listing

1 metaphysical suit of armour

39 gold-plated begonias

2.5 human appendages, warm, to go

7.902336 trillion maple leaves

1 shallow lie

VII wives of Henry VIII

0.4487457 raindrops

3 bruised clementimes

144 gross misjudgments

26.4 alphabets

8.1 gazillion purple memories

3 sheets to the wind

124,567 BLTs, to go, cold, extra crispy bacon

4.9999 Beatles

1 cinematic, dramatic, climactic, climatic contretemps

0.5 tete-a-tetes

2 breaths

1 endless, needle-stuck-in-the-groove note

1 firework

0 cable news shows

108 mala or rosary beads or stitches on a baseball

49 miles from Nowhere

1/2 step from Somewhere

16 MLB teams

154 games

3 World Series rings

24 Willie Mays rookie Topps cards

333 litanies

12 Parisian pissoirs

1 list

it's free, no kidding, really

They told me the Staten Island Ferry is free. It said so right on their website. Can you believe it? Back in the Eighties, when I lived in Morris County, New Jersey, the Ferry was my go-to tourist thing when I had in-laws come down from the farm Upstate, especially if a foreign-exchange student was in the mix. Come on down! In those days, you could put your car on it and go across to Manhattan. It was a nominal fee (a few bucks?). It was my preferred thing because it was inexpensive, relaxing, scenic, almost a well kept secret. You breezed by the Statue of Liberty, had great views of the Twin Towers and their environs, the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, New Jersey, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the harbor or bay or whatever it is, tugboats, freighters, cruise ships, even a flotilla of sailboats here and there.

So I told KP, "Let's one of these days take a spin down to New York, hop on the Staten Island Ferry, touch Manhattan, sail back to S.I., and drive back. Maybe five hours each way. We could do it."

"Sure. Let's."

It became a hybrid of running joke and dare.

Then I got a new car.

We did it.

In the bronze sunset of an August Wednesday afternoon.

That's the Ferry part.

It was worth it. It will always be part of our DNA and memory databases, individual and dual, if there is such a thing.

It's free.

That knocks me out, as Holden Caulfield would say.

Why free? Someone suggested it's because no one wants to go to Staten Island har har. That would only be half of a round-trip reasoning anyway. Plus, as we rode the Ferry from Manhattan during rush hour there was a healthy crowd of commuters, and tourists like ourselves, headed to Staten Island -- more than the other way around in the evening rush hour.

Thank you, Gotham.

Glad to take advantage of your gracious hospitality. Pleased to mingle with myriad visitors with myriad accents and stories of their own.

I mean, how many cities can claim such gratis generosity? San Francisco's cable cars aren't free. Is the Coliseum in Rome? The Tower in London? The Sistine Chapel? Sure, examples of free stuff for visitors abound. (Tell me some.) Parliaments of many nations, the White House, the National Zoo (not free in the sense of paid for by our taxes if you pay American taxes).

But how many freebies are there that match the scale and convenience of the Staten Island Ferry?

You malcontents who constantly bitch that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" and bemoan paying any taxes whatsoever (give it all to me, baby! fuckem all!), take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Open your eyes, breathe the windswept air, hear the seagulls and the boat's foghorn, absorb the auditory mosaic of many tongues from near and far.

Enjoy the ride, if you can.

Sail on home. 

Or anywhere.

king, or queen, of the road

As I idled at the stoplight, I watched it balletically maneuver in and around vehicles making a left turn, essentially a U-turn to head back from whence they came. The performance lasted less than a minute. I say "it" because at my distance I couldn't discern whether the performer was male or female, and since there was only one of "it" I am choosing a singular, indeterminate pronoun.

Danger filled the air.

It could have been hit by one of the turning vehicles. I suspect such a collision would not have been fatal to it, but who can say? A collision certainly would not harm any of the drivers or their vehicles.  

It danced and swirled and weaved artfully and gracefully, avoiding any contact with windshields or metal. Its sense of smell and vision were life-savers. 

Was it aware of the risks, the potential dangers and threats, as I was? It had no time to think, just react. 

I winced a few times, as if to say to myself, "Uh-oh, careful, watch out, ouch, no, yikes."

It performed proudly and regally, I dare say majestically.

And with impunity.

Harmlessly.

Before I knew it, it was time for me to turn. I lost track of it. It was gone. Or I was gone from it.

I saw no milkweed nearby, but it could have been growing in the median or on the side of the road.

Was it tired from its flight from Mexico?

This solitary Monarch butterfly splendidly survived, for that moment, that day.

No regal decrees were issued.

It fared better than five of the six wives of Henry VIII. (The last one survived him.)

"My" Monarch had nothing to prove, no obsession with heirs or riches or lineage or royal puissance.

Just flight.

Just Monarch-ness.

I, your loyal and humble servant, bow before you.

it'll be all right

You hear the phrase, and you want to believe it. "It'll be all right." Or perhaps the slightly more formal and more assertive "It will be all right." The lack of a contraction adds a dollop of gravitas to the remark. It's not simply a remark; it's a sentence, not as in a judicial punishment but grammatically. It nearly takes the stance of a command, an imperative sentence, but then you would need "you," understood, as the subject: "Be all right." That's an entirely different flavor, isn't it? Even though that formulation is a command, it carries less weight, less force, than "It'll be all right." The phrase exudes hope; it's a declaration of faith that something will turn out okay, whatever that may mean. Yes, you want to believe it when they say it to you. But such faith, belief, credence, or acceptance is not based merely on the words. The words are the least of it. What matters more is who is saying it and how they are saying it. You therefore weigh a bushel of considerations: is this person prone to bromides or platitudes? Is it just a well-meaning but vacant wish? Is it even less than that, merely something to say, to fill the air, or a putative palliative that even the speaker does not believe? Or does the proclaimer of "It'll be all right" have a history, a solid back story you can grasp, a redemptive tale that gives you the hope that's intended? You smell that hope in the air after they say it. They say it breezily but with a substratum of insouciant certitude. You also wonder what elicited the plethora of "It'll be all right"s. You did not expect that the plight you described would come off so melodramatically, evoking so many "It will be all right"s or its variations. Now you wonder if you were laying it on with a trowel. And you fear you were seeking attention more than solace and strength. True, you had to fight off the knee-jerk: "How can you say that?" Or "Really? What makes you think so?" Or the flat-out "I don't think so; I doubt that." You could say that the "it" in "It'll be all right" is the fulcrum, the pivot, for all that follows, both for them and for you. Are there configurations of "it" that can never be all right, or is that a matter of perspective, attitude, faith, disposition, hope, or their opposites? You wonder what you would feel if your plight was received with no one saying "It'll be all right," a stony silence or a bounteous wordlessness, take your pick. And, c'mon, what's with this "plight"? You concede that word may be too freighted with danger, risk, and threat. But what choice did you have? How else would you term your condition, circumstance, or conjecture? You hear another "It'll be all right," a familiar ring to it now, like an echo in a canyon, and you are tempted to blurt out "But it is all right!" but you resist the impulse because you don't want to come off as a wiseguy, a flippant and cavalier contrarian. Instead, you find yourself repeating it, to your surprise. "It'll be all right," not audibly, more a mumble. You, of all people, don't know what this means or what to make of it. "It will be all right," they said and are still saying. You suspect you are right back where you started, but infinitely not. You don't mind. You're willing to wait to find out.

remembrance of things past, and present

I'll talk to you soon.
See you soon. 
You said you'd talk to me soon.
I did.
You said you'd see me soon.
Correct. 
What happened.
Nothing.
What about talking to me soon.
I did.
No, you didn't.
What do you mean.
Exactly.
What do you mean, what do you mean.
I mean you didn't talk to me soon, or see me soon.
Yes, I did.
No, you didn't.
I don't want to argue about it.
I'm not arguing.
You're not arguing.
We're not arguing.
Then what is this.
Never mind.
Never mind what.
Where are you going.
Who said I'm going anywhere.
You're going.
I'm going to go.
When will I see you again.
See you soon.
Soon.
Talk to you soon.
I'm going too.
Where.
Not far.
Pretty close.
When are you coming back.
Soon.
You're saying soon.
I think so.
We'll get together soon.
We'll talk soon.
I'll text you.
Text me.
Soon.

compulsion

. . . or is it obsession? I get confused. The screen says: 6:17 in its lean, sans serif sleekness. It tells me the time, doesn't it, that screen. Various symbols tell me if I have a text, a message from someone near or far. Press the home button. Wake it up. "It" is a device. Thank God-the Universe-the cosmos that I'm not on Facebook. There'd be more curating, checking, calculating, catching up, observing, weighing, reacting. At least I know my Twitter presence is utter, vacuous nonsense. Swipe the screen again. Wake it up. What's the latest? What is the latest notification, the crawl of lights on a building at Times Square, my own personal, idiosyncratic version of it. What about the hum, the vibration. Wasn't that it, a nearly imperceptible hum on the table at the coffee shop. Or was it the phantom hum, the one people falsely feel in their pocket even when it is not there. Click home. Or side button. Alert it, rouse it. What if I am missing a reply, taunt, compliment, accusation, headline, warning, omen, fact, fiction, question, assertion, tug, pat, hug, shove. But I just looked. I just saw the screen, moments ago. Nothing but ennui and quotidian banality. Is that it, a compulsive craving for excitement spurred by something, anything, good, bad, or indifferent? Indifferent, you say? Isn't "it" infinitely indifferent to my whims, wants, fears, validations, excretions, accretions, and deletions? Click. home screen. Nothing changed. Just the time. 6:29.  

walk a mile -- or more -- in my shoes, or yours

Why does anyone decide to take a walk at 1:17 in the morning? Would it be more ill advised for a woman to do so than for a man, and does that consideration involve common sense, sexism, or practicality, or all of the above, or does it solely depend on locale? 

Questions, questions. 

He walked out the door and into the night. He had brought along a long-sleeved shirt in case it was chilly, now that the storm seemed to break the heat wave.

She wore sensible shoes for walking, more like sneakers but not quite.

His pace was steady, not aggressive but determined.

She had a flashlight and a pocket knife at the ready.

He had a destination.

She had a destination.

Few cars drove by. The streets were as deserted as during an air raid.

Few pedestrians were about, none threatening.

No bicyclists.

No motorcyclists.

Some streetlights, some dark stretches.

No other walker walkers. Yes, some walked, but not as if they had any place they were fixing to go to, not at that hour.

They wore no earbuds to listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks.

He rehearsed what he'd say.

She imagined what she would hear.

A summery breeze made a cameo.

It was as if the footsteps touching the sidewalk, in some cases the roadway, were dissipating anger and anxiety, like waves emanating from an earthquake, weakening over time and distance, evoking fears of a tsunami.

There was no turning back now.

The tsunami warnings were posted.

The pebble had been dropped in the pond.