Brooklyn

Brooklyn, NY - Peter - Wednesday, April 10th, 2002 : goo

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The summer of 2000 was hot; air like lava smothered the city so heavily that you could virtually see the waves of boiling humidity roll up out of the harbor and lap over the crosstown streets askew, over the parks, drowning brownstones, filling the air with steamy breaths, with a symphony of air-conditioner clatter, coating windows with an ironically frosty-looking web of condensation.

I moved into some non-descript brownstone in Bay Ridge, finding my haven from the Manhattan rents of economic upswing in central Brooklyn, an hour's ride on the B train from your place, of course, but in a part of town ceaselessly bathed in the amber tones of the setting sun, the summertime breezes nonchalantly flowing with hissy salsa music and the smell of the fish market.

I was so proud that first day, when you braved the non-sequitur world outside your Upper West Side, rolled the rails and graced my move-in efforts with your overseeing grey eyes, the two of us sweating out saline pints while wrestling my life up the stairs, out of boxes, out of a tightly compressed car, you, inserting hints of yourself amidst my possessions, some clothes, some toiletries, teasers for me to conjure your presence. We would be such failures as refugees, you giggled.

That day was golden. Each day in Brooklyn was, the sun seeming to trace the perfect parallels of the long avenues to the east, the stark green girders of the Gowanus, winking into the traffic shadows below. Dank to the core with humidity, we slunk up 5th avenue, deleriously smiling on the sight of the first air conditioned diner. "This should be our place", we agreed, over tepid coffee, with syncopated nods.

"Lets buy an air conditioner", you said. "Or, we could just come here everytime we get too hot", I laughed, as we settled further into our brown vinyl booth, immediately in front of the giant cooling unit. We shared smiles over our $3 breakfast, sweaty hand-holding; the adventure of a strange new place, a maturing bond, an anchored connection, the joy of making love in uncharted new territories, the new world across the East River.

But we never went back to our diner. The days grew shorter as the weather cooled, and the train rides grew longer. Often were the days I'd walk past the place and look in through its dulled windows. I'd see us, seeing endless reflections of your summertime smile in the window, remembering how my eyes burned in the ochre glow of your tightly stretched summer skin; seeing the kaliedoscope of possibilities, the hopes in our eyes, feeling the same goosebumps that were raised on my flesh somehow on that scorching summer day.

My Brooklyn life has come and gone, fleeting and forgotten now; I've found my tired niche back on the Upper West Side where the rent is higher, but the trains run faster, where tall apartment buildings obstruct the rising sun, block its setting, cast shadows incongruous with the parallel avenues and rectilinear cross-streets.

This neighborhood has no soul, no diners, no shiny eyes, no hope. Even though this neighborhood has you, our connection has gone dead, the hopes as forgotten as is the summer heat when the first snow falls.

Sometimes, at night, I dream about that diner. Every night I dream of you, always waking, always gasping in the emptiness nestled next to me.

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alana: this is some beautiful writing.

Brooklyn: i am a different beast in 2004

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