ZIP Code 10001 Pt 2

PT 2

“More F-Words!”

I watched the taxi hurtle away down 7th Avenue, happy to have survived my ride in it. While passing a bus on the inside it narrowly missed a young mother pushing a baby stroller crossing at 26th Street. The taxi driver shook his fist at the startled mother and honked insanely. 

Which takes two hands and perhaps explains the slight collision of the taxi with a pretzel cart, scattering dozens of the twisty snacks into the street where they were crushed under the tires of 30,000 roaring, belching, oversized American vehicles within fourteen seconds! 

The pretzel man shook his fist at the taxi and cursed tremendously.

No one paid him the least attention.

Except us.

“Did you see that?” asked Suzie. “Shame.”

If you know a South African then you’ll know that “shame” can mean almost anything. Shame you had a nice holiday, shame your car broke down, shame the puppy is so cute.

“See it?” I answered. “Did you hear it? That pretzel guy could really curse up a storm!”

It seemed to Suzie and I that every one of New York’s seven and a quarter million people (at the time of which I write, 1987) were here at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. 

The noise and bustle were tremendous!

Throngs of people pushed past us, going this way and that. People of every size and shape, speaking languages we’d never heard before and didn’t understand. Including American English. They were dressed differently too. Heavier. Warmer. Darker. 

Many people, to our surprise, were drinking and eating in the street as they hurried along. Food wrappers and paper cups littered the sidewalks. 

Men wheeled racks of clothing and fur coats up Seventh Avenue against the traffic, cursing the cars and buses which narrowly missed them on all sides. 

I stood among the chaos and looked around… it was pandemonium!

“LOOK OUT!” cried Suzie, pulling me back from the curb.

“Yikes!” I yelled as three busses, 28 taxis and eight bicycles almost ran me over.

“I think you got a little too close to the road,” said Suzie.

“Yeah and the blasted traffic is going the wrong direction too!” I laughed. “So I didn’t see ‘em coming!”

“Excuse me, Suzie,” I added, then I turned and shook my fist at the murderous traffic while I cursed up a storm.

No one paid the least attention to me.

“Boy!” I said to Suzie after the cursing, “You have to keep your eyes open around here, don’t you?”

“Just like a New Yorker,” laughed my wife. “Don’t worry, dahling. You’re doing okay. So far.”

“Did you notice no one cared that I was standing in the street shaking my fist and cursing up a storm?”

“Maybe your cursing isn’t up to scratch,” suggested Suzie.

“Never!” I insisted. I was rightfully proud of my cursing, learned at the bottom of a muddy ditch when I worked as a laborer, many years ago. 

Since then I’d stayed in continual practice. 

“It must be my accent,” I explained.

“You’ve got to use the f-word way more,” said Suzie, “to keep up with the locals.”

“Right!” I answered. “More f-words.”

New York! I thought.

What a f*cking town!

   To be continued…

ZIP Code 10001

Part 1

Hurtled, or Careened?

We landed in New York on Friday evening of President’s Day weekend, 1987. 

President’s Day is in February, where it was summer in the southern hemisphere on the other side of the world.

Where we’d just come from. 

But it wasn’t summer now that we were in New York.

Boy, it was cold! It was a real shock to Suzie and I, both of us originally coming from warmer climates. 

Me from Southern California, Suzie from South Africa.

Then together for the past dozen years in Australia, Africa, and most recently Auckland, New Zealand. 

As we crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan the city was a beautiful vision in the crisp winter night. I tried to forget my terror (I wasn’t used to taxis and this one sped along at a frightening rate!) and take it all in, craning my neck to see the famous buildings and avenues through the taxi’s greasy windows.

There it was! The Empire State Building!

I felt as if I’d seen a movie star. 

I recognized the beautiful art deco Chrysler Building from photographs I’d seen in books. Off to our left downtown one could see the huge Twin Towers, so big they seemed to defy reason. The Statue of Liberty, I knew, was just beyond that, in the harbor standing on her little island out of sight.

New York City! I could hardly believe it.

Here we were.

Suzie and I shivered in the backseat as the taxi turned into Seventh Avenue and picked up speed. Now on the wide avenue, the taxi opened up and hurtled insanely along, narrowly missing buses, cars, bicyclists, pedestrians, other taxis, hot dog vendors, etc. 

I think hurtled is the correct word. I was going to use careened, but that implies too much control. 

Then, while reliving it today so that I might write it down, for it was truly a formative experience and mustn’t be ignored, I had to stop writing and have a drink or two to steady my nerves. 

Even decades later it’s hard to believe we lived through it, but I suppose every person who has ever caught a taxi in NYC since the day taxis were invented has had that thought.

So when we finally skidded to a stop inches from the legs of thronging pedestrians at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street that cold February Friday night, we were thankful just to be alive… and didn’t care, too much, about being ripped off by the driver.

After all, we figured, this was New York, where the term ripped off was born!

After unloading the luggage, I stood at the driver’s side and leaned down to pay him through the window. He hadn’t bothered to get out and help me, but sat eyeing Suzie in the rearview mirror. I counted out three twenties and when I asked for change, he shrugged his shoulders and gripped the last twenty even tighter. 

“No change! No change!” he barked as he tugged at my twenty.

“But the meter only said…” I began.

 “NO CHANGE, NO CHANGE!” he yelled as if getting louder made him right.

A tactic many of us, not just New Yorkers, employ from time to time.

“Wait a minute’” I said, not letting go of my money. “What the…” 

At that moment new riders pushed their way into the taxi from the other side, elbowing Suzie out of the way.

“Downtown!” ordered one of them to the driver as if we weren’t there.

“Voetzek man!” began Suzie. Which if you know a South African means get lost! or scram! in a rather rude way, as if addressing an unwelcome dog. 

Uh-oh! I thought. Watch out for Suzie when she gets riled!

But she never had the chance, because with a final tug to dislodge me from my money, the driver put the taxi into gear and hurtled off!

   To be continued…