A Walk on 5th Avenue
I was walking up 5th Avenue, crossing over 50th, 51st, 52nd, and 53rd, darting between tourists on a terribly hot day. The starch on my collar was sinking into the pores of my sunburned neck. A scratchy feeling ensued that no amount of loosening my necktie could alleviate. The humidity was oppressive, like a damp cloud hovering a foot off the pavement, with a syrupy viscosity that engulfed everyone alike.
I crossed over 54th and saw a homeless man. His posture was oddly reminiscent of an ancient Roman, lying on his side with his back against the wall of the University Club—impossible to ignore, erupting with curiosities. He was obese and filthy. His fingernails were long, yellow, and brittle. His voice was gravelly and thunderous; his larynx sounded like it was coated with crushed glass. It ebbed and flowed between vulgarities and a chirpy, mysterious laughter.
His clothes were frayed and littered with debris, layer upon layer of heavy wool, and rotten with a putrid stench. He was a beastly man, north of 350 pounds, with the thighs of a racehorse. His ankles were swollen and chapped, his fingers the size of sizzling bratwursts. His scalp resembled a knotty forest of wiry briars. A fly buzzed around him like Pig-Pen from Peanuts.
His eyebrows were voluptuous clouds; they added an air of dignity. Below them sat sunken eyeballs, drowning in alcohol, that saw the world from street level. He possessed a constitution gnarlier than a rotting peach pit. He didn’t ask for spare change, nor did he have a cardboard sign with his life’s story on it.
A million thoughts race through one’s mind when a fellow like this abruptly enters your life. For starters, how old is he? Hard to tell... late 50s? And who are his parents? How did he get here? What was he like as a little boy? Where is his hometown? Has he eaten today? Where does he sleep? Isn’t he burning up in all those clothes? Why does he choose to lay here every day?
All the while, everyone in his presence is desperately trying to avoid him. We jump through a fantasy portal, just briefly, into a world where this man does not exist. And once you’re five paces past him, you hop back through the portal into the real world. Thousands of people hop in and out of this portal every day.
I couldn’t help but make eye contact, and once I did, he shouted, “Take yer fu*kin’ tie and hang yerself!” He quietly giggled as I crossed over 55th.
