Today’s soundtrack: beautiful faces and loud, empty places
Today at 8:52pm: crossing Houston



I read the e-mail wrong, so I showed up at the bar at 9pm. There was live jazz and a roomful of strangers where I expected to find friends. A cell phone call later I found out the crew wouldn’t be arriving ‘til ten. With an hour to kill, I took a seat facing the glass and stared out at frozen 7th Avenue, nursing my gin like Florence Nightingale.

The band was behind me so I couldn’t see ‘em, but the meandering sax provided a good soundtrack to the street life taking place outside the window. It was like looking into an aquarium filled with Manhattan. Bundled-up pedestrians tramping past, blinking streetlights, newspapers on the sidewalk, moving cars in the background. A taxi cruising for fares. A couple hugging each other and walking.

On the other side of the street I could see a mish-mash of buildings stacked up like Lego blocks, peppered with scores of warmly-lit apartment windows. Dozens of lives taking place inside these little yellow rectangles.

I saw a woman’s head in profile. Judging by the angle of her gaze she was either on a laptop or playing the piano. Periodically she would turn her head and look out the window at the street below. She divided her time evenly between conducting her unseen task and staring at 7th Ave. I wondered which was the focus and which the distraction.

Downstairs from her place was a pharmacy and a tavern. Places you go to remedy things.

With no one to talk to, I whipped out my little yellow notepad and began scribbling this down. The couple next to me looked over and murmured something to each other. I know, who the hell goes to a bar to take notes.

Eventually the fellas rolled in, joined shortly by the girls. Shedding of coats, ordering of drinks, a raising of volume levels. Laughs exchanged, conversations to follow, questions to answer. The little territory I’d staked out by the window was now fully colonized.

I told my friends I was meeting up with a girl tonight, which was true at the time I said it, but ended up being false an hour later when she stood me up. Well, whaddaya gonna do. I’ve been stood up before so I know the drill: you act like it’s not a big deal, and you drink a little more.

I react to every setback in life the same way: A small shrug followed by “Well, whaddaya gonna do.” I think if I got shot in the spine with a railgun or had my arm hacked off by a Samurai I’d lie there face-down on the ground and say “Well, whaddaya gonna do” to the pavement.

Someday in the future I’ll know what I’m gonna do, then I won’t be able to say this anymore.