Broken Windows and Silver Doorknobs

Bad neighborhood. Sketchy. Rough area. Borderline. Ghetto. Have you heard any of these descriptions, however offensive they may strike you? Have you heard either more negative terms or their euphemistic replacements?

Come, take a walk with me.

No. Right now. Don't be afraid.

Observe this block. Schuyler Street. Take in the parade of two-story, two-family houses, built in the 1920s and '30s. Lawns manicured, adorned with daffodils, mulch, shrubs, trees. No litter. Structures not thirsting for paint or carpentry. Across the street, much the same: different architectural styles, smaller, more modest. Up the block, historic Myrtle Hill Cemetery. Graves dating to the 1800s, including that of a Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Several blocks distant, over on Milton Avenue, a house overrun by fallen maple limbs and uncut grass, by weeds, a house choked by its longtime neglect, its metal fence interweaved by sprawling hedge branches, an empty pack of Newport 100s, a discarded Brisk ice tea, a crumpled invoice for car repair, a lone latex glove. An official notice of condemnation posted on a window and door. Blue recycle bins, tires, broken trikes, and split-open trash bags on Herkimer and Emerson. And up the hill, on Pharis Street, overlooking city and suburbs, a pristine lawn with a sign warning against having your dog use the lawn as a private bathroom, in front of a pristine Arts and Crafts bungalow freshly painted yellow, brown, and black, with a shock of red on the door.

Care and neglect coexisting. Pride and privation. Gain and loss. A fabric of multicolored threads and textures, sewn and patched, stitched and shored up. Some more than others, some less, some not at all.

Let's walk some more, keep pace, stretch your stride, down the hill, toward the creek. Oh, you'd rather not, this is a "bad neighborhood"? Be brave. Suck it up. Trust me. Really.

True, that broken, rusted pickup in the driveway looks unsavory, so does the mosaic of tossed Burger King wrappers and soda cups. An eyesore. It makes my eyes sore.

But look across the street, that Victorian painted lady, emerald and cream with surprises of vermilion. Do you see its new siding, every storm window sparkling new, the shiny metal roof? The rebuilt porch? That house could pass for brand-new if you didn't know better.

I am sure this is obvious, but I can't help noting it: we are not dodging bullets, street-corner hustlers do not catch our eye, wondering if we covet their gaze and proffered wares.

Form your own conclusions, as you will. 

In my Age of Coronavirus walks, the gods and goddesses of surprise have been my tour guides.

Surprise, surprise.

If we look for broken windows, they appear. If we search for silver doorknobs, we find them.

p.s. Ever hear the expression "my mind is a bad neighborhood"? (It's popular in wellness and recovery circles and can possibly be traced to an Anne Lamott quotation, but its provenance is uncertain.) As with the physical neighborhoods described above, be careful what you look for. As Leonard Cohen suggested, "look among the garbage and the flowers." You never know what you will find.

who holds the keys

Chain-link fence outside the power plant. Padlocked. A padlock one could buy at the hardware store. Cabinet for the electrical service into the building, protected by bollards. Padlocked. Switchbox out on Route 41, middle of nowhere. Same. Electrical panel in the subway. Padlocked. Gate at the stadium entrance. Iron railing around the government offices. Same. Same. The briefcase with the codes. The restaurant closed for nonpayment of taxes. Padlocked. Padlocked. Her jewelry box, his gun cabinet, their storage locker. Same. Same. Same. Her secret, his secret, their secret. Who has the key. Keys. The missile silo. The hidden tabernacle. Silent shelter. Cave. Padlocked. Shackled. Handcuffed. Locked. The safe deposit. The vault. Who the keys, who the will. Where the keys. How. When.

harboring strange thoughts

What-the-heck. What is that. Who is that. The red Ford van on the embankment on the far side of Harbor Street. A piece of undeveloped urban land, a meadow if unmowed. Mowed, it's a grass field for dogs to run, Frisbees to fly, footballs to be thrown. Green space. Hardly anyone ever there, though. On the street, a few feet down from the embankment, the field higher on the horizon, large enough to play football or soccer on, the building's smokers gather, off the no-smoking-permitted rental property. The same two or three, rain or shine, hot or cold. But a vehicle up there? Never. Just the busily buzzing lawnmower, frantic-fast, sound-blocking earmuffs on the driven driver. Keep walking toward my Nissan Sentra on the far side of Harbor Street. What's up. Some guy on the field past the fence of the utility company's construction-laydown site. Quilted black vest. Blue watchcap. Pacing? Glasses hanging down on stringy holders laced around the neck, the kind schoolmarmish librarians used to wear before they became hip. In his sixties. White guy. Impassive, neither angry nor not. Stoic. Is this it, how it plays out. Halt my progress to the car. What next. An assault rifle? A semi-automatic? Not enough people around to be targets, hardly enough to make headlines these days. My jaw clenches. Where'd he go. Back to his van. My pounding pulse. Emerges with small, circular black object in his hand. A few on the ground. Fuckin land mines? Takes a few paces then like an uncoiled spring he spins and whirls and slings. A dervish who launches a discus in the direction of the train tracks toward the mall on the horizon. What, thirty yards tops. A discus thrower! He bends down, picks up another discus, and does it again. Neither a shrug nor a slump nor a bounce to indicate his level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Then he reloads, recoils, and fires off another discus. It sails for a few seconds against the rare, cerulean sky, and lands. Fetches the ones he has tossed. I resume my progress to my car. I slow my pace, hoping for more. Casually he walks to his van, gets some more discuses. No. Takes a drink of water or dries his hands or records distances or completes his application for the Summer Olympics. I turn the key and flick on my left-turn signal. I scrunch the car into drive, feel it buck forward, and lean my foot on the accelerator. Just as I begin to drive away, a tiny black flying saucer floats by in the rearview mirror. 

flash point

He sat in his car across the street. Not exactly his car. The bank's. Which is true for most people. He was in the parking lot at the corner, the Sunoco station with the convenience store. It's rare if not impossible to find a gas station that sells only fuel. This one had diverse offerings: candy, dip, cigs, flavored coffees, flavored creamers, beers, sodas, bottled waters (including those with artisanal ingredients of purity, longevity, superiority), chips, cookies, beef jerky, hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, lotto and scratchies. He hadn't bought gasoline. He was about to text a reply to someone, anyone, when he looked to his left, across the street where the strip mall offered cigars, coffee, discount groceries, and ultra-cheap everyday stuff. DOLLAR TREE. Its green display light kept flashing the AR. It made him wonder if it was a personal coded message directed at him, just him, that he was the only one seeing this. He kept staring at the flashing sign. He did not stare at it before he recognized it was flashing on and off, like you see in film noir movies but it's typically a movie marquis, a hotel, or an all-night restaurant for the lonely and lost in Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" 1942 painting. And now he was hypnotized if that's the word. The blinking AR was just a distraction. Visual background noise. The flashing AR was the metronome for his trance. And his trance incessantly said DOLL TREE. That's what he saw. That's where his personal coded message was, where it had to be, in the words DOLL TREE. If it was said that money doesn't grow on trees, surely dolls didn't either. Not Barbie dolls or living, breathing beauty queens sometimes called dolls but not so much these days. What about TREE? Something to aspire to, to climb? Someone inordinately tall? Someone with great stature, fixity, and bearing? He shook his head, as if it were swatting flies. He shook his head, rousing himself from a reverie. He changed the mental channel. He went back to texting. But he forgot what he was texting, forgot to whom, and forgot why.

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.

bumps in the road

You drive along a city street, east or west, north or south; it doesn't matter. It might even be a suburban roadway, though not a country road or highway. The vehicle in front of you suddenly swerves to the right, or left, a reactionary maneuver. Is it to avoid hitting a pedestrian in the roadway? A squirrel daring to risk its squirrelly life by threading in, around, or through the moving onslaught of tires that would crush it and extinguish its life? Perhaps the driver in front of you and subsequently you are dodging a sharp object in the road, an object potentially injurious to your tires, and to you and your occupants. Maybe it's a squirrel or woodchuck or bird or rat or raccoon that did not make it to the other side of the roadway, entrails still steaming, flies not yet settling to feast on the corpse. Let's not omit the possibility that it's a human, injured or having reached his or her expiration date, in the busy roadway.

No.

It is none of these.

It's a bump in the road. More accurately, it's the opposite of a bump in the road, whatever that would be called.

The current trend is to dodge, swerve, steer, veer, zigzag, weave, or pivot a vehicle away from the depression of a utility or maintenance hole cover, also known as a manhole. Sometimes, though not as frequently, the cover is raised slightly above the surface. More often, it's below grade, causing unswerved tires to drive over a depression of, what?, 2 or 3 inches max.

Fortunately, the vehicle in front of you merely swerves, like an Olympic skater, rather than slams on the breaks and stops.

You wonder why this trend exists. You consider that each vehicle exercising this transportation mode might be transporting a sleeping child or two in a car seat, and that said child or children might awake, screaming, owing to the less-than-earthquake-intense disturbance. You also consider the notion that a teenager or teenagers riding in the vehicle, earbuds or headphones in place, might, as a result of driving over an indented maintenance hole cover exclaim, "Whatthefuck, Mom. I'm trying to do my English homework here!" 

Or you may not be remotely aware of The Veer at all.

You find it puzzling. It baffles you.

Is this vehicular maneuver limited to vehicles with tires apt to burst, thereby making it imperative for the driver to dodge the utility hole cover?

No, you find that cars sporting expensive, sturdy, resilient, top-of-the-line tires perform this aversion tactic as much as any vehicle with no-tread tires, with tires on their last rubbery legs. 

Is it limited to older cars with lousy shock absorbers?

Au contraire.

Vehicles featuring the latest shock-absorbing, quietening technologies known to humankind are as apt to perform the maneuver as anyone else.

You stop and think: how long has this been a common habit of drivers?

Is it limited to specific geographical regions, drivers with certain income levels, age, education, upbringing, class, religion, lack of religion, occupation, gender, or other defining characteristic?

None that you can discern.

Really: why does that driver in front of you execute The Swerve?

No one seems to know.

Vehicularis interruptus.

It could be a contagion, a broadened application of pothole avoidance.

It might be some vast conspiracy aimed at the local DPW.

Can any conclusion whatsoever be drawn from this ubiquitous (at least in my environs) custom?

Is there any broader lesson, metaphor, or moral that we can draw from this practice?

Is it a far cry, an absurd stretch, to suggest some sort of aversion to jostling, displeasure, or inconvenience?

Or does it posit no meaning whatsoever?

Inquiring minds want to know.

excuse me? excuse me

A young man (late teens or early twenties) was walking a bicycle, on the other side of the street, against traffic. I was walking toward him and then veered left to go up a sharp hill, to get some cardio exercise (second day in a row!). As I walked uphill, my back turned toward him and the street we were on, I heard, "Excuse me? Excuse me!" And then a third time, louder and with impatience and anger thrown in, "Excuse me!" For good measure, he threw in a whistle, as you would toward a dog. It was all meant for me. No one else was around. I continued my march up the incline, never breaking stride or looking back. (In my experience, a person who greets you with this sort of "excuse me" is bent on a) panhandling b) hustling) c) robbing or d) all of the preceding.) After reaching the top, I surveyed the surrounding village, the lake beyond, and the mall on its shores. No sign of Excuse Me Hustler Bicycle Dude.

human trafficking

An upside-down neon-orange-red traffic cone, in a hole, in a sidewalk. West Fayette Street near South Geddes Street, Syracuse, New York. Although the traffic cone cannot speak, it evokes questions:

• How did the traffic cone get there? Did a human or humans place it there after a human or humans fell or tripped at that spot? Did a human call another human at City Hall or at the DPW?
• How long will the traffic cone reside there?
• Where does this urban not-quite-infrastructure problem rank amidst the parade of priorities inexorably marching in place?
• Is the mayor aware of this? Is the Common Council?
• As with many problems in distressed cities in America, will this problem-concern-issue be ignored, becoming a "cone of uncertainty," or more aptly a cone of neglect, or cone of temporary potential caring, or cone of insouciance?
• Is this upside-down silent traffic cone a megaphone shouting into the void, its cries muffled by traffic, concrete rubble, and indifference?

 "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." Simone Weil

curvilinear urban legend beauty

You venture out to retrieve the black plastic empty trash can and the blue bin for recyclables, peering at your car and, as you typically do, surveying for slashed tires or a window broken and beaded from last night's anonymous mayhem. On the road surface (a road paved merely months ago), you spy an imprint of white paint that nearly outlines your car, a 2007 VW Rabbit, 111,000 miles, the way the police delineate chalk lines where a dead body formerly sprawled, in its last restless resting place. You look left and see where the paint seemingly originated, several houses south, on Avery Avenue, where a resident likely deposited it, improperly, in last night's trash. This "waste management" accident paints a brushstroke of curvilinear whimsy and beauty. (Curvilinear strikes this observer as an especially feminine word, owing to female curvature merged with sweeping linearity as opposed to male angularity and polarity.) The alabaster alphabet consisting of one long L with hints of an S at the end is punctuated with accidental or purposeful blockprints from someone's steps, or else owing to the fruits of a performance or avant-garde visual artist who has staged this elaborate design, which trails off into the intersection with Chemung Street, toward the final feet of the old West End of Syracuse. And later in the day, and in the remains of subsequent days, you see vestiges of more curvilinearity: the palimpsest of the dawn street sweepers, meandering against curbs and around parked cars, reciting a visual poetry of fading hieroglyphics.

deer hart

I took a late-afternoon walk in the neighborhood, though it was easily hot enough outdoors to forgo it. As I climbed the hill in Solvay (Caroline Avenue), a deer caught my eye as I was nearly halfway up the hill at the top of which are some woods. The deer was maybe twenty feet in front of me, a little to my right, in some brush near a house. I don't know if it was a hart, but it was a deer. I don't know its gender. We sized each other up. Its ears were perked up and twitching now and then. It was sniffing me. We looked at each other, eyes to eyes. I said something like, "Hi there. What are you going to do now?" It did not reply, at least not verbally. We stood stock still for a while longer. Perhaps we could've done that for ten minutes, or an hour, longer. I don't know enough about deer. I proceeded up to the top of the hill. I didn't see any other deer in the woods. I walked down the hill, wondering where "my" deer went. Ah, there he or she was, higher up the side hill, chewing something from someone's garden. Looking at me intently.

the light in their eyes

You hear the stories. You read them in the paper. You read them online. The gray blanket of negativity. The curtain of fear. The dead end of despair. Smudged icons from a dusty, dark church closed long ago. But look again. Stop. See the light in their eyes. Whose eyes? The eyes of children, boys and girls, first and second graders. They are trying to read. They sit with grown-ups, side by side, in a school library. The children sound out, scan, struggle, surmise, and smile with surprise and discovery and delight. The light in their eyes flickers like a votive candle. It is alive. It is a fire called Future. It will melt your heart if you let it.

autumn adagio

Freedom of Espresso percolating

November sun stains

cumulus streets named Plum and Solar

lazy wind fans burning bush

branching scarlet melon peach burgundy bronze

emerald naked rain

heralding 

don't say it

snow

raise high the rooftop, ye carpenters

Today's quirky urban surprise in Syracuse: a crew of bearded men, each wearing a blue shirt and a straw hat, rebuilding -- actually adding on to -- the roof of an unsavory commercial building, an entity that seemingly sells cigarettes of questionable origin and caters to customers who are decidedly not refugees from Neiman Marcus. Are the rooftop carpenters Amish or Mennonites? They work steadily, quietly (in terms of no profanity, no shouting), and diligently. They make use of a chainsaw, possibly plugged in (which makes me wonder about their embrace of the uses of electricity, or not, according to their religious tenets). They work on the A-frame skeletal structure that will support the roof extension. And as they work, a clutch of neighborhood regulars (or bus stop patrons) sits on a retaining wall across the street, one of them with a tall boy (presumably a beer) in a paper bag. These wastrels watch with idle amusement. They do not know what to make of this foreign activity that goes by the name of "work." The rooftop workers seem to be oblivious of their audience. They are fully engaged in the task at hand. The viewers get their fill of free entertainment, just another uncounted hour of just another day absent of ambition, cognition, and fruition. 

summer rain

a sudden downpour
not quite
a deluge
morning cleansing
soon over
hashtag metaphor

baby, love

She crossed South Salina Street, against  traffic, looking over her shoulder, walking fast. Slung on her hip a curly-haired boy, maybe three years old, mixed race. He'd look beautiful in a cereal commercial, or on a box of Wheaties. She was young, white, skinny, harried, nervous. She darted diagonally, pausing for traffic on the double yellow line in the center only because she had to. She kept looking back. Reaching the bus kiosk on the other side, she averted dashing the kid's head into a metal column of the bus-passenger waiting area. If she did, you imagined, she'd just keep going. You silently compared her handling of the boy to lugging a sack of potatoes, carrying a package, a handbag. The child seemed an after-thought in every respect. A physical burden, for starters, but she was not about to let him slow her down. He did not complain, though he was awake. Her reckless rush began to irk you. This boy is going to get hurt. And this is just what the public sees. What are his chances? You began to generalize and fantasize in the extreme: what is it with everyone, nobody works, she's running to find cocaine, what a shithole. What a dampening of a sunny day in Syracuse, though too hot for your comfort. But something slowed you down. Grace or whatever you care to name it (or not name it) freeze-framed your observation as she moved out of sight. The conversation in your head shifted. Christ, she's scared. It's fear. Don't be mad at her. Maybe she's running for her life, both figuratively and literally. What would anger at her accomplish, anyway? Is someone chasing her? She's panicked. Off to your right and in her urban wake, maybe someone is flashing a gun or yelling threats at her on the other side of the window in front of where you safely and coolly sit, sipping iced black tea with wild berry. Refugees in America.

filthy lucre

November cold rain and wintry wind. En route to the bank on Jefferson Street in downtown Syracuse (on the way to withdrawing some cash), I spy a twenty-dollar bill on the wet sidewalk and notice it is but one of several bills, maybe four or five, maybe more, presumably the same denomination. I bend to pick up the lucky find, not quite thinking how my conscience will dictate handling or disbursing or saving or reporting or possessing this trove of cash or cache, take your pick. But before I can formulate a plan or even a rationale, as I am bending down to reach for the folded treasure, a man (I assume it was a man, not a mouse or a rat) rapidly swoops down in front of me, swooshes down in an arc with his arm, sweeps up the bills, merrily declares glee in words I can't recall, but that might translate roughly as "whoa! look what I found get out of my way these are the streets har har har seeya," and dashes off in front of me and to the left, down an alley called Bank Alley (but more aptly appellated Dumpster Drive or Blank Alley or Detritus Circle). I am arrested. I stop short. It is a stop-action animation of urban legend proportions. I never see his face. But get this: he is wearing a luminescent yellow vest because he is one of several downtown workers employed either by the city or the downtown beautification committee tasked with picking up trash. Right before my fecking eyes his job description broadens to pick up not only trash but also items signified by a word beginning with C that rhymes with trash, as in filthy lucre. I am steamed, amazed, perplexed, nonplussed, and faintly amused. I got to the bank's ATM and withdraw cash, legit cash. I walk down Bank Alley. No sign of him. I circle back on Warren Street. I spy one of the city or committee (rhymes again) workers with neon-yellow vest. Is it he? Not sure. This guy looks like he needs the filthy lucre desperately. He moves more slowly. Or is it the perp moving more slowly, filled with money in his pocket and contentment and one-upmanship in his bosom? And the only thing jangling in my own chest are a jumble of unspoken questions, such as: whose money was it? do they miss it more than Swoopman and me? what would I have said to Swoopman anyway? and if I were to have pocketed the moulah,what would I do or say? report it? to whom? and why? split the cash with Swoopman? take it, smile, and forgo going to the ATM?

Thanks for something to write home about, Swoopman.

urban haiku redux

redbud lavender

April snow pellets sun drenched

melting on my coat

twenty urban questions

what is a city

why

how does it renew itself

who renews it

what is the attraction of cities

how do you reinvent a city

why not move main street

why not call it something else

are not suburbs based on fear

at least in part

what do those in the suburbs fear

how do we convince them their fears are tribal myths

how do we celebrate community

how do we fear less

how do we become fearless

what is the fabric of the city

what is the texture of the city

what is the palette of sight and smell

this city

that city and this city

sayonara haiku

My friend-brother-seer-sage-compadre-bro-coffeemate-guru-buddy Warren (a.k.a. Joe) left town yesterday, on a new, more southern (less snowy) boulevard after some 40 years along these salty Syracuse streets.

I am already feeling the presence of his absence here at Freedom of Espresso at Franklin Square, not far from where he lived with his sparkling wife, here as I now tap the laptop keys, listening to Bob Dylan sing "Desolation Row," at the time of day we typically huddled, laughed, cried, cavorted, exchanged, narrated, gossiped, encouraged, wondered, reminisced, hoped, and bonded [note that serial comma, Joe].

tall skinny latte

conversation atmosphere

hot cinnamon truth

Less Than Nothing

Picture this: A concrete abutment adjoining a railroad overpass, the concrete polished and new, in contrast to the rugged, rusted iron of the CSX railroad bridge over West Fayette Street, Syracuse, New York. Spray-painted in black upon this otherwise pristine urban whiteboard is a graffito of one word, perhaps one foot high, a yard wide:

N O T H I N G

But what catches my eye is the gestalt of nothing, for the graffito is a piece of urban design, if you will, that adds by subtraction. Each of those seven letters is less than a letter; each letter is truncated, almost overcome by silence and absence (and who isn't overcome now and then by silence or absence?). My eyes are caught because at first glance I don't see a word but a modern urban hieroglyphic. I am arrested. I must stop and figure it out.

Oh, you say, show us a photo, Pawlie. Show and tell!

Too easy.

Picture an N that almost looks like an upside-down V; an O reminiscent of a U; an H -- oh, stop! I can't tell you. I don't precisely remember. I cannot recount with confidence. Come on out and see this sub-nihilist shrine for yourself.

So, who is the author, the designer of Less Than Nothing?

And what is he or she or they trying to tell us? (I should not be so presumptuous: "tell me.")

And is Less Than Nothing more sublime, more alluring than nothingness itself?

(Nothing has its semantic merits, as in signifying no-thing. The English language is great like that, as also demonstrated by the word atonement, at-one-ment.)

I keep telling you. The signs are there for us to see, and interpret.