The little neighborhood park I usually go to was fenced off for renovations one day, so, with coffee and morning paper in hand, I decided to sit on the steps of a random pre-war, rent-controlled walk-up apartment building on East 32nd between Second and Third. This place is what would have been referred to as a tenement back in the 19th century.
The city was very quiet since it was the Friday before Labor Day, so I sipped coffee and read the paper on the stoop. Even on the quietest days, though, New York still has a good amount of foot traffic, so I had to pull my newspaper back toward me to make sure that passersby would not brush up against it.
After about 10 minutes, a woman in a house dress and slippers ascended from the basement apartment to deposit a bag of trash. Then she started to eyeball me as she sauntered over to the steps, nit-picking the smallest leaf droppings off of the steps around me. I could tell she wanted to make her presence known and sniff out who this stranger on the steps might be.
Luckily, she left, and I was able to stay. Then a guy came out from behind me through the front door. He had long, blond, greasy hair. I could smell last night`s sweet booze oozing from his pores and breath. There were six steps on the stoop, but he chose to plop his big sweaty body right next to me.
I read and sipped on. Following behind him a curly-haired guy in a stained gray T-shirt came down the steps. He gave me a suspicious trespasser look-over just like the old lady did. I was beginning to feel unwelcome on the steps, which I might have guessed wrongly were free for the sitting. I sipped and read on until he spoke.
"Hey, asshole!"
Oh no, I thought. Oh NO. Here we go again. But the blond guy turned around to respond to the catcall which I mistakenly thought was directed at me.
"Why don`t you clean up the fucking cans and bottles you left all over the stoop from last night instead of sitting there like a bum? This ain't the dump. People live here!"
"Who you calling a bum? You`re the fucking bum! Leave me alone, bum," shot back greasy hair with spit spray.
"I am not a bum, you slob," gray T-shirt responded angrily.
A husky female voice emanated from under the steps. "Shut the hell up, you morons! It`s still morning!"
"Oh yeah!" said greasy hair to T-shirt. "Why should I listen to you anyway? You ain`t the boss of me and besides, you don`t even have any fucking teeth."
That was enough for me. I decided the conversation, of which I was in the crossfire, was just going to go further downhill after the "no teeth" insult. I got up and moved down the block to another stoop, unfolded the paper again, sipped to the bottom of my joe, and I hoped I might be able to finish my coffee and the newspaper before another performance began.
Just when you think you`ve found the perfect, private spot, you realize that every square inch of this city is spoken for.
