O ROTTEN GOTHAM, part 2

none of the boys of the smartphone chat boroughs came through on their offers to take me for a run in prospect park, so i went for one on my own. i wasn't not going to make it before i had to leave on the chinatown bus the next day, and that next day in the morning i needed to do laundry.

on my way to eastern parkway i saw a nice pair of black dress shoes in a free box, but i didn't come back across them on my way back toward bed-stuy. i did, however, easily reencounter the library, and i decided that i'd go back there with my coffee to catch up on my correspondence if the cute guy with the missing mandibular incisor wasn't working at lincoln station. (then, i was almost back to the intersection of dean and bedford before i decided that this other one was a stalk that i shouldn't pursue. ...for dealing with the poetry post grad, a veil of night seemed more poetic.)

after i'd showered and made it back through crown heights, the boy was not, in fact, there where i'd left him -- smiling -- behind the coffee counter, so to the library i did indeed go.

that evening i met my friend in midtown as she was finishing work so that we could go together to the high line. we walked up and down the northern half of the park from nineteenth before going down for the end of happy hour. "broken bridge ii" by el anatsui had still been hanging on one of the walls between twenty-first and twenty-second. i'd been introduced to the artist's work at the brooklyn museum when we'd visited there after getting coffee from the boy with the missing mandibular incisor a few days before, but because we hadn't gone any further than the entrance to the botanical gardens we hadn't gotten far enough down eastern parkway for me to find the library (although i knew, theoretically, about the entrance to the park).

over manhattans (because you can be sure they'll be boozy) i told her about the public library experience in brooklyn. sitting next to henry miller, i'd caught up on some correspondence, but then i'd run out of cards.

other things to do at the brooklyn public library: pace, laugh loudly at music videos, have a twelve count variety pack of chobani yogurt while arguing with someone at an information desk about internet access. and not have the book i might have been looking for if i'd had more time to stay at the library and read it,

(we got back up to do most of the rest of the high line before it really started to rain, and one of her bodyguards stepped in at the last moment to take the glob of spit that i spat at cher.)


"walls reveal more things than they hide." -- el anatsu