We Were Walking South On 6th Avenue North

We were walking south on 6th Avenue North when we saw a cyclist crossing Mercer get hit by a large delivery van. It was shocking. The cyclist appeared to be a man in his sixties. I was sure he would continue to lie still in the street, unconscious, possibly dead. Instead, he got up with an uncanny suddenness, straddled his bike - which didn't appear to be damaged and was still operable - and rode off with such vigor and force of will that you'd think he was fleeing a bank robbery. I'm pretty sure what he was fleeing was a giant hospital and ambulance bill and an exhausting, nightmarish engagement with a merciless and predatory medical billing system. The driver, meanwhile, a young black man, sat frozen in his seat. I felt really bad for him. He seemed to be in a state of shock. I used to drive a van myself, and dark rainy nights in a crowded city always held the prospect of disaster.

10:32 a.m., Sunday. R is transplanting her ferns in heavy February rain. The window people are coming tomorrow to install our new windows. They'll be stomping around in the area where the ferns and moss have been thriving. She's leaving one because the roots are deep. She's going to put a bucket over it, and hope that the workers have enough sense to avoid it.

Our apartment is in chaos. I seek refuge in Proust. Who, at present, is enjoying a champagne breakfast with his friend Saint-Loup, and Saint-Loup’s mistress, an actress and prostitute, in a private room with angled mirrors all around. I mistranslate a passage to mean that he is smiling at the champagne and the champagne is smiling at him. I messed up the indirect pronoun. He’s smiling at himself in a mirror, because he looks disheveled and ridiculous, which is his image in the mirror smiling back. I prefer the mistranslation. I remember that feeling. The glee of something inside creating a new language, a foreign disposition. I can see why spirits are called spirits. Nobody calls alcohol spirits anymore. It’s a shame. And yet another mistranslation. Not that it matters. It’s just that old craving, to feel something other than myself in myself. Something more like Emerson’s oversoul. Which has a fruity taste and a touch of sweetness.

February 14^th, a cold and gray Valentine’s Day, the window installation crew (I don’t think they’re called glaziers anymore, at least no around here uses that term) arrived in two big vans, one of which parked in back of the building. They looked like a heavy metal garage band, but with gigantic toolbelts instead of guitars. I was greatly relieved to see they arrived on time. They went to work immediately on the window in our bedroom, a narrow window with a lovely view of a concrete window well. I worried about those guys getting in there and maneuvering around. It was extremely noisy. I tried reading an article on Proudhon and the concept of property in my French philosophy magazine. The concentration kept my mind off the noise and a little less ill at ease with all these guys stomping around. We put Athena (our cat) in the bathroom with her food bowls and litterbox. She didn’t like it. She scratched furiously at the door. After they finished with the bedroom, they moved their operations to the other side of the building to work on the living room window. This allowed us to take refuge in the bedroom, where I watched a video on the origin of the universe.

I always feel ill at ease around people with skills. Practical skills. None of my skills are practical. Most of my skills are obstinately unmanageable and inconsequential. Hopelessly quixotic, an embarrassment for a man my age. I used to marvel at my uselessness. It was thrilling to feel detached, a romantic in ocean mist. Now I feel queered by it, sabotaged, adrift, askew. I discovered new wants in my elder years. The confidence of a skill. The more skills the better. Even if it’s just juggling skulls in the Court of Death. Defended by a lawyer whose skills reside in the obscurities and chicanery of the law. Which would make me fall in love with language again. And what a beautiful whore it is, Mae West cracking blue jokes on the stand. Judge with raised eyebrows. Jury pretending to look detached and wise. But stifling laughter. That’s language all over. Radiant energies in which linen is flipped and beds are made. In which skills are learned. Carpentry, plumbing, welding, active listening, attention to detail, fucking around.

The crew finished, but there was a problem: the big living room window wasn’t fitting right. The measurement was off. Which would make this the second time the measurement was off. We were told that they would have manufacture yet another new window. This filled us with anguish, frustration, and dread. We’d had enough of stress. Next day, thank God, we were informed that there might be a way to get the window to fit. They could get to it the next day.

Next day, the window was removed and some material was shaved off the inner aluminum lining on our window frame and the window was re-installed. But now there was a problem with the left window panel; it had a small crack in the left bottom corner and would not slide freely as intended. You had to tug hard on it to get it to open. Unacceptable. A new panel would have to be manufactured. This would take another two weeks, if not more. This meant R had to wait to replant her ferns and moss for an indefinite period of time. We were pissed, frustrated, tired, crabby, and demoralized. But compared with miseries elsewhere, it must seem small, if not ridiculous. We’ve got electricity and running water and each other. Streaming services. Sitcoms. Rattles and raspberries. Bo Diddley. B.B. King. Ella Fitzgerald. Hot dogs and baked beans.

Disasters come in all sizes. I reserve the bigger ones for another day when they may be talked about more freely. Not like now in which one word, one passionately exclaimed declaration deposited in a social media site can end a friendship of 50 or 60 years. One recklessly expressed opinion about the truth of things can turn you into an overnight pariah. Many doors are closed now, and many windows broken or closed or boarded over. And sometimes a man on a bicycle gets hit by a van, gets up, straddles the bike and bicycles speedily to a place of calm, and refuge.