“I’d love to.”
“Great, follow me.”
She leads me toward the back of the store, to the great racks of jeans — floor to ceiling — checking a couple of times to make sure I’m still with her.
“This is a gift for. .”
“My wife. My wife.”
“Great. Do you know her size?”
“Four.”
We stop in the back corner. There are two blown-up photographs: one is of Dylan and the other Jim Morrison. Both are famous shots: Dylan with his Wayfarers and Minnesota afro, looking like he’s about to let somebody know just how stupid they really are. The Lizard King arms spread, shirtless, leather pants, like he’s auditioning at a cattle call for a bacchanal.
“We have five different styles.”
“I’m sorry?”
“What cut do you think she’d like?” She steps back and frames her jeans with her hands. “These are the Urban Cut.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hmm.” She starts into one of the piles on a shelf. “Classic?”
“Classic?”
She pulls a pair out and models them on an imaginary figure between us. “These are the Classic Cuts. A lot of people like these because they’re simple.”
“Perhaps too simple.”
She folds them quickly, in a way I’ve never been able to master, and slips them back in the pile. “She’ll love these.” She reaches up to a higher shelf, pulling her shirt up her ribcage. She has a large birthmark on her spine. She finally gets the pants, turns and unfolds them simultaneously.
“Free and Easy.”
“That’s great.”
“Aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“So what else can I help you with?”
“I’ll take two.”
“Two pairs. Someone’s lucky.”
“Absolutely.”
“Can I find anything else for you today?”
“No, thank you. That will do.”
The two pairs cost $150. I start north with my tool and shopping bag feeling about as good as I can remember feeling in a while. The sun seems to be gathering strength for one last push against the chill. And people of all types line the narrow streets of SoHo — some with tool bags, some with shopping bags, but none with both. Punching Feeney was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a while. I appreciate the transforming powers of violence. Awake. The air has a new snap to it. The light is sharper, as though some hand has made a small adjustment on my collective focus.
I get a triple espresso from the shop I’ve been avoiding. It’s really not that expensive, after all. The pimply boy at the counter was eager to make it — perhaps even charged me too little, and seemed truly thankful when I dropped a dollar in the tip jar. Outside. North. Shopping bag, tool bag, no lavender spray but tingling knuckles, the notion that I can lick anyone and the anticipation of a solid caffeine high in the afternoon. The streets are crowded, but no one seems particularly busy or in a hurry. They stroll, chat, browse in the windows of the little shops — small inventories, bright paint, and thin women of varying ages and shades. I wonder if the mad Scot still has his little soccer shop up on Eleventh. I make for it, cutting east down Houston toward Second Avenue. This isn’t the street I ran down the other night. That road is gone. Why bother? Whatever it has to offer has no place here. Fuck it, I say at the bottom of Second. I’ll get my boy a shirt if I want to. I’ll get a shirt for both my boys. Ronaldo! Jogo Bonito! X wouldn’t want one, though. I’ll get him a big T. rex model, or one of those fancy picture books — something like that. And my girl, what? I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it. It will speak.
A couple of blocks south of the soccer store I see a narrow shop with a big window, white wainscoting and a few tables, a young woman with a ponytail holding a tray with a teapot. I know I’ve been in that space before when it was something else. I cross the street, cutting through the lines of stopped cars, and stop at the door to read the menu. I can’t really focus on anything — the espresso’s kicking in. The ponytail girl turns. Her face is striking: Eurasian, I think is the term that’s supposed to describe her. I hesitate at the door. She pushes it open, one handed, and holds it ajar for me.
“Come in.” Her voice is squeaky but not unpleasant. She seems too innocent to be working in the New York City service industry. She couldn’t have been here long. She certainly didn’t grow up here.
“Come on, we’re letting all the weather in.”
Squeaky, pretty — I feel like patting her on the head. I take the door instead. She smiles, wide. No braces for this girclass="underline" Her upper left incisor juts out. It must constantly poke her inner lip. I look at the tables to keep from staring at her mouth — one row of birch-ply squares screwed onto simple black tubes with four long feet. They’re pushed against a long, tall, blue vinyl banquette. She starts for the counter. I follow.
“Sit,” she says, pointing at the first table. I obey. I stuff my bags under the table and sit on the bench. The tingling that started in my fingers is now more like the presence of a strong pulse, and in between beats they go numb, but not that heavy feeling of frozen or sleeping digits, more like fingers that don’t exist. I hold my hands up and tell my fingers to move. They obey, but now they seem with each motion to wave in and out of existence like reeds in a breeze under moonlight, defying sight each time they bend away.
She comes back.
“You look a little sleepy. Are you hungry, too?”
I try my best not to look at her tooth. “I don’t think so.”
“Really,” she squeaks. She slides a cream-colored card onto the table. It has indigo writing on it. “You’re a big guy,” she points at my tool bag. “You need something to keep you going.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” I’ve disappointed her. It hurts — the way she closes her mouth, presses her lip against that snaggletooth. “Perhaps in a bit,” I say, but it doesn’t get her smiling again.
“I’ll leave this here.” She pats the menu, whips her ponytail, and heads for the back.
I flex my hands. They seem to want to drift in and out of this realm. I crack my knuckles. The sound phases in and out, too.
Ponytail has left me alone out front. I look to where she disappeared, through a swinging door with no window behind a counter — more like a half-wall topped by butcher block — that has baskets and plates of baked goods. I am hungry. I hear my stomach complain from the place where my knuckle pop vanished. I wonder if there’s a scone in one of those baskets, or a pie on one of those plates. I wonder if ponytail makes sandwiches. I want peanut butter and raspberry jam on wheat, and chocolate milk — no, ginger ale and very salty potato chips. I start to doubt the ponytail girl — her friendliness. She must be a jaded New Yorker — to be so two-faced. But she has left me alone, with the baked goods, with the cash box that I’m sure is hidden behind that little wall. I scan the room for a camera, but I don’t find one. The café is a blend of old and new: white limestone tiles, white wainscoting, blue-and-white-striped wall linen, but the big window with its aluminum mullions points to something else. There’s so much light in the little space — east facing, street level in the early afternoon. The brightness makes me rethink what it is to be old, to be of the old. There are simple pewter sconces — empty — and up in each corner, small speakers. Now I hear the music, a song fading out that had probably been quite loud — strings, falsetto—“. . Just my ’Magination. .” I don’t know how I missed that one. I snap at myself, look out the window to Second Avenue, at the people walking by — students, artists, kids pretending to be homeless punks, a few suits in downtown casual disguise; they all seem underdressed for this chill. Summer’s gone. Don’t ya know it?