All posts by Matthew Callan

Stories

Canarsie, 1997

When I was in college, I’d take myself on trips to random neighborhoods. Pick a spot on the subway map, ride the train there, and wander around. I wanted to see the entire city, not just a tiny patch between 14th and Houston. When I went on these trips, I invariably went by myself.

This may have been a genetic affliction. My grandfather told me he used to work as a messenger, and when he’d be given a nickel for the subway, he’d pocket it so he could walk the distance. He preferred to take the messages above ground, where he could wander, explore, people-watch.

So this is why I’ve taken the L train to its end, to wander around Canarsie. A few years from now, I’ll spend a few Christmas Eves in the neighborhood, but at the moment there is no particular reason for me to be here, no landmark or great restaurant I must see in person. The idea to come here was first planted in my head by a sociology book about the neighborhood, which studied the flight of the white working class from places like Williamsburg and Brownsville out to Canarsie and points east. But more than anything, I want to check off this plot of the city in the mental ledger of places I’ve been. The sooner I check one off, the sooner I can travel to another one.

I stroll down Rockaway Parkway. It’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in the early fall, the sun low and orange. Every little glimpse I get of the neighborhood seems important to me because I’m here to witness it. A little old lady shuffles out of an ancient Italian pasticceria with flamingo-colored lettering. At the local high school, a football coach chews out his players for a lack of hustle. A strip mall appears charmless except for the large Burger King at its northern extremity, which never received a rebranding and still looks like the Burger Kings of my youth.

I keep wandering down Rockaway, under the Belt Parkway, and into Canarsie Pier. It has an arched welcoming sign that suggests amusement, but there are no rides or attractions here. Just a pier, really, where a few lone fisherman have cast out lines. There are also a few running paths carved out of the grass. I follow one.

Fifty feet down the path, the grass becomes wild, uncontrollable, taller than me. Then weeds emerge among the blades, huge cattails and snarling jagged things, and soon there are more of these monsters than the grass. The path seems to narrow with each step. The noise of the highway recedes into nothingness. I feel the vague unease that only surfaces in October, just when the leaves begin to change and the chill in the air first stings you. But I don’t dare turn back. I want to see all of New York.

The weeds give way, and I find myself on a dune tumbling away from me into Paedergat Basin, which separates Canarsie from Bergen Beach and Mill Basin. Across the basin, another dune, and more weeds beyond that. There are no waves here. The water tugs weakly at the sand, recedes, and tries again. The Belt Parkway is visible in the distance but only as an outline against the sun.

I am alone. But the array of trash in the sand—beer cans, Coke bottles—suggests this is a destination for somebody. So do the remnants of a badly constructed campfire, planks of mealy wood laid across each other and burnt to char, still smoldering, maybe. At times I swear I can hear music, faintly, as if it were trailing from a radio on someone’s windowsill a block away.

It suddenly occurred to me that I told no one where I was going before I left for Canarsie. I could be killed right at this moment by these campfire setters, who were surely lying in wait for saps like me to wander along, and I might never be found again. No one would know what became of me.

This is the most basic fear humans have. Not the fear of dying, but the fear of leaving no trace. We can deal, abstractly, with the thought of not existing. What terrifies us is the thought of a day when no one knows we ever existed.

I was not dressed for jogging, but I ran back on that path, past the weeds, past the grass, back onto the pier. I slowed myself down once I hit Rockaway again just so I wouldn’t look like a maniac, but I still wanted to run, past the high school and the old timey Burger King and the pasticceria, back to the L train, back to my school where I had to show my ID to enter every building and there was no doubt people were recording my existence.

Stories

Grand Street, 5:02pm

I get off the train early enough to take my time and walk to my daughter’s school. It is glorious, almost balmy afternoon, and the thought of packing myself into the Q58 on such a glorious afternoon is blasphemy.

At Grand near Queens Boulevard, a deli spelling out all of its wares bilingually. They apparently sell, among other things, FORMULA POWER and 99¢ AND UP. Also, to avoid any confusion, a listing promising SNAKE has been hastily covered over to correct itself to SNACK.

20130913_165753Near 80th Street, a trio of people talk to a Buddhist monk arrayed in saffron robe. He nods and looks loving and beneficent. His hands are clasped behind his back in the manner of a teacher or scholar. I pass behind him and see those hands are clutching an iPhone. Right behind him a repair shop’s front window promises in huge letters WE DO EVERYTHING ON COMPUTERS.

Near 74th Street, a kid pedals down the main drag, running lights with abandon. A girl is squeezed onto the seat right behind him, her arms laid down on his shoulders like a queen being carried by her royal litter. The sun catches her hair, a bright red. Not ginger, but red. She smiles, not a care in the world at the moment.

Just beyond them, a kid in a mohawk and studded leather jacket, adorned with patches bearing the standard punk logos: Crass, Subhumans, Misfits. He could have stepped out of 1982. There’s something comforting in knowing this type of kid still exists, and that he will continue to exist until kingdom come.

This is why it is best, if you can help it, to avoid the bus at all costs.

Stories

58th Street, 6:18am

I’m coming down the home stretch of a morning run. On one side of 58th Street, there stands a long stretch of Calvary Cemetery. The stone wall that separates it from the outside world is dotted here and there with gin handles and beer cans. I even see an empty champagne bottle. There’s a lot of industry over here. It’s a neighborhood where dudes get off work and get right down to business, and the cemetery wall seems as good a place as any to party. I can’t imagine where the booze comes from, since there’s no liquor store nearby. Either they bring with for after work, or someone’s selling out the back door of the strip club 15 blocks away, next to the Coca Cola plant.

A staple-gunned sign on a telephone pole yells CHECKS CASHED as an alert for the guys who want to get peeled as fast as possible. There is no arrow on the sign. You’re supposed to read those words and just know, in your heart, where you must go.

On the other side of 58th Street stands a pair of huge, yellowy-brick buildings. One is the repair shop for Sanitation Department vehicles. Two wide ramps lead up to the garage, like something from an old movie about decadent ancient Babylon. Inside, an enormous banner declares WE KEEP THE CITY ON THE GO. Next to this building, a shorter, less imposing one that serves the same purpose for the NYPD, with a phalanx of squad cars sitting on a square of sidewalk free turf across the street, awaiting their check ups. On a side street behind these buildings, there’s also a repair shop for the Fire Department. Things get fixed here.

There are no subways within walking distance, and bus service is spotty at best, especially if you need to be on the job at this hour. So if you work here, you drive here, and when you get here, you park your car half on the street, half up on the unpaved curb littered with McDonald’s bags and potato chip bags and flattened beer cans. This poses a challenge for the runner. You can either run out in the street, which puts you in danger of being hit by a truck or one of the dudes who’s been partying at the cemetery all night and is finally staggering his way home. Or you can squeeze yourself between the parked cars and the jagged extremities of Calvary’s wall. In so doing, you may accidentally bump into a car belonging to a cop who has to be at work at 6am, which also holds many dangers.

I opt for the former and jog in the street. The sun is just starting to peek above the headstones. And as I jog past the half-parked cars, I notice two vanity license plates that fill me with sadness.

The first belongs to a banged-up Honda. It is adorned with a huge Jets helmet, and the license itself says RVIS24. This is clearly meant to honor Darrelle Revis. As you probably know, Revis was traded to Tampa Bay in the offseason. Keep in mind that currently, a Jets-themed plate with a personalized “number” will cost you $91.25 initially, and $62.50 to renew annually. So this poor slob has laid out, bare minimum, $153.75 already, and is on the hook for over 60 bucks a year, all to use his ’98 turtle-green Accord to pay tribute to a player who was sent packing from his favorite football team. And if he wants to switch back to something generic, that ain’t free neither.

But that’s only part of the reason this made me sad. The plate said RVIS24. There was plenty of room to fit REVIS. That means someone else beat this guy to the punch. Some other schmuck in some other crappy car is in the same boat with his REVIS24, trying to make a brutal choice between paying the price to keep it or enduring the hassle to change it. And there’s probably a RVS24 out there, too. And a 24REVIS, too, and another dozen variations on that, all of them kicking themselves for putting their faith in the Jets.

The second plate I saw came a few cars after RVIS24, bolted to a scarred blue Ford. It said KEPPRAYN.

This is an expression of a more conventional faith, but one that was probably best left unexpressed. This car’s owner was so dedicated to the spreading the idea of prayer that it never occurred to him his message was nigh incomprehensible. The lack of two E’s in “keep” is what really throws your brain off. You know what word it’s supposed to represent, but in your head you hear “kehp” instead. If you are a native English speaker, there is no way to force yourself to see KEP and pronounce it “keep.” There simply isn’t.

Since license plates are limited to seven characters, I honestly don’t know what this person could have done instead to better represent his idea. But I do feel that if he’d taken the time to write it down and look at it before ordering, he probably would have realized his error and ordered something else instead. So either he’s regretted his purchase ever since it arrived in the mail, or he’s deluded himself into thinking that even a mangled message of faith is better than none at all.