly at it. “This?” I ask. We barely know each other and he’s
questioning how I start my day. “Well,
Mr. Nosy, this is my planner and I’m trying to list out all the things I need
to do before I start doing them, sans distractions. Trying to take a minute and put some order
into the day before I head into the office and who-knows-what is waiting for me
in my inbox once I log on. My buddy
seems disinterested in my need for structure.
He’s left his bagel on the seat of the bench, unfinished, discarded,
just as (I suspect) he found it.
It’s early November, and everything feels brown. Crinkly leaves strewn all over the
pavement. Brown leather footballs on at
least half of the train ads remind us that it’s not baseball season. Golden brown turkeys on digital bus house ads
remind us of what bad chefs we are.
Everything about November seems brown.
Staid. Of the Earth. Overtoasted bagels. Discarded paper bags blowing in the
wind. The color of coffee.
“November used to be such a depressing month”, I say to my
bench mate. He looks at me as though he
is unsure as to why I could possibly find November depressing. I continue, “It gets darker, earlier, colder...”,
he continues to look puzzled. “I really
used to hate it”, I elaborate, “but then you get these amazing early sunsets of
absolute fire!”. My bench mate nods to
me in acknowledgement that he also appreciates November sunsets.
“You have to rage against the dying of the light!” I
proclaim.
Blank stare. Oh wait,
the guy on the next bench left some crumbs of what might be the remnants of a buttery
corn muffin.
“You have to rage against the dying of the light!” I
proclaim again.
My bench mate seems more interested in these muffin remnants
than the Northern Hemisphere’s dearth of sunlight.
We hear the power washer power down and the absence of that
noise is welcomed. Our hearing adjusts back to the usual traffic sounds and one
man in a red windbreaker shout for bus tour riders while waving a sign with a
big red bus on it. The power wash men
dismount the fountain, which visibly is no cleaner than when they started, at
least from this distance.
“Well, I’m going to work.
Have a good day.” I get up from
the bench and head south on Fifth Avenue.
My bench mate flits over to the muffin remnants. Gives zero F*cks about my departure. Such is the morning when you hang out with a
pigeon.
