Date: 2004-07-31
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Little Italy/BrooklynMile: Off the map in NYCJesus! New York, what a clusterfuck. Beautiful, mind you. One needsa local guide for this town. Haven't had much luck myself since NYFDFire Chief Dennis dropped me in the Bronx and I hopped a subway toTimes Square. Ok. I've had plenty of ''fun'', doing the same thing Ido every day on the trail but now with neck craned fully back staringskyward at the vast and incomprehensible monoliths to man's vast ego. But there's this thing about backpacks in NYC that I never thought of. They don't like em. I tried to get up into the Empire State Buildingalong with a gillion other tourists on this Saturday in July. Yeah,right. That went over like a fart in church. "Backpack! Oh, my God,Harry, he's got a backpack!" How was I to know I'd walk outa the woodsand into the Big Apple and suddenly be viewed as a dangerous criminal,a walking thermonuclear weapon bound on blowing myself and a gillionfat tourists skyhigh for no good reason at all. Whatever. Okay, I admit I did think about it a little, the pack I mean. Iactually looped back to Grand Central from Times Square to ditch mypack fulla smelly socks and melted deformed Snickers bars andhand-carved tent stakes and granola(all dangerous items, I¢m sure) inone of the many lockers I'd seen in movies for time eternal. Guesswhat? No lockers since 9/11. Fuck me. And fuck those fuckin' jihadbastards who knocked a whole lotta lockers and loved ones outa the skythat fucked up day three years ago. Thanks to them, I can't go up highand get a bird's eye of the greatest city in America, the most famouscity, a mythical Camelot known to me only in film and books untiltoday. Thanks to Osama and carnage and paranoia and the war on drugs,I can't see the city from the sky. Not that I'm complaining. Seated here in Don Vito's pizzeria in LittleItaly drinking a Peroni and wolfing down a slice of genuine NYC pizza,all floppy and fold-up-able and dripping cheese and the waitress cuteand not afraid to get close to me, breaking the two (or is it three?)foot barrier of personal space held my most Americans, putting her faceright in mine as she suggest broccoli instead of pepperoni on my pizza.''You're absolutely right,'' I said. ''I need vegetable matter. Theforest is turning me into a junk food and dried-pasta mutant. ''And then there's Fire Chief Dennis Munnelly whose lovely family took mein last night in Pawley, NY, fed me dinner, got me showered andlaundered and made me up the couch bed (I was down and out on it,asleep in seconds flat after a day of running to meet them at 7 pm). When I found out about his being a fireman in NYC, I had to ask. Stories? Yeah, he had a story. It was short and bittersweet. "Iwoulda been killed if I hadn't been on vacation that week. My entireunit was wiped out." Jesus. There's luck. And pain. What a thing tosurvive. How you would feel? Wouldn't you ask, "Why me? Why not me?"A guy could go crazy with that kinda shit. Dennis seems sane asanyone. God bless him. He is blessed. God spared him for somereason. And did I mention that I invited myself to dinner with the Munnelly's?Oh, yeah. Met them on the trail yesterday morning just when they wereending their morning day hike and loadin' into the car to drive back toPawling. Did I want a ride, they asked? Well, no, thanks, thatwould kinda defeat the purpose of my journey. But then there was aconnection between us, strong I felt. And it didn't seem right to justsay goodbye there and never see them again, especially since I washeading straight for their town and we could maybe visit and I couldget to know their lovely daughter Cristelle a little. So I just cameout with it. "Why don't you invite me to dinner? I could tent in youryard?" And that was that. Mother Muriel was all about that. AndCristelle just smiled all sweet, so all agreed that yes, I would cometo dinner and should sleep on their couch. Dennis was sitting in thecar and, I think, more or less, got roped into the deal by his friendlyFrench-American wife. Works for me. I see myself in their shower, my feet actually, ringed in dirt circlesand all busted up like a coupla old fishin' boats tossed ashore in ahurricane and ringed, slowly, by receding waters and mud. I see thehot steam of the shower and the cleansing waters hitting my championfeet and all that dirt swirling down the drain and hear myselfwhispering, "Thank you, God. Thank you, Buddha. I am so blessed." Then came dinner and brief conversation, me all doped up like on valiumbut really just stoned on fatigue, dead tired and done. And run. Iran. Ran to Pawling, NY, then whammo! I'm in New York City. Thenpoof! I'm in Brooklyn, seated on Alice's couch. Alice fromWonderland. Alice from Idyllweird. We're rapping, catching up. Herpuppy eats my shoes. She drinks coffee. I drink Fosters. We nap. Life is good. -RSM