A History of New York
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Washington Irving's Deitrich Knickerbocker's A History of New York
A lot of people were out buying books on a Monday night. A good thing, really, and a sign that business is picking up at the bookstore, since this was a pretty dismal summer, traffic-wise. Yet when I left my feet were sore and my back felt like a burst tin can.
At Union Square, the men in hard blue outfits were spraying down the subway stairs. They had most of the entrances blocked. The crowd was pretty thick at the first entrance I tried, one of those stray entrances with ceiling-high turnstyles like the mouths of upturned whales.
It was past midnight, and my monthly metrocard had expired. Tired, I hauled myself back up the stairs and towards the gazeboed front entrance.
At the card machine, a kid with some sort of asbestos-type substance piling out of Platonic stabwounds in his winter jacket whisked in front of me and started pushing buttons, a look of zoned concentration on his face. I sidled over to the next machine and started. There were a forest of touch screen buttons to burrow through: Yes I would like to Start Purchase. Yes I want a New Card. Yes I want an Unlimited Pass. Yes I want the 30-Day Pass. At "30-Day Pass" a voice pipped behind me. It belonged to a girl wearing a hat of such ostentatious hip-hoppery it could have only belonged to a blonde girl with messy hair, which it did. She stood at about my chest, and her pretty moony face was pocked with acne.
"If you need a card," she began, "I can sell you one because I'm going upstate tomorrow for this job I just got and I haven't even used it yet we could say fifty dollars." Mr. Jacket stood knowledgeably behind her, watching her talk.
I've been on a budget lately. I won't tell you how much except to say it's small. I'm often running overbudget and have to cool things down the next week. This week was one of those. I had just been doing the math in my head and getting depressed. I was tired. And the cards cost 76 dollars, a fortune. It's the only reason I listened to this girl before telling her I wasn't interested. She insisted.
"No really here watch I can put it through the reader," she said. I watched. The squat little metallic Card Value Reader wore a wig of yellow-blue Metro Cards cascading to the floor, all used. When the girl swiped her card it said only UNUSED and nothing else.
"That doesn't tell me anything," I said.
"Wait watch it doesn't register until you swipe it the first time check this out," she said.
She and The Jacket moved over to the turnstile and she, in control, swiped the card. The Jacket watched the Go sign light up green, and then looked at me. In the cold light of the subway entrance he looked literally olive skinned--sickly--as if a plug of pimento should have been visible on his forehead.
"Check that out," he said.
A blonde skateboard kid, skateboard in hand, was suddenly there. He smiled and nodded at me. "Yeah," he said. I was involved in a process incorporating three machines and three teenagers, and all six of them seemed to be agreeing with each other.
She swiped the card again and this time the readout said MONTHLY PASS EXPIRES 11/16/05: exactly one month from now. The girl said some words that seemed to correspond with what the readout said. Somehow this depressed me, because I knew I was going to buy the thing anyway. My brain was firmly clicked into the groove of the process and sliding down without a hitch.
"Fifty dollars, did you say?" I asked. All three of them physically jerked up as if hearing some joyous trumpet blast from outer space.
"Fifty bucks that's right," she said. "That's right all right thanks a lot." I pulled out forty dollars from next week's projected budget, tucked deeply into a back recess of my wallet and combined it with the ten dollars I had remaining for this week. The girl watched my fingers, happy and impatient at this unexpectedly complicated and somewhat sad process. My brain rolled down the groove.
Things were exchanged. I had a metrocard in my hand.
The Skateboard kid thanked me first, for some reason. Then the girl. The Jacket said, "I got it for you." He was standing next to the turnstyle where we had swiped the card, had been standing there the whole time, protecting it for me. The green light still said go.
They all looked like authentic junkies. My brain hitched in the groove, then slid forward again. I followed it towards the turnstyle. The Jacket looked eager, like he wanted to physically push me through. "You know about the 18 minute rule, right?" he asked helpfully. I nodded. Eighteen minutes was the time you had to wait upon swiping your 30-Day unlimited pass before it could be used again.
So, what, don't bother checking the pass for another 20 minutes, is that it?
"Thanks!" said the girl.
And I was through the turnstyle. My brain skittered out of the groove and came to a halt, as if on cue. I remembered all the dead cards laying around the Card Value Reader where I gave her my money. They pulled the switcheroo on me. They were quick, these kids. They were already gone. I could hear them giggling up the stairs on the other side of the turnstyle. I stared up at the ceiling. I was almost proud of myself for being such a perfect mark. It would have been funny if I had the money to spare.
My train pulled up. I rushed to meet it, sat down, tucked the card into my wallet, and pulled out my copy of A History of New York. I started reading Chapter 2:
"Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him some idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to know from whence it came, and how it was created."
The world fizzed around me like redpop. Letters and faces burst before my eyes. God! What an idiot! How could I have let it happen?
"And now I give my readers fair warning, that I am about to plunge into a chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was perplexed withal..."
Here was the thing about it, really: I was just like the blubbery sad-eyed thing that gets preyed on in a Mamet script. There are two types of people in this world and only one of them eats dinner. There are savvy, charming teenaged thugs with fifty bucks in their pockets and 32-year-old poets who work in bookstores who don't have fifty fucking bucks in their pockets.
"Of the creation of the world, we have a thousand contradictory accounts..."
If I had those kids here right now I'd bash them! God! No! Throw them around like kitchen towels in a dryer! Jerks! I'd breathe fire right into their pustulent little faces and watch their bright little brains snap!
I snapped the book shut and pulled the worthless card out of my wallet. I stared at it for signs of war and famine the rest of the long trip home.
At Astoria Boulevard I still had it in my hand. I walked over to the trash but couldn't help stopping by the card value reader on the way. I swiped the card.
It said MONTHLY PASS EXPIRES 11/16/05.
posted by Greg Purcell @ 1:29 AM,
