The trip to the
Bronx is both amazing and terrifying. We start the day in New York City.
I
quickly notice that New York City is a magic land of burning cars, homeless
drug addicts, Hookers on the stroll and shady deals going on everywhere. The
crazies here are aggressive and in your face.
We park in a lot
near the Port Authority and then step out into the world that we just viewed
from the safety of the car. I immediately notice a giant poster for the musical
Nine as we are leaving the parking lot. Its nine feet tall and I plan on acquiring
it before I leave. I touch it as we pass and I figure out that I just have to
pop it forward and it will come right out of the frame.
Sue and I link
arms to each other as we stumble onto 42nd Street. The world around
me swirls with Peep Shows, bruised Hookers in windows, 3 card Monty being
played, drunk business men slapping each other on the back and boys spinning on
their heads to hip hop music. I am in love. This is where I need to be and it’s
never been clearer in my life. Broadway is gritty and exciting, Madonna look
alikes are everywhere, Keith Haring is the art, women have giant teased hairdos
and beautiful boys in eyeliner line the streets.
The subways are filthy and
there is no air conditioning. I watch as a homeless woman with a mountain of
garbage bags takes up one side of the car. We ride into the village chanting 8th
street, 8th street. We have to stop in at Trash and Vaudeville and
ask the man with giant spiked hair and kilt where the 8th Street Playhouse
is. The Playhouse is showing Rocky Horror at Midnight, I have to touch the side
of that theatre today or we are not going home.
I am in a swirl of
people that I am fascinated with. It is a beautiful bizarre carnival filled
with Freaks, Old women in house coats next to Models next to Junkies!!!! Sign
me up! I’m coming! This is it; I will be back as soon as I can to live here
forever! The day is memorable, I have met the love of my life and it’s New York
City. Sue and I stop in a liquor store and get a bottle put in a brown paper
bag with two straws.
It’s late when we
head back to the parking garage, the sun has set and we have had a full day
running around. Sue pays the man behind the cracked bullet proof window for her
car and we walk to where she’s parked it, a spray painted penis is pointing the
way to our aisle. I climb into the passenger seat as Sue starts the car and
backs out. I remind her to pull up next to the Nine Poster; it’s going to be
mine.
I swing the door
open even before Sue stops the car; I jump out, run up to the poster push it up
and pop it back to me and It becomes
free in my hands. If Sue can pop the back of the car there is a huge space in
the back of the car where I can lay the poster on top of our suitcases. My
heart is pounding as Sue and I heave the poster into the car and run back to
the front. We both slide in to the front and Sue peels away from the empty
poster frame.
Laughing as we
head out of the garage I raise my hand and notice that I have cut the side of
it. Blood is all over my palm and I slowly put together what’s going on. I look
in the back and under the poster is nothing, no luggage, no boxes, nothing. I
then notice that a hole was punched in the back side window and broken glass is
all over my seat, I cut my hand on the glass sliding into the seat. Sue and I
start to freak out as the clues to what happened to my hand become clear
through our boozy haze.
Someone broke
into our car and stole our suitcases. Sue is freaking out as she figures out
what’s missing and what has happened. The plan is that we will spend the night
as planned in the Bronx, leave in the morning. We can sleep and drive in the
clothes we have and we can shower at Sue’s house. Good plan. We pull into a
McDonalds in the Bronx to get a hamburger, we have very little money and when
we get back in the car we see that our front seat has now been stolen.
to be continued.......
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
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