(Previously, on NYI4:DOW our heroine had decided to rent a bike in Manhattan. But whether the girl is out of the country or the country is out of the girl is anyone guess....)
...It was a vortex of confusion, a black hole disguised as classic cobblestones and pine trees. I had entered Central Park on W. 56 Street and 9th Avenue. Central Park had chewed me up and spit me out on E. 116th Street and some other avenue I had never even heard of. I had never been this far north before, and with the approaching darkness I knew my chances were getting worse by the minute. Works starts at six. The first drop of sweat hit my elbow.
Fourteen buckets of perspiration later, I was glancing at my cell phone (which is basically a watch that I occasionally hear voices from) noting the time: 5:30. Okay, no reason to panic, I still had a full half hour...and was beginning to approach the late 90's (The street number, not the decade). Forty two buckets of sweat later, my talking watch informed me the new time: 5:45. That was when I began to match my prayers to my pedaling ("please GOD please GOD please GOD please GOD"). I might have passed the Lincoln Center. I might have in fact, passed Lincoln himself. In my state, I couldn't stop to admire the sights.
Finally I approached 5th avenue, the Mason/Dixon line of Manhattan. One way would take me to 9th Avenue, where the bike shop and my job awaited. Another would drop me off somewhere on the East Side of Manhattan, where I would most likely be stripped and sold for parts. I had no idea which way was west, and I couldn't afford any mistakes. Talking Watch (which is my cell phone's Indian name) chirped 5:50. I was riding the same way a chicken with its head cut off might: erratically and without a shred of reason. I wasn't so irrational though, that I didn't see the her. A (stereo)-typical troll of an old woman, nicotine stained teeth and all. Even through the darkness I saw the street lights gleaming from her mink fur coat. And if she hadn't decided to see me, stop completely in the middle of the crosswalk, and jerk backwards the way a startled deer might, everything would have been fine.
It was then I officially became a New Yorker. For the longest time, tourists in search of a savior would ask me "Are you from New York?" and I would smile and bashfully decline their assumptions. I wondered when I would ever feel truly comfortable with the city enough to claim that yes, I live here, and not just on a very long indefinite visit. It was then that the hand of God reached down and touched me at that moment, and like any true native New Yorker, I opened my mouth and bellowed a mighty roar: "KEEP WALKING!!!" I screamed and swerved to avoid her. She raised her claws and let forward a myriad of curses, insults and screams herself, and I realized that there were still scraps of Country Rose left. I may have yelled like a New Yorker, but it was way more polite and helpful than her suggestions. I had no time to retort; I was on a mission.
Still committed to my mission, I kept pedaling and realized that I was actually on 9th Avenue. Do not ask me how. It just appeared, like this sentence. Apparently the 14th cycle of prayer pedaling had worked. I am often known for miracles like this. It was like my 8th grade band teacher once said after a particularly heinous rehearsal: "I don't think those mistakes are even physically POSSIBLE. How did you do that?" It was magic. Now all I had to do was remember where the actual bike store was located. I knew it was on 9th Avenue, and a mere block from the theatre. (5:58) I remember seeing it next to a Starbucks. Then I remembered: Saying something is close to a Starbucks in New York is like saying you left your shoe next to "that particular grain of sand" on the Oregon Coast. I was beginning to contemplate my options ("Should I leave the bike at the shop if it's closed? Take it with me? Ride it to Queens and try again in the morning? Will it even fit in the usher's closet in the theatre?"). Suddenly the blessed bike store came into view (6:01) and yes! They were still open. I threw the bike through the door, launched my helmet at the salesman like it was a medicine ball, and hightailed it out of there.
As I pounded the cement sidewalk and slammed my feet into the crosswalk I felt like a lone bike teetering between the sidewalks and streets of New York; I too needed a middle ground. Am I the polite quiet Westerner, who helps tourists and never says a discouraging word, or a new resident of the nation’s melting pot, who screams at foul mouthed mink hoarding hags? Perhaps it is the combination of both that determines the entire package. And that package needs a shower.
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