“I suppose there’s no going back, Sam.”
“Nope,” he says. “Time only goes in that one direction. Or at least that’s how we go in time. You heading to Times Square later to watch the ball drop?”
I decide not to tell Sam that I dislike Times Square. Times Square, much like these TV ads, expects little of us, if not quite the worst. Instead of treating one like an overgrown six-year-old with impulse control issues and a huge piggy bank ready for the smashing, as the ads do, it treats one like an enormous genital. A penis with a wallet, if one prefers.
Rather, I say, still telling the truth, “I have dinner reservations at five, so I ought to be going. May I settle up with you?”
“Of course. Pleasure meeting you.”
I doubt I’ll ever come back here, so I leave a tip that’s thrice the cost of the drink. Gian’s kids will inherit most of my money when I die, but I might as well spread it around as long as I’m still here.
A Negroni is meant to be an apéritif, a little predinner something to whet the palate. This one was delicious but seems only to have filled me up more. It’s a quarter to five, and I have to start walking.
I have enjoyed watching Sam for the same reason I think people enjoy watching sports: seeing someone in full command of what he is expected to do, doing it better than most would, and doing so with joy.
My work used to be like art for me: giving form to the world. I sometimes have a vague intimation that people were better read and smarter once upon a time. I could write a divisional ad for luggage with perfect anaphora and no one would doubt its effectiveness:
If you are a man who is apt to decide at eleven o’clock to catch the midnight boat …
If you are a woman with a penchant for weekends …
If you are a student about to embark by Student Third Class …
*
It likely would have ended with something along the lines of: “One of Macy’s wardrobe trunks will add to your comfort.”
Now I don’t work anymore, and the world is uncomfortable.
5
Lunch Poems
People didn’t always hate pigeons in the city—in fact, one could look up and catch glimpses of homing-pigeon lofts atop a lot of the lower buildings, owners doting on the dear little things, circling on their wings high above the rooftops. But people have come to make a hobby of detesting the birds, I think, because they’ve come to see that pigeons are much like people: dirty and murmuring, greedy and abundant, flocking in a corpus of such shit and weight that one fears they may permanently deface or crush whatever they congregate on.
But ever since we learned about augury in our advanced Latin class at Goucher College, I’ve had a fondness for them. The omen I always augur from the rippling gray waves of their massed flight is straightforward: If I am in a place with that many pigeons, then it is probably urban enough for me to want to live there and be satisfied with the quantity of urbanity.
Manhattan has always been such a place, never more so than that day in early November 1931, when I was out walking among both the pigeons and the people. I was on my lunch break, on my way to my publisher’s office to drop off a corrected set of final proofs for my debut book, Oh, Do Not Ask for Promises. My first poetry collection was coming out. It even had a birthday: April 5, 1932. A springy book with a springtime release, it had to go to press in time to send out advance copies for review.
I could have sent the proofs by messenger, but I wanted to walk south from my office at R.H. Macy’s to E.P. Dutton at 300 Fourth Avenue, and though Broadway was the straightest route, I wanted to take Sixth Avenue. It would be just twenty minutes by foot.
I always took walks on my lunch breaks. That, in fact, was when I’d written most of the book. For me, a peaceful atmosphere devoid of noise and distractions is absolutely the worst place for poetry, likely to wind me up in a doomed attempt to stare down a blank page. My funny old brain, like those of many poets, has always done its best work sideways, seeking out tricky enjambments and surprising slant rhymes to craft lines capable of pulling their own weight. Taking to the pavement always helps me find new routes around whatever problem I’m trying to solve: phrases on signs, overheard conversations, the interplay between the rhythms of my verse and the rhythm of my feet.