White Road

There was a little girl who wanted something from the gourmet bakery. Her stupid dad hollered at her, loudly and quite publicly, "I am sick and tired of negotiating with you!" Another guy walked over. He had curly brown hair and very circular sunglasses. He had been waiting to pay for "what seemed like an eternity." There were two young men with lightish skin with tight t-shirts on, they were waiting for a table-for-five to clear up at the bakery company shoppe. Their friend had not arrived yet — he had been napping but would be there five minutes after the table became available. A crazy not-that-old woman with dry hair pushed a shopping cart down the street and around each hand were two leather leashes attached to four medium-sized dogs. She felt strongly about being vegan, and even suggested that other people on the street consider becoming vegan too. A large man wearing a backwards baseball cap and a dark-colored warm-up suit with white stripes had red sneakers and a black goatee. He was slowly spinning around my favorite street in New York City, unable to take his eyes off his friend. She buzzed around him, wearing a baseball jersey herself, smiling as the entire crowd watched the magnetic carousel on the quiet street. There was an old man who walked deliberately to a park bench. He was wearing a very nice Sunday outfit and was holding onto an oak cane. He sat down and looked straight ahead, through the trees, through the little dog run, through the parks department sanitation station, through the farmer's market, through the anonymous burrito shop. He began feeding the pigeons. There was a young girl wearing a stretched-out cable knit sweater and a checkered hat. Her smile was so wide and playful, it forgave everyone who stared at her. Sometimes a chubby mother brought her developmentally-challenged daughter out for a walk. I had to reach around the poor girl to grab some potato chips. Outside my apartment I saw a couple fighting and when I got closer I heard one of them say, "what do you want me to say?" I noticed a man wearing a baseball cap backwards and a blue t-shirt and he told me that I can't sit on the rock. There was a man with baggy pants and a grin. He preferred when the sun stayed at home behind the clouds. The guy with sad eyes and the guitar looked longingly at the young little girl with the makeshift drum set. She was pounding out a Great Little Beat when an older woman accidentally stepped on some pirated DVDs on a carpet. Someone offered the therapeutic services of someone the pedestrians can't see. A woman with dark skin emerged from one of those bead curtains that had a print of an owl on it. A well-off older man walked home and thought about nothing. I sat down. I thought I saw the glimmer of the side of a gun, it was just a cell phone. I asked my buddy what the difference between a hubcap and a rim was, and he told me that hubcaps don't really exist anymore. He looked at me. A smelly young man finished another book. A sweet girl pulled her hair out at night and wondered what she was doing with her life. A type-A personality thought about walking down Avenue A, but decisively decided against it. Another man with a goatee did curls at the gym and thought about the missionary position. A beautiful woman continued to study and her less beautiful friend could not stop stopping her work to look around or talk or surrender to some other distraction. An executive pressed 'L' in the elevator and looked up at the screen. A large old woman addressed the back of a lobster's head with a sharp knife. I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. A little boy put his hand in the cold river water and didn't realize that what he was doing was what other people dream about doing. Another little boy tripped on the curb. Linda died. Sometimes the man with the cart would not be there and he didn't have to tell anyone; he would just sit on his really comfortable wool chair and watch his old tv in his ground-level apartment and drink Hennessey and shuffle cards all day. These two sisters walked by and one of them yelled, "Now you want to go, you never want to go." This stockman sauntered behind a customer wearing a dress with the colors of the Jamaican flag — he said to her: "Those ain't church clothes." She replied, "God just happy my ass was there, he don't care what I wear." I agree with her.