Anyways, with sufficient time to kill before the 1pm appointment, I went to - where else? - The Village.
Washington Square Park was open. Tents abounded - National Science Day or something, "Science Teacher Sarah" (as the notice-in-progress indicated) was setting up a booth. Scientific looking men were shooting large, solid looking smoke rings from a stage on to a just-forming crowd of children, from little cylindrical "canons" - probably dry ice. Poor things, destined to be geeks - no one likes the sciences anymore.
Quantum Leap, the veggie hangout, wasn't open. Readers may recall this is the place that serves healthful food that took a piece of my tooth, thanks to little pebble masquerading as a bean in a burrito. Shame on you, pebble.
So I took a seat on the sidewalk at Cafe Reggio, perfect for people watching. A copy of the NYT would have completed the lovely, sunny morning companionship, but I stuck with Slaughterhouse 5. The chilly weather of the previous night had persisted at the beginning of the morning, but the sheepish sun apparently had woken out of its slumber a few weeks late, in mid-June. The bars and most restaurants were closed, and thankfully there was no stench of vomit from the gutters. This was MacDougal, after all.
Along came a posse of kids from the direction of the park, led by a tall man with - are you ready? - a green plastic light saber held up high, leading said posse. He was wearing a greenish tweed jacket, khakis, sneakers, and possibly a goatee. Memories are so much more fun when you embellish them, don't you agree (but the green light saber and green tweed were true and unforgettable)?
He stopped a few yards off Reggio, and as the assembling schoolkids lumbered around him, switched on his microphone and said: "Yes, New York is an awful city!" (Presumaby responding to a lament from some Iowan kid) I looked at the middle-aged lady on the next table, and we just burst out laughing.
He went on to warn them about sitting on the sidewalk, and said something about Edgar Allan Poe having lived in the vicinity. Lady-next-table mentioned she knew Kerouac and others liued there. More kids walked by. "It is too early for this (craziness, was the unsaid implication)!", she noted. I thought I heard a snippet about Poe and Mormons. We had our eggs and coffee.
A lady in a white station wagon, double parked, went in and out of the next building, carrying stuff - that looked like it all needed to be in the landfill - to her new place, one assumed. An Indian trinket shopkeeper on the sidewalk was helping her.
A man came down the road, and his dog wanted to poop on in the middle of the street, but thankfully no one ran him over as he picked up the stuff. Thank god, or his epitaph would have been tragicomic: "Here lies Johnny Qwest, run down by a Mack truck as he was helping keep NYC clean!"
An old man whizzed by on rollerblades. A man in sweats walked back to his apartment with his Sunday morning paper and smoke.
A large group of seniors stopped across the street. The tour guide climbed up the steps of a brownstone, said that NYU was a private school, and that the NYU buildings were not open to the public. She then pointed out to Reggio - it is a venerable MacDougal institution, after all, and I felt like I was in a zoo.
After pondering over this line of thought further, I felt I was home too, looking indulgently at these gawkers, daytrippers, itinerant interlopers. At once home and zoo. I ordered another cup of coffee.
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