i still hate the yankees
cityscape
The world dreams of New York City, that’s something he heard once, and he’s never doubted the truth of it. The Bronx says, what, are you fuckin’ kiddin’?, turns aside in hard-earned scorn, but the subway rattles up to the stadium, rusting rails above the crumbling concrete sidewalk, cars scuffed on the edges like old sneakers, and he knows, if you’ve had enough of the Bronx and its scorn, all you have to do is step on board.
Doors close, and you find a seat, or don’t, grabbing at poles made greasy with handprints, cloth loops frayed and faded with time. Lean with the turns and soon enough you’re underground again. Dark enough between the lights that flash by, between stations. Dark enough that he knows he won’t be recognized at the end of the car, head down and blocked by his upraised arm, letting himself hang loose from the crossbar, just another tired commuter on his way home from work, nothing of the athlete about his stance.
The light in the stations is yellowed and grim but it’s more than enough to strip away that thin pretense, that transitory moment of anonymity. Getting out he’ll have to push past people who recognize him from nothing more than a slight glimpse of his profile, the line of his nose, the top edge of his hairline. People will say, Hey, is dat..? and Hey man, an autograph, you got just one second for an autograph, right? and Ohmigawd!
People will say, Hey, it’s dat good-fer-nuthin’…, but if he pushes on past them, he knows, head up, eyes straight forward, stride easy but swift and never, never breaking in rhythm, he’ll come through OK.
Stairs, then, the treads worn smooth in the middle of each step, an optical illusion of a purposefully-laid path leading up, or down, depending on where you want to be. He doesn’t use the handrails to help pull himself up because he knows the drunks and the tweakers piss on them early in the morning, ‘most every morning, in the very small hours when the cops have bigger fish to fry.
I got this hand sanitizer shit ‘specially for the days I take the subway in, he’s been told, a flash of brilliantly white teeth in the laughing face of a teammate. He’s not supposed to notice laugh lines, but it’s unavoidable, inevitable, like taxes.
That's not the New York people dream about, but take the stairs up, get aboveground, and there it is. Coming up the stairs, the black box at the top grows bigger and bigger until it swallows you up, or maybe spits you out. A long night game means that it's late night when he gets out and he gets to see the city as people really do dream it, a hundred million shards of colored light suspended in black, buoyed up by the grumble and hum of humanity at its base.
Towers crammed with windows rise up and bounce the streetlights off their reticulated surfaces. Taxis speed by, shock of yellow, red taillights weaving as they navigate the slower cars, the big gleaming SUVs parked next to the dented sedan in a color popular ten years ago. Signs twist words in neon over windows into strangely specific glass-fronted worlds.
He walks down the street, head down a little now, don't catch anyone else's eye. He's not looking for a cab, he's not looking for fun, he's not even looking for dinner. They wouldn't believe it, maybe, back in the clubhouse, but he's not looking for anything.
He just walks. Walks and listens to snatches of conversational passerby, the honks of irate drivers in the road, vying scraps of music from all sides, the sizzle of late-night fried food as he passes some doorways, the clink of glasses as he passes others. Walks and watches the delicately annoyed interplay of people on the sidewalk trying not to bump up against each other, the slight stumbles of pointed heels in unexpected cracks, the abrupt cruelty of a steel-toed boot crushing out a cigarette.
It's not that the city never sleeps. It's the beautiful chaos of its particular insomnia.
He'll walk until he reaches his apartment. It's a long walk from the subway stop he chose, but he doesn't take the subway home from the stadium all that often, and he likes to make it last when he does. He likes to remember that this is the city they dream about in cities all over the US, in cities all over the globe.
He's been in Chicago, LA, San Francisco and Boston. He's been in London, Paris, Tokyo.
"Hey!" he hears, some guy leaning on the wall outside a bar, bottle of beer dangling forgotten from his hand. "Hey, holy shit, it's really.... hey man, you sucked! You fuckin' sucked out dere tonight!"
What the hell, boring is for other cities, he's been told, more stuff he's not supposed to notice, blue eyes crinkling mischievously at the corners, reminding him how far from boring it can be.
He laughs a little, remembering it, flipping the guy outside the bar off with an easy automatic gesture. The guy sputters, but that's already behind him, and he knows the route here. You turn the corner and you're in Times Square, enough people for even a ballplayer to get lost in, the giant screens throwing joyously digital light over it all.
People bed down at night and dream of coming here, so he's been told. He sidesteps a street vendor's blanket full of knockoff purses, keeps on walking, and knows he'd never dream of being anywhere else.