Blanketed with snow… streets without cars, trucks, and buses or trains rumbling below, feels like an untried planet, so quiet, a shroud of white… soft, snowy, and soothing. Anxiety melts as calm captures and inches in, a breath of fresh air. 

The markets seduce you, bakeries and pastry shops filled with hot bagels and breads, cakes and cookies along with fruit and cream filled treats. And plump chickens in butcher shops waiting to be devoured accompanied by chocolate shops next door…

Hey Joe, you fired the butler? Why’d you do that? I think you made him cry.

Forget the butler! He gets in the way. Made him cry?

With food smudged faces the elders dance and smile toothless smiles. “What are you celebrating and why are you so content?” asks the pizza deliveryman.

“We’re celebrating life,” says the old couple “and we’re content because of the beautiful people we’re dancing with.”

The pizza guy thinks for a moment about his uncelebrated life and of course his young and beautiful wife, “May I join in and dance a few?” he asks.

“Of course,” says the old couple, “please join…

“Let’s take the train to Denmark.”

I wish I had thought of that.

“It’s only a three-day residency and no counseling.”

Wow, no counseling and only three days?

And for the next seventy-two hours plus ten all they could think about is getting naked.

Now, eighteen years later all they can think and say is… "What's for dinner?"

Can you go a little faster?

Where are you going?

Astoria, and I need to be there in one hour.

What’s it your birthday or something?

Yea, and it’s cold out too, and I know he’ll be waiting at the stop.

He pushes the pedal… Can’t believe these New York girls, but I kind of like her style!

Hey Joe, I think he’s dead.

Yea, but he’s got my money.

But it ain’t yours until he gives it to you.

Yea, but he owes me and I know he’s got it.

So what are you going to do, rob the guy?

Forgettaboutit, let’s feed the pigeons!

Hey Joe, let’s go home, you’ve already won 30,000.

No, I like this place.

Yea, but you’re going to lose it all.

Yea, but I’m enjoying myself.

Well, let’s at least have a drink and we’ll talk about it.

Okay Stefano, but first I want to feed the birds.

Hey Joe, if you feed the gulls anymore they’ll be too fat to fly.

That’s okay, they’re hungry.

Give some to the pigeons.

They don’t like pastrami and rye.

You win…

So after their spat the naïve kid asks, “Why did you call me that?”

She smiles, chomps into her toasted cream cheese bagel and says, “I can’t believe you white boys… you don’t know nothin!”

“But you called me a ‘bitch and a mutha fucka’ and I can’t be both; it’s a semiotic rule.”

“Symbiotic what? See what I mean about you white boys; you and the streets just don’t mix.”

He chews into his plain bagel with cream cheese and lox with a look of bewilderment. And three…

He watches the feathery ice crystals descend. The six pointed snow-darts dance and softly settle upon the hatted heads wandering through Times Square. Hats, funny faces, and snowflakes, no two alike, interacting for the sake of … who in the fuck knows mused the old guy roosting on a three legged chair next to the recruiting station at the crossroads of Broadway and 7th Avenue.    

"Sir, you have to move," says the sad looking cop; "you're obstructing the path."

"Just a…

The old fellow huddles on the bench next to the bronzed man telling him how to manage life, but the bronze man only sits and listens. If you look into his eyes you know he can hear and think but he doesn’t speak. There’s never a line waiting to gab with the bronzed man, but when you look his way on the corner of Broad and Hudson Streets in Kinderhook, New York there is always someone sitting and talking with him.

He’s a nice man and listens like a gentleman; yet the men and women who…

Hey Jack, stop talking… you’re always talking.

My name ain't Jack, Jake, it’s Jim, so call me Jim, not Jack, okay Jake?

My name’s not Jake, Jim, its James, so call me James, not Jake, okay Jim? 

And don’t tell me to stop talking, okay Jake?

And don’t tell me to call you Jim, okay Jack?…

“The Redcoats were taking over, but we pressed them and they dispersed, yet that prison ship hovers in the dark while the hostage, songwriter, observes. He now glimpses at that glistening banner thanks to the fireworks, and by dawn, composes an anthem”… but now bells are ringing and I can't complete my essay. I think my teachers are doing this on purpose.

“Stop writing, Jose! Can’t you see? We're having a fire drill and you must follow!"  

"Do you have leftovers?"

Stefano eyeballs the old tattered fellow who reminds him of someone but just can't remember who and says, "Just a minute," and dashes to the baking pantry yet finds nothing and remembers he took unsold cookies and pastries home last night. He opens the freezer and snatches the top tier of a wedding cake for tomorrow morning's delivery and muses, I'll have to bake another before Angelo arrives and make more butter-cream.  "Here sir, take…

I’ve lost everything because of her allure… career, respect, and family. Maybe if I hadn’t married so young I could have resisted and both would have loved and respected me even more. 

Now, her reputation and career is ruined and my wife will never trust me. I mean, every time I returned from a long deployment she had the same rumpled hair and I never said a thing, except, “missed you” and went home to relax. I should have said, “Let’s go to New York,” and… oh yea… “Get a fucking…

September:

Poor Cleever! He's the gang's dog and he does everything we do. Wherever we go Cleever goes. We took him to Woodstock and he even got stoned and tripped on Orange Sunshine. The gang thinks it's good for him, just ask Timothy Leary "Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out" or something like that. Well after Cleever's last trip he just doesn't act right.

November:

I told Richie not to give him anymore, but he never listened. Anyway, Cleever slept at Richie's house so it was…

The neighbors huddle outside their darkened shattered homes not far from the shore, shivering in front of a makeshift fire. And knowing that assistance is slow in coming they gather food, water and essentials and celebrate life. The storm blew their homes apart and employers are expecting most to show in the morning, but that’s a concern the folks will deal with when the sun rises.

Moms tend the playing children and drink cappuccino hoping school will be cancelled while the men gather…

I remember her; she worked in the raincoat factory sewing raincoats and she supplemented her paycheck running numbers, you know, the lottery before it was legal. She smoked Lucky Strikes, swore a lot and was tough as nails. When her husband died in a street fight she continued working and booking numbers and put her kids through school though she never complained or gave reason for the way she lived, but that’s all she knew.

Well, I visited Sal and Sophia last night, both lawyers, and…

We haven’t seen her in a while so we knocked on that old wooden door hoping to catch a glimpse. Besides, trick or treating is for kids, and tonight was that special night and we just wanted to say hello, thinking of that witchy toothed grin, withered broom and tasty Jell-O wriggling in an orange napkin, a treat that only I would eat. And we always knew she was at her best on All Hallows Eve and I will forever remember her blameless smile, like gold dust, yet she sparkles just the…

Went trick or treating with Lindi who I really like. She has auburn hair with a green and brown eye and a little cross-eyed too, but she has this look like I want to love her forever. I wish my friends liked her. But what do they know? Anyways, it was almost midnight and our last stop was Wiji’s house. No Jello this year but we were invited in for tea, green I think, but once we sipped we couldn’t stop talking, like a truth serum or something.

 We gabbed all night until daybreak and…