Kerry (May 2005) New York, New York

It’s springtime outside, but I can’t see the sun, or the sky for that matter. It could be cloudy, but I know it’s clear because I looked on weather.com before taking my lunch.

I work on the 20th floor of a building with 32 floors. Even from the 20th floor we can’t see the sky. Our windows show us more windows, concrete, glass and roof top decks. I can see cars and other vehicles in the street, but not the sky.

I often wonder, “How high do I have to go just to catch a glimpse?”

There are tall buildings everywhere around me on this tiny, really small, island. We pack ourselves upwards because there’s no room to spread out. If we stood shoulder-to-shoulder I wonder could we fit?

Personal space is something you forget. It’s easy. You have none and so you forget it. I never occupy a sidewalk by myself. I ride the subway with a thousand other bodies. Sometimes I ride the subway with too many other bodies, and we sweat and breathe and stare at nothing until the train stops and we can release our tightened muscles—I’d hate to bump into another body—you really don’t know what some people might do.

You really don’t know what people are capable of doing until you pack them onto an island or a small group of islands. Until you take away the sun with buildings, and take away money from some, and give lots to others, and take away air and space and trees and nature and pack them in together. You don’t know until then what people can do.

I guess I know now and I try hard not to bump into other people’s bodies.
One time the train stopped short and a small Asian girl fell backward into a larger Asian girl. The larger girl said, “What the fuck’s your problem? Jesus!” The smaller Asian girl said, “Sorry,” and kept reading.

One time a burnt out Christian man was preaching on the train. He said, “Our women are whores, look how they dress! In Holland they have orgies and all types of sexual fests and drugs. And here we have men marrying men—how long before America ain’t so beautiful anymore? How long before you turn to Jesus and say ‘Lord help me, I’m a sinner.”

That time I wanted to say something. I made faces at the other passengers and I shook my head and I recorded the preacher on my cell phone, but I never said anything because I know what people are capable of doing.
Another time I saw a healthy man race a pregnant woman for a seat on a train.
He won.

Mostly no one talks on the subway. For so many people in one place, it’s awfully quiet. Sometimes on the elevated train, when I’m going home, people talk on their cell phones. Whenever someone starts talking, everyone watches.

There are different kinds of loud. Manhattan is a shopping mall of voices and money and taxi cabs. Brooklyn is angry rapid Spanish, bass drums, sub-woofers and loud music—sometimes it’s the ice cream truck. We seem to hear that truck day and night. One time we were in our bed at 10 or 11 in the evening and we heard it. We both looked up and smiled.

The girl upstairs wears loud feet all the time. We call her the Geisha and the Hamster because she swish-swashes in slippers, and walks all the livelong day. When we wake it’s glump-glump-glump and when we sleep it’s swish-swish-swash.

She also likes to rearrange her furniture everyday, and often she drops large objects on the floor for long periods of time. We say, “Please try to keep the noise down, we can hear everything you say and do.” She doesn’t respond, but continues moving furniture and restlessly pacing back and forth, back and forth.

We stumbled home late 4 am one time, drunken-making-pizza, heating it in our small ancient oven. 13 feet up the fire alarm pierced the morning air. He tried to break the thing or what have you with our broom, and cursed and cursed while he searched out a ladder to rip it down. I thought it was deserved but we have our other neighbors to think of.

When we come from the sun bleached desert, New York looks more ugly than usual, more ugly even than flying into Heathrow. Late morning and we haven’t slept. We press cold fingers to recently reddened skin. We feel fragile, exposed, thrust back into cold, concrete cynicism. I tell him we should make plans, maybe it will spare us the oncoming depression. He just smiles weakly.

On the subway we watch overlapping buildings, dirtied cement walls, half-naked children, sweaty men and sweaty dogs. I tell him the alleys of New York are beautiful.

In Union Square I watch the world walk by. I’m talking to my sister and watching a busty woman exposing her nipples as she hunches over, reading. And I’m watching an anorexic model, smoking on a bench, beautiful in her skeleton. And I’m watching 13-year-old boys molesting over-sexed young women. And I’m watching all the men watching me. And I’m watching hopeful couples walking their dogs, and Hispanic families marveling at the site of New York City.

And I’m watching all this and yet we’re all eclipsed by buildings and this breathing entity around us and the million other bodies around us. With so many other people around us no one stands out, and in our anonymity we disappear.

I am always on the verge of appearing, and so is she and he and he and she and he and he and she and everyone around me. And yet, I am certain that none of us are here and none of this is real, and none of this ever happened.