The transvestite I pass by occasionally near the subway (in the a.m.) is not exactly beautiful. She wore beauty on her sleeve the way some people believed in God, like it wasn't enough to just be beautiful. Oh no, it was to be bold, in platforms, and sweating Chanel #5. We named her Delilah. She was love, and when she walks her thick thighs swayed and her eyes avoided yours because she tore through the streets like a prophet. Delilah was someone you remember but she'd never be able to pick you out from a crowd of blue, lonely men.
That year we all lived in Sunset Park. On Ninth Avenue we were sandwiched between the Hispanic neighborhood up north, Chinatown around the corner, and the Hassidic Jews down south. I talk coordinates but the distances between these hoods were one or two avenues away. That was New York for you then, a world compacted, squeezed. Humanity, languages, colors, lives all swirled to one, like you woke up one morning and all of a sudden Africa and Latin America was one continent again.
We had friends named Jesus and favorite grocers for specific needs: Häagen-Dazs and pasta from C-town and everything else from the #1 Fei Long and Best Fei Long. Nobody believes me, in Ohio or New York, that Häagen-Dazs is not made in Germany. The only Häagen-Dazs store I've seen so far in New York is, of course, in Chinatown. It's nothing like the ultra posh/white/minimalist well-lit lights of Häagen-Dazs stores I've seen in Shanghai, where the nouveau riche eat it up--package, branding, the great western civilization and all. The Häagen-Dazs that every Shanghaiese girl dreams of on a first date is the treat we get 2 for $5 on sale.
Mmmn, Dulce de Leche.