Revel-ry

It hardly bears mentioning that Brooklyn streets are made mostly of cracks, holes, bumps, and rage. Even on quiet Sunday streets, stealthy potholes and greedy seams lie in wait to rattle the teeth of an electric scooter driver and his passenger as they scoot around town on his birthday adventures.

But as we come around this particular corner toward Greenwood Cemetery, we find ourselves on virgin asphalt, seemingly laid this morning and smooth as the sea before God moved across the face of the waters. Trees interlace above our heads, creating a bower of green, and we sail beneath them, cool breeze in our faces, and Katie says, “Oh, this is nice."

A Rainbow In The Dark

The storm is kicking up dirt and dust, whirling little cyclones across the street as I’m getting ready to leave, but it’s not until I unlock my bike that it really starts to rain.

It falls with varying degrees of malice almost all the way home, but I push myself to outrun the giant tumbles of dark grey crowds looming overhead.

I make it to my apartment, only to find that I’ve left the wall of gloom behind, and a rainbow glitters in the dark above eastern Brooklyn.

When I take a shower, it’s fully thirty seconds before the water runs clear from all the dirt on me.

Maybe A Little Sullen

“May I please speak with Cindy?” says the pleasant voice on the other end of the line at my temp gig at the doctor’s office.

“Cindy’s actually out, so I’m working with Janice today,” I reply.

“Oh, you’re working with her? Bless you, she is something else,” she says.

Presidential

“Oh my God, just shut up!” I yell at the TV as Gillibrand talks over yet another person on the Democratic debate stage, and instantly feel a little weird.

“She’s your senator!” Katie says admonishingly, and I stop to take stock - is it because Gillibrand is a woman?

“I wonder why I’m so irritated at Gillibrand, but not at Kamala Harris?” I say, after thinking about it.

“It’s because Harris is acting presidential, and Gillibrand is just shouting,” Katie says.

Bless

She doesn’t have a German accent, but her name is pretty German, and when I ask her for her insurance card, she smiles in a slightly condescending, very German way.

“You probably don’t accept it,” she says straightforwardly - not like she’s happy to be superior, but that’s just the way things are.

“Well, let’s take a look,” I reply.

Sure enough, the card, entirely in German, is for a public health care system we can only dream about in the states, and when I read the title on the card (“Gesundheitskarte”) I absentmindedly say “Bless you,” and that makes her smile for real this time.

Demons In Your Brain

I’m waiting outside for Katie when the large woman with too many grocery bags walks by scowling.

“Get the fuck away from my head!” she suddenly shouts as she passes.

I very carefully do not move, and watch her in the reflection of the shop window until she is out of range.

I know you are going through something terrible, I think to myself, but you can’t go around scaring people like that.

Hebrews 12:6

The air smells like the insides of plants, like the color green, like the earth gave a relieved exhalation after holding its breath for an entire winter.

We climb up and down on unmarked trails through the park until we come to the main path and a set of stone stairs, where we find, midway down, an earthworm undulating his way across the step from one side of, presumably, inferior soil and decaying matter, towards the other, obviously superior soil and decaying matter on the other side.

We sit down on the step and stand guard so no one steps on him as he ripples across the granite, until finally, after almost falling off the step entirely, he stops beneath a thin layer of leaves as if he has reached his destination, though he is several inches from a thick delicious pile of loam and decaying leaves.

I reach down and pluck the leaf from on top of him, exposing him to the light, and there is a delayed reaction before he adjusts to the reality that he is not yet where he needs to be and starts moving again towards the goal.