New Year and Broadway

by Maurice Downes

I remember sitting at the diner near where I live and thinking about a lot of things that I didn't need to be thinking about at the time. When you're trying to have a good meal, and I certainly needed one to settle my stomach that morning, you shouldn't let everything get to you. I was thinking of just much too much that morning; I was trying to solve problems that couldn't be solved before getting to work. One time this girl came up to me and started giving me one of those back massages that people in a certain age bracket just randomly give each other. Well, she noticed that my back was full of knots: little bunches of nerve and muscle that occur in the face of stress. Of course I had a billion of them; I spend or have spent much of these last few months worrying (about this and that) and now I'd come to the end of it all, the year, and it must've caught up with me.

When I got up that morning I was sick to my stomach because my body wouldn't allow me a hangover. I drank way too much, that was established, and I don't know if I had a good time or not which started to bother me. That's something like drug abuse, isn't it? If you go to a place, don't really know whether or not you've had any fun there, but you wake up the next morning with symptoms. Then, my friend, you just drank out of habit and practice, which is definitely like abuse. Like taking up a gun and shooting random people because they were in the room and you had a weapon. I'm usually forbidden from thinking about what I did the night before, and now you see why. Christmas carols make me want to cry, I thought for most of the morning. It wasn't that I was part of that group that offs themselves during the holidays. Because of not being around family or because of what some relationship did to them or because they were just plain bored with life and wanted to try death. me not being any of the above. Really, I don't want to come up with why carols hurt me, at the risk of sounding like a movie character, so I'll just leave it at the fact that they have that effect on me. Ever since my last year of college, one day when I was doing much the same thing that I was doing that morning, it hit me how depressing Christmas carols could feel. They still stunk of that desperation and this country doesn't know how to play anything else from November to January. And I thought about this and all the things that clouded my mind that morning and it hurt.

I ordered a coffee to balance the eggs and sausage and the greasy French toast. This all made me feel better about carrying too much worry, like I was finally starting to handle it all even though I wasn't. Sometimes the coffee in a diner is all it takes to make things seem ok for the moment. Everything before filled you up and all the smokers gave the place just the right smell, and now it was time to get into the horrible coffee. Burnt beans and water that's been left on for way too long is the only way to get the right effect. It made me think of when I worked in an office some miles downtown from where I was eating. How I couldn't function on a huge breakfast because I'd damn near pass out, so it got to the point that my daily routine was a bag of chips, a small one, and the rolling coffee cart near the intersection. Small bag of chips and a large coffee, and then I'd settle into the day's chores, which were never much. Going on, while I was being holiday sick that morning I think I missed the stability of a routine, because I started my current habit of being randomly employed around then. I wanted it to be a bit more glamorous than it was turning out to be. I wanted to be constantly drunk and constantly involved with an endless stream of women whose names I wouldn't even bother to remember, and most of all I wanted to sleep when I didn't have the need to. Sleep at. say, 2 p.m. when any respectable person should be taking care of something. anything. This all I was to achieve by moving out of the office and doing whatever it was I did from the comfort of my own home. Then, after some weeks, I found myself penniless, celibate, and tired. I slept just far too much, and then started to feel worthless because of all the hours I had to kill. So I missed routine, over the coffee that morning, but now I've come to terms with everything.

Eventually, Stevie Wonder decided to take over the audio system and start on about "Silver Bells" in the way that only he could. I smiled: more coffee and no paying the bill just yet. It was the bit of soul that everything needed that morning to line it up. I stopped adding up the apartment's utilities for one minute, stopped putting the finishing touches on the project in my head. I looked outside to see what I was dealing with. Do you know what? It was overcast that day, and I had just noticed. I must've been up for hours by the time I finally realized that. It was like one of those cartoons where the character literally walks around with their eyes closed the entire morning except the idea alone is just stupid to me. I guess I was more ill that morning than I'd originally thought. I slowly recovered, although the taste of rust in the back of my throat refused to leave me alone. I don't know if the coffee made it better or worse or whatever, but it was a complete pain in the ass. Rusty, tobacco-y taste like someone put out their cheap cigarettes in my mouth all of the previous night. With a clear head and more ridiculous thoughts I stared at the people shuffle up and down the sidewalk of the working-class neighborhood I live in now. He over there had shopping bags and walked with a limp, but looked strong. She a few yards back had kids with her and wore foolishly tight jeans, and I'm sure scolded her little girls if they ever looked slutty. Good for the goose, but not for the gander. An old church couple shuffled behind and held hands. They wore identical suits made for their respective sexes. Navy blue and well pressed. I was people watching, then, because I suddenly didn't have work? My mother probably would have had something to say about that.

Then what happened next is what really stays with me about the morning I talk about. A teenage couple started to cross the street over by Broadway. The guy looked like he lived in the city all of his life and probably lived a few blocks from me with family, the girl didn't look any of these things. They were laughing about something and both dressed smartly; I didn't notice her to be especially good looking or that her and the guy were up to intercourse in the middle of everyone's view. They were part of what I was looking at over coffee. The guy runs across the street, waves her over to come on because she's safe, and she's sideswiped by a van. Blood pours from her nose after she crumbles to the ground. She lies there.

I put down my coffee. I looked over at her and saw that she wasn't getting up, put down my coffee. There were shards of black plastic on the ground that, now that I think about it, were parts of the side window that the red-light-jumping van hit her with at some 40 miles per hour. And we all ran to get her, and we all pulled out phones to get an ambulance there in time. I was outside trying to piece together where the last three minutes went, and I didn't have my coat, but I don't remember being cold. Not at all, but I was sweating and my heart raced. Not because I ran, but because her boyfriend knelt on his knees and wailed. He couldn't stop crying and his voice went hoarse and I stopped looking at her. "I told her to cross" "I told her to cross" "I told her to cross". And I stared straight at him, and tears streamed down his face and his eyes were closed. His screaming scared me so that I had to stare at him.

I heard the "whoop" of approaching emergency crews and I got on the sidewalk. A woman who'd been consoling the victim got up to let the cops do their work. Her boyfriend got up to follow them all to the hospital. Then the scene was cleared. Everyone started giving their take on what happened, and I stared at the boyfriend getting into a cop car. I stood there, still shaken, started to turn left and saw the diner cashier heading back inside. That's all that stopped me from adding petty larceny to that morning and I followed him back inside. Our conversation was a back and forth of half-nods and those weird little smirks that look like you're smiling when you're really saying "How about that?" "Yeah, I know?" "What can you do?" What I could do, I decided, was leave a large tip, especially since the coffee turned out to be better cold. It started to drizzle outside and I watched standing up.

That was that. I grabbed my coat and my book bag and headed some blocks uptown, taking that left I meant to that would've started my life of crime. No, I didn't have that man's voice repeating in my head and yes I felt bad, terrible. I started my work without hassle soon after turning the key in my lock. That the apartment was too damn hot and my client's approval of the work are some of the last things I can remember about that year.

--Maurice Downes (Werd up)