Fifteen in New York
And this was my secret. I could walk two blocks, I could get on a train. I could hand the conductor $4.25 worth of babysitting money and I could go to the city. By myself.
Penn Station on a Sunday morning. The magazine store with popcorn always popping behind the glass. The escalator that rode up and up into the streets I’d only seen with the permission of my elementary school teachers or with my dad’s hand squeezing mind tight. It was open before me and it was mine to take.
I’d heard names before — in books, sometimes, but also whispered in confidence at the Shabbos table from adult to adult, talking about their once-lives, their pre-children selves, their own private 1960s and 1970s rebellions. The Village. Union Square. Washington Square.
It was my turn now. And so I’d ask the policeman at the edge of the station, “How do I get to Washington Square?” And so find myself wandering down Sixth Avenue, watching the numbers of the streets get lower and lower. The sidewalks tossed with bits of trash, blowing around and rats scampering out from under a parked car to a garbage can.
There were hundreds of strange little stores — vintage stores with mannequins that seemed straight out of the 70s. Wig stores all fluorescent and mutli-colored. A whole store just filled with buttons.
And the avenue kept going straight into the horizon until it met the twin towers and then up and up into the sky.
Here everything was safe. I was just a blank, a girl walking down Sixth Avenue with a purple shirt, Converse sneakers, and a pulse. Nobody from home knew where I was; nobody here knew who I was. I was alone and on my own and the whole city, the whole world, was mine to explore.
