Slugfest

Twelve

The cool early evening air off the river gave me more of a second wind than the coffee. Even at that hour I could see a dusting of electric-green buds in some of the trees, specks of pink or white in others. It was that time of year when changes in the cityscape were evident every day, sometimes every few hours.

I walked across the street from the park. New York was one of the safest big cities in the world and had been for as long as I could remember, as long as you didn’t do anything stupid. And I prided myself on not doing too many stupid things. I resurrected my New York walk—fast, no sightseeing or window shopping, don’t smile too much lest someone think you’re drunk or stupid, which would make you easy prey. New Yorkers could navigate a crowd of tourists like sea lions, slipping in and out quickly but never touching one another.

I couldn’t remember a time before Korean groceries dotted every available corner in New York City with canned goods, salad bars, precut fruit, extensive selections of energy drinks, and fresh flowers twelve months of the year. No doubt there are names on leases and health department certificates, but to most people they are just the Koreans on Twenty-eighth or the Koreans on Seventeenth, et cetera. I headed for the Koreans on Eighth Avenue about three blocks from Lucy’s. The outside flower stand was shielded by heavy plastic sheets to protect the merchandise, and I brushed aside the cold, clear panels to get to the front door. I sensed someone behind me, so I held the flaps open for an extra second but, seeing no one, I let them go. Inside the small market, I stocked up on provisions for the weekend.

When I’d arrived, Lucy’s nearly empty kitchen had reminded me she was a single woman who generally ate out and probably hadn’t stocked her pantry since a world-class Mardi Gras party thrown two years earlier attended by members of the Preservation Hall Band and half the New Orleans Saints bench. She still had foil packets of Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane mix on the refrigerator door. Inexplicably, she also had ten or twelve envelopes of Orville Redenbacher’s. I wasn’t a good enough cook to turn sweet pink powder and popcorn into a meal, so I’d been replenishing at the Koreans one or two bags at a time.

After less than a block, the plastic I Love NY bag handles were stretched thin and cutting off the circulation in my fingers. I walked carefully, hoping the bags wouldn’t break and I wouldn’t have wasted forty dollars on chickpea and tuna salads the pigeons would be feasting on the next morning. I regrouped and changed hands while waiting for the traffic light to change.

Once again, I felt someone walking just a little too close behind me. There wasn’t much traffic; a Lincoln Town Car idled on the other side of the street. That was good. I wasn’t alone. In the same way flight attendants and fire drill captains always know their exit strategies, women who occasionally have to walk in New York at night develop a survival strategy. It was second nature.

We knew when to cross the street to avoid an unsavory character. We knew not to recite our telephone or credit card numbers out loud in a crowded bar, not to flash cash at an ATM, and not to leave half a drink on a table and then come back and drink it. These are in the collective New York memories, the way farm kids automatically know cow stuff and children in seaside towns know about the tides. At least we do most of the time.

In addition to two salads, which wouldn’t make very effective weapons, I was packing heat—four twelve-ounce cans of diet Red Bull that could put a sizeable dent in someone’s Adam’s apple if he messed with me. I’d taken a self-defense class once, and it was one of the few things I remembered. Go for the vulnerable spots—throat, groin, shins, eyes. I doubt the manufacturers had that in mind when they introduced the new, larger cans, but it was reassuring as I walked the rest of the way home.