I always preferred the game "Life" to "Monopoly." With Life, you got to pick a car, and as you went along the board, you might add a husband, a wife, or a kid or two, depending on what you spun on the white plastic wheel (of course, the cars were blue and pink, and gender was firmly fixed, unless there is an early 1980s Berkeley version I did not know about). In the board game version of Life, there seemed to be more successes than failures and I don't ever remember facing anything grave like death, or disappointment, or disease. Maybe it's the optimistic side of the ten-year old me that is recounting this story. What a little fool she was.
In New York, I see all of life's emotions compacted into one day, a thousand times over. I see people hugging like they are saying good-bye forever. I see teenagers making out on benches like they want to swallow each other whole. I see men so angry they scare me as they menacingly bound down the street with their hoods up and their heads hung low. I see little babies eyes open wide looking at pumkins at the farmers market. And then every once in a while, I see someone really crying. Sobbing. Balling their eyes out. And I don't know what to do.
This happened once in DC years ago. I saw a girl I knew from a coffee shop, a girl who had waited on me time and time again, just crying her eyes out on the street. And I wanted to go hug her for a half an hour and tell her she should take Sunday off, I would wait her tables. Instead, I shot a compassionate look her way and kept on walking. Tonight, it was just awful. I was waiting for a friend I have not seen in a long time in front of the Forever 21 store in Union Square. This girl around my age walked by on a cell phone. She was in black exercise pants, nice sneakers, a black fleece, and she had her hair in a messy bun, much like my sister Julia sometimes wears hers. The girl was visibly crying. Really, really crying. And she walked a little past me, then turned around, walked back and leaned against the wall not five feet from where I was standing. She had tears just streaming down her face. Her nose was crunched up. She was pacing. I kept glancing to see if she were off the phone because I really would have asked if I could do something. Of course, in ten seconds time as I made a phone call of my own, I glanced back up and poof,--like everyone in this city-- she had vanished into the cabs and buses and tunnels and lights.
At least 100 people passed by in a matter of ten minutes, all with various expressions on their faces. Some had awesome days. Some had shitty days. Some had the usual average day that makes the game of Life so unbearably slow. I hope the girl crying knew I wanted to ask her if she were okay. I hope she doesn't think that the city didn't notice her, or feel her, or experience that knotting in the throat a million times before. How many tears have fallen on my street alone?
When you're up, you're up. But when you're down, you're down. And the luck, it just never runs out.



