Kiss-chase

A man in sunglasses is sitting upstairs in the foyer of the 7th avenue Q station, waiting to feel the wind blow, to hear the chug of the approaching train before he dives down into the heat, the humidity, the hot dirt sauna of the subway platform. Outside, the street is actually quite cool tonight. He's humming a tune. I try to catch it. He hums softly. It's so quiet in this station, even this sound has space. Cryin, by Roy Orbison. I catch it and now it's in me and my hum dives down into the platform and the hot dirt and the sweaty people waiting waiting waiting for the train.

I've been playing kiss-chase with the sounds of the city for a while now. It's a game of sonic tag, all over the city. She is so gentle sometimes. The voice of the lady announcing delays on the line can be unusually gentle and mild though her message is anti-New York. Time delays are anti-New York. Time is the most precious commodity here. Time and Money chase each other off the top spot in the precious New York commodities league like Celtic and Rangers.

I caught a beautiful tune yesterday on the air at Prospect Heights, just down my block, where I found myself sitting for an unexpected 20 minutes on a stoop, listening to a solitary drummer playing Arabic and Indian rhythms in his dark ac-free ground floor room. I sat and listened and when I passed later, he was still there, and that time, I caught a tune on the air, and sang it, grooved it, all the way to 2nd st.

The sounds and energy can be so hard in New York city, so you appreciate the gentle stuff when it comes.

I fell over in the street when my scooter hit a jutting footpath slab. Scooter did a 360 and caught my flipflop clad ankle full on. Scooter hit the deck and I had to sit down with the pain. Only thing available to rub on it was some beeswax lip balm. Sat there and soothed it until it was okay enough to get up again. Maybe five minutes. People passed, wordlessly. One guy looked back, giggly, like it was entertainment. A young couple passed, and the man said 'weird'. I sat there, with my scooter at my feet, soothing my ankle until it didn't hurt so much.

I got back on my scooter and rode into Chinatown, stinking of fish carcasses, spit and blood and filth and people paying $3000 for a studio.