I sometimes forget just how seldom you cry

A fall Saturday.

Sean Howe manages to get us two precious film festival tickets to David Gordon Green's new film, _Undertow_. He knows what a nice gift this is to me, but doesn't say anything; Sean Howe is modest. George Washington (the first movie by this same director) is my favorite movie, so dearly loved that my hands sometimes start to shake while I watch it. Sean has trouble sleeping lately. He is up early, exhausted, and stares at the ceiling, thinking. On the subway, his eyes are heavy-lidded. Loafing back in his seat so far it looks like he might fall out, he speaks of sleep longingly. The movie is good, but not great, and the image of a nail going through a boy's foot haunts me through the entire thing, and all the way home on the subway as well. On the 2 train, I watch as newcomers at each stop blink in alarm at the bright lights. Some seem to wake up in the light, bursting into conversation. Others seem to be shut down by it, frowning and slouching and closing their eyes. A group of teenage girls, on their way to a party, start singing. The song fills the whole car. It could go either way for us, the other riders in this car; we could accept this late night intrusion, maybe even embrace it. Or we could frown, mutter, try to stop it. I glance around at the other passengers. There is a pause. It's a nice night, warm and calm. Slowly, everyone begins to smile, and nod.

It's two in the morning, and there are cds scattered all over the floor. I make myself a drink and dance alone, biting my lower lip in concentration, while a Tommy Dorsey record plays. After a while, the drink is missing, and I'm still not sure even now where I set it. I spend a while looking, clapping my hands as I walk from room to room, as if the drink will respond. Then, rather suddenly, I swoop up my keys with one palm and walk out the door for a walk in the neighborhood. I've been taking walks like this a lot lately. On Seventh avenue, late at night, it's hardly different than the downtown of my small hometown; only a few cars go by, even fewer people, and there's a calmness so startling the air pressure seems to have changed. Tonight, I head around the corner of Second street, past the flowers that have been set there in memory of someone who was shot the other night. From my bed, in the early morning hours, the gunshots sounded like firecrackers. The playground at PS 321 sits deserted in the brown light of Brooklyn nighttime, and I sit down on the slide and read a pizza menu that's on the ground. It's getting cooler, which fills me with autumn giddiness, but makes me tired too, and I lean back on the slide and look at the sky and listen to plastic bags and newspaper blow around the school yard. I close my eyes and suddenly it's half an hour later. I brush a hand across my face, to wake up, and my lips have gotten cold. There's a gray and white cat sitting by the entrance of the yard, watching me. Before I get up, and walk home again through quiet streets, I lay still for a moment, looking up at the tops of the trees next to the school. The wind has picked up even more, and if you close your eyes, it could be the middle of the park, the middle of the woods. The middle of nowhere. When the sun comes up, the Packers will lose again, and brunch will be served, and this slide will be covered with books and political buttons for sale at the flea market. But for now, there is just this wait, this quiet, my tired feet dangling from the end of the slide.

*This update typed while listening to George Baker sing Little Green Bag, over and over.