#75 Mary and Me

It was time to haul her sorry ass out of the house. She was tired of feeling that feeling. That one she felt when something good didn’t happen and it turned into something bad. But the bad wasn’t permanent but felt exactly like an Everlasting Gob Stopper meant to clog up her life and keep her suspended on a street corner somewhere in really crappy weather without proper outerwear like a scarf and boots. Chilled to the bone and the wool stuff was upstairs a few blocks away but she is stuck on the sidewalk.

It was dark out and the street was lined with snow. White snow that looked blue and orange because of the neon light reflecting off it. Each time a dark car sped past the color turned grey and black and dark again. It was hard to remember the lighter and brighter colors. It was dark and dreary. Cold.  And there was Mary. Mary was there. Her black felt cap had a weird tassel hanging off her head swung awkwardly as she shouted “hello!” Where did she get that hat? So silly! Cool glasses and smiling that familiar friend smile. That old friend smile. The one that will always, always be there and never leave. Tried , trusted and true blue.

It was twenty-five years ago they lived in that neighborhood. Getting off the L train and snaking their way south on Bedford Ave with streetlamps casting long shadows on and in between blocks. The empty streets were quiet and scary. Racing against time and a blinking traffic light to see who would win by getting home alive first. Her heart pounded inside her chest and her heavy breathing huh u huh huh as she raced west down her street and unlatched the door with a sense of accomplishment. Got home alive.

I won.

Unlatched the iron gate slipped through to her safe zone and then root around for keys in her bag took a few minutes. Another success: found and untangled them from her headphones and random receipts. What a crap mess. Unlock the front door of the building and the hallway smells like onions. Someone is cooking with onions again and she hears her cat crying behind the door.

She and Mary drank coffee made in a nice French Press. Mary didn’t take milk.  She liked her coffee black and drank it out of a porcelain soup bowl while she picked the wilted leaves off her tomato plants growing in large plastic buckets on the roof top right outside her window. The windows were open most of the time even in winter when the radiator was full blast, and she set a few lawn chairs and wooden school chairs from off the street out there.  They sat together and giggled about the tomatoes which were not thriving and looked sickly green.  Joking about what they’d do with the first crop. How many tomatoes would it yield? Enough for a pot of sauce or a single serving of salad. Why it was so funny, no one really knew. But it was.
Outside her window was a spectacular view of the Williamsburg Bridge. It just hung there looking elegant with tiny cars, trucks and a bracelet of train lights always moving. 

We talked and talked and talked.

That was 25-years ago. When they took the train into Manhattan to shop at the Union Square Green Market on Saturday.  Mary picked out random vegetables like a white eggplant the size of one jumbo egg.  She would take it home and find some use for it. She cooked it and ate it.

It was a small, hard white beautiful egg plant that was useless except for its appearance: and bitter, but she transformed it.

Their friendship transformed over the following decades. Postcards were sent, crisscrossing the country with short scribbled messages denoting a time thought of each other. Code for everlasting love and hope to be together. We talked and talked and talked.

Again.