One Manhattan...on the rocks(Part 3)

Ever since the Naked Guy episode, the new girl flinches much less at the New York eccentric. Sitting now at the opposite end of the spectrum, she rather finds herself examining the eccentric and bizarre. She meets the new day expecting the unexpected. And – sitting at this extreme reverse of perspective – if nothing odd happens, she’ll conversely chalk it up to being rather a dull day. But, then again, can’t it only be healthy to have some dull days? Nothin’ much. Same old story. The usual, please. Don’t we naturally, and on some level, want and seek routine, habits, tradition? Besides, New York will always make up for the slightest gaps of monotony. It’s intrinsically structured that way. This could well be the very formula behind a New Yorker’s weekly traipse to the same corner bar they’ve been going to for years, totally dismissive to the few thousand bars that fill every New York crevice. For, behind that plank of wood is the same bartender who’s been there all along. --Dependence and consistency in a sea of independence and irregularity. It works.

The leak in the bedroom still trickles down on Friday, still making its way through the chartreuse boards that temporarily cover a gaping hole. Our new tenant had turned the fan in her window on to high last night so as to block out the ticking noise of the drip. While altering the fan all she could think about was the concept behind the Chinese Water Torture device. (Could that happen to her? She comprehended for an instance how something so small, but so constant, as the dripping of water could drive a person to insanity. Would she still be able to make out the noise of the tap, tap, tap beyond the yawn of the fan? Could she go insane that night?) The hush of the fan ended up overpowering the dripping and the leak was replaced by sleep.

And yet, no one knows whether the problem will be fixed as promised first thing Monday morning. First thing Monday morning. First thing Monday morning feels like an age-old myth now for the girl, something from days of yore or our great-grandparents’ generation. It no longer seems even worth it to pick up the phone and call management one more time. Too many precious cell phone minutes have been devoted to the project – Project LEAK, that is – and the minutes are free only when management is not. (The title of “management” has quickly become much too powerful of a word as reference to the men that work for the building. She laughs to herself at her sudden, intense convictions against associating these men with the responsible and important connotations behind the word “management”.)

However, on the east side of the park by Fifth Avenue there is a park bench (there’s actually quite a few park benches) overlooking a reservoir where children rollerblade and old men play jazz. It’s about six blocks from where the water leak continues to forlornly drip and there, on top a white, high-rise window, rests the only Falcon’s nest in New York City. She goes to this spot in the park a lot lately. Sometimes to get air, sometimes to see the leaves go from green to yellow. Once again though, irony takes its course, and she discovers solace in this alternate location within the giant, New York whirlwind. This is the charming, soft side of New York, the side that astoundingly leaves room for forgiveness. Won over by this part of the city’s clever allure, she is once again small and swallows the slight, self-defensive pride that had begun to originate as of late.

Her humility is justified as October’s orange shading settles in around her walk back home across the avenues. As she walks (at a faster pace than she would anywhere else in the world) she comes to the four-week conclusion that, just as October is new to this year, it only seems fair she wait her turn for the city’s attention also. In any event, she knows that - like clockwork – she’ll be anything but bored in the process of waiting. She decides to just keep busy at her own little thing. Plus, down the road at “Mo’s Carribean” (75th and Second) there are dollar margaritas every Wednesday.