3 Stories of Terror

The fare from La Guardia to the East Village comes to a respectable $13.80. I am grateful. This seemingly insignificant event marks my first major success in New York City. Alone.

“Tell the cabbie exactly where ya wanna go, honey.” warned the tourist agent, “Otherwise he’ll take ya via Nova Scotia.” Now there’s a comforting thought.

I am as intrigued as I am repulsed by New York’s reputation and that human curiosity has led me to a “mother’s holiday” in the Big Apple – the city of temptation?

I lurch forward and thrust a fistful of dollars through the tiny opening between the driver and the driven. “Yer sure this is the place?” the driver asks suspiciously. The driver alternately surveys me through his rearview mirror and the street just beyond our yellow metal shell. An obvious mismatch he concludes, and so demands, “Check the address – again.”

My thin façade of made-to-order sophistication plummets. Outside my window looms one unmarked (numerically speaking) three storey, stone building littered with badly weathered handbills and graffiti. All street level windows have either been boarded up or are bound by wrought iron. Battered garbage cans line the sidewalks, chained together (for fear of theft?). Wild, multi-coloured, painted symbols; a form of tribal expression: primitive hieroglyphics, are splashed across every conceivable surface from parked vehicles to store fronts to residences. This may as well be Mars.

Solemnly I return to the driver’s instruction, “Check the address.” He repeats with a gentle nod and a kind smile. So this is one of those notorious New York cabbies?

The unfashionable truth is: at that moment my mind was frantically scanning every memorized landmark hoping to connect image to language if only to sputter, “Take me to the U.N. and hurry.” Cowardice: my secret companion.

The address was wrong but the neighbourhood was right and the following day I would experience my christening into East-side Manhattan’s community life.

6 AM: My sleep has endured at least a dozen interruptions. Construction noise from the young couple in the new store across the street. Suitcase-sized, portable radios periodically cut through the sound of city traffic while intermittent “whoop – whoop" sirens cry out. Between states of wakefulness I draft mental pictures of prehistoric birds (whoop - whoop) pounding their way through urban streets.

A sudden charge of adrenalin jolts me into consciousness. On the street below my bedroom window, a young, denim-clad man raves, screams, paces, circling and re-circling the same corner of pavement. His arms thrash out against invisible foes. He demands drugs and threatens to “blow away” some named but never seen local supplier. The heat of his anger is fueled by graphic obscenities. I assume fetal position and nibble the edges of my pen. Welcome to New York City.

Later I learn that the man on the street was “Ritchie”: a left-over from the Vietnam war. Apparently he has been “adopted” by this particular city block. Some neighbours feed him, others clothe him, most give him the odd dollar or two and Ritchie survives by sleeping in a store owner’s cellar. I am assured that he may be loud but Ritchie is essentially harmless. “If he starts yelling at you,” the hostess of the Bed and Breakfast recommends, “just yell back – 'Aw Ritchie – get outta my way'.” Both hostess and her delicate, eighty-year-old mother nod encouragingly at me as they usher me out into the streets. “Go ahead. Enjoy yourself,” they urge with enthusiasm. They love New York.

By day number four, my final day, I have tallied up numerous, marvelous experiences and so I presumed an acquired sense of street smarts. I even started to feel a little smug. That’s when I saw him. A young man innocently strolling along ninth street, talking to his female companion and wearing a T shirt, cotton jeans and a six foot long Boa Constrictor. Of course it was alive. What did you think, the guy’s weird or something? My silent companion, terror, almost burst forth into song: 'Beam me up Scotty. I want out of here NOW.' That’s when I realized – if I’m this scared when most people think me brave for not staying at the Holiday Inn, then ninety percent of the population have got to be terrified by this guy’s choice of pet. Even in New York.

I was right. I followed the guy for blocks and no one even looked at me – not once.