Once Upon a New York October Night
Wearing her little red riding hood coat, the girl finds herself in Brooklyn watching videos of a woman twirling from a suspension bridge, above the people with mouths agape, above the water, above the world.
The girl twirls about on a stool and then rides over the same bridge into a Muppet party in the East Village. It’s late and the costumes are already half fallen off or taken off long ago.
“I know you, don’t I?”
He smiles, replies, “October is the New Yorkiest of months.”
The apartment is warm, the balcony breezy, the people good. The girl talks injuries, religion, this crazy city, the Colorado sun, the beautiful terror of living. The girl sips alcohol. The girl feels like wandering. The girl buttons her red coat.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Nora, all in pink and newly birthdayed, says as the girl prepares to leave, “October is the New Yorkiest of months.”
And on the street, the October is wild, the New York is alive, the streets crawl and move and blow about. The girl zigzags her way west and pushes south through the bodies. The lights green, the lights red, the cars honking and inching by.
On the sidewalk to her side, the girl sees a flash of blonde curls, a profile from the past, from a different lifetime. She reaches out her hand to graze his arm. He stops with a nervous smile.
“It’s my birthday,” he says, “I’m not drunk enough.”
The profile fades into the night and the girl continues to wander. A man and his two friends stop her, laughing.
“I saved someone’s life,” says the tallest one.
“You in that red coat,” he says, “You are beautiful.” And grabs down and kisses her square on the cheek.
The girl says goodbye. The girl crosses back over 1st Avenue. The cars honk. The lights go red-to-green, green-to-red. The wind blows everything up in a mini-cyclone and the girl hugs her red coat tight against her body.
October, she whispers into the air, the New Yorkiest of months.
