Burgers. And sugary cocktails in oversize black and white plastic cups. And no fries. No fries available. Instead, potatoes roasted in foil till they dry and crumble into an off-white-like powder.
This is what they stand out in the street for.
With the forlorn impatience of a puppy staring out the window, as the rain falls down on his morning walk time.
Some days, I'll head out for a Music, Sweat and Reflection Session by the river and when I get back - an hour or two later - the very same folks are still waiting. They still haven't been sat. They still haven't been fed. They still haven't been able to get what they came out here for.
---
When Devon first got to town. she fell in with her sister's crew. They all worked together. Not Devon - her sister and her friends all worked together at a hair salon over in the East Village. They finished work at the same time and had the same days off. Devon didn't make friends easy and when she did, there was always a reason to not talk to them for a while. Her sister read all those stories over late night WhatsApp sessions and felt bad for her.
It was hard to tell why Devon had moved to New York. It seemed like something had gone wrong back in Texas. Like a marriage or a job or a thundering collision with the emptiness of one's identity. I couldn't quite get it fully out of her. She wanted me to know that something had happened. That she had been wronged and driven from her happy home and that there was some story there. But that was all she let on.
Maybe I was supposed to dig a bit more? Maybe she wanted me to work harder for it? I don't know.
I first met her in a little red-brick courtyard of the little apartment that the Colourist and Receptionist shared over in Brooklyn. There was a Sunday afternoon party. I think someone was leaving the city. Or maybe it was that someone had just arrived. One of those two things.
What I mainly do remember - other than meeting Devon - was the large green bucket filled with freshly smashed watermelon and lime juice. A pink mush that tasted like a sherbet-y combination of sweetness and citric acid. The idea was that you'd scoop a ladle or two into your Solo cup and then pour in a slug or two of tequila and a dash of triple sec after that.
I was three of those margaritas in and on my way over to make my fourth, when I first noticed Devon. She was standing in front of the watermelon mix, seemingly confused with what to do with all her choices. She was wearing a high-waisted, black pencil skirt that ran down, tight, to just below her knee. Over that, was an tucked, crisp white shirt - a button-down with a stiff, high collar. All this was offset with a canary-yellow pair of sharp, high heels.
For Brooklyn, especially on a Sunday afternoon in the late aughts, this was some sorta look. A look that shouted - "I am crazy, but I am free".
I was quite the cliché as I helped her fix her drink and asked all the "Where did you move here from?" and "How you finding it so far?" questions. As we chatted, I found her to be more ambiguous than her look suggested. But, in vulnerability can lie strength, so I took her uncertainty as a show of growth.
We met up again the next Saturday night. I got off from work around midnight and she was hanging with her sister's crew in bar down in Nolita. She texted that she was bored and needed a change and I chose a spot halfway between us - a dimly-lit, brown and pine Scottish bar in the West Village.
Her stories flowed out of her easily, but they had a Beginning with no Middle. Or they started at the End, missing the Beginning. There was a charm to all that, though. As if she hadn't quite decided yet how she felt about her own stories and was searching for the best way to tell 'em.
That charm aside, her stories didn't make me feel much of anything at all. I'd expected her to be one person, based solely on the outfit she wore to the party in Brooklyn. That person was the only person I had any sort of a feeling about. That Saturday night, that person didn't seem to exist.
Round about 2am, she asked me to hail her a cab and I walked home, alone, back to the East Village.
We texted a few more times over the next few weeks, but we never did meet up again. We just faded out from each other.
---
I don't think it really matters who you are. Who you really are.
And I know you don't know who that is - who you really are - but that's also fine. You can get by, just as well, without ever having to really know that either.
Just as long as enough people come together and share in the same image of you, that's gonna end up being enough. Enough for you, that is.
And, the only real difference is whether they connect to the nostalgia of something you wish you still had; or to the trails and traces of a past you're energetically running away from; or to the tomorrow you've started dressing for today.
Because they'll eat your overbaked potatoes if you tell them everyone thinks they're worth waiting for. But they won't believe your stories if you don't tell 'em right.
