Triptych

01Sep08

The doorman stood about ten feet off the corner of 85th and West End, a few steps from his post.  He lit a half-finished cigarette.  The blue-grey smoke was like chiffon against his cocoa skin.  His baggy pants were navy blue with double-yellow stripes down the sides.
 
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Staring at the teetering 1-year-old girl, who wore a [...]

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Looking through the mirror

05May08

In the mornings after I’ve dropped off the boys at school, as I’m crossing Broadway and 84th – my mind and iPod set to Destination Subway and the downtown #1 train toward work – he’s sitting there on a bench in the median of the avenue, facing south, downtown:  A man, sitting within a large [...]

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A sincere smile

17May07

I used to see Anthony standing along the wall of the steep pathway leading from the #6 train down to the #7 platform. He was on crutches and was missing his right leg, his pants folded back on that side. Had an old black Bible in one hand and was always fingering a rosary with [...]

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Slimebag

08May07

At first, I felt like a real slimebag.
A man approached me as I drove up to the curb at Starbucks and asked me to roll down my window.
“I’m out of gas. I’m so humiliated to ask, but can you help me with a couple dollars.”
I’m sorry, was my reply.
I always wonder about these exchanges. I [...]

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Seeing

01May07

Did I tell you that I was homeless for an afternoon?
Not really, mind you.
It was during my senior year of college and I had a rented room in a house with 13 other undergrad and graduate students, but for a sociology experiment I dressed as a homeless man and went out on to Hillsborough Street [...]

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