Yesterday the city suffered the curse of under an extremely hazardous and heated atmosphere. The northern Ontario forests were ablaze. Out of control. The air quality index in NYC was 220. A thick soup of undefined pollutants, carbon, and ozone endangering everyone throughout the Northeast and Midwest with an AQI or Air Qualtity Index venture over 200. Worse than New Delhi, India.
In the afternoon I traveled to 68th Street and Broadway. The previous evening I had lost my Persol sunglasses at the AMC IMax theater at which I had seen Odysseus with Jack Haven. My last cinemas vist had been the last summer in the Village. PINK FLAMINGOS, John Waters' 1972 classic trans comedy starring Divine also with Jack.
That evening I had worn the Persols on the ride up from West 4th Street. Jack met me outside the theater. We were both excited to see Christopher Nolan's interpretation of Homer's epic poem. The theater was packed and we found two seats in the front. Jack pointed to empty seat to the left. I shook my head. Total immersion. Popcorn, Junior Mints, and a movie. I changed glasses and put the Persols in my murse.
The theater reached capacity. Two young friends asked us to move one place to the left to sit together. Someone had claimed the sets with their bags. This meant moving someone's possessions wihtout their permission. Never a good idea. Jack didn't understand my obstinacy.
I don't touch other people's things. Always leads to trouble. In the end I acquiesced to their requests. The two young people sat in their new seats and two women squeezed past us and looked at the bags. I apologized and explained the reason for the move. They were cool with that. They also had popcorn and soda. We sat. Ready for ODYESSEUS.
The lights dimmed. Movie time. IMax. Sound bathed us in the movie. We were on the shore of Troy. I realized I had left my bag under my previous seat. The young lady handed it to me. Zipper open.
The IMax experience was amazing as Matt Damon's performance. We left the theater stunned.
The next morning I couldn't find my singlasses.
Nowhere.
I suspected that while moving places the sunglasses might have dropped beneath my original seat.
Let no good dee go unpunished.
That afternoon B train to West 72th Street. A swampy toxic heat wave blanketing the city. Orange sky. Air burning in my nostrils. Smoke from the distant Ontario. North of the US border.
I wasn't worried about the smog. My Persols. A two block walk from the subway to the AMC Theater.
The sunglasses weren't at the AMC Lincoln Center. I find a lost report. I had no particular place to go and opted for a wander across Central Park. I kept to the shade on 68th Street.
A well-dressed old man with a cane crossed Par the street. He in the 90s like the temperature. We exchanged a glance. He seemed to recognize me. I'm 74 attired him in linen. We examined each other, as if we might discern a familiar face beneath our ancient masks. No recognition from either of us. We were strangers other than having been born deep in the 20th Century and having survived into the 21st Century. Over 800,000 of us left in New York City. Z city of eight million. He and I had weathered our years. Still standing.
The smog came from the Canada. Trump was threatening our northern neighbor with 50% tarrifs for this assault on America. 47 is eighty-two years old and hasn't been sane one day in his life.
He didn't matter.
Central Park.
I hadn't been here since the winter.
Bette Davis, the famed actress, had once referred to Central Park as the 'Lung of Manhattan'. Trees rustled in the warm breeze. Every green leaf faint with the heat. I strolled in the shade to a cafe with a view of the Sheep Meadow, originally designated as a military parade ground. Central Park's designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux had kibboshed than idea and the fifteen acres had been reserved for sheep until 1934.
A chain link fence surrounded the pasture. No ball playing is allowed and a few people sunned on the grass. Fearless sun worshippers. The Sheep Meadow was a verdant frying pan.
To the south the billionaire aeries rose into an almost impenetrable dystopian haze. France and Spain were plagued by temperatures in the 100s. Maybe hotter in Portugal. Across the prairies of the Flyover the same. Droughts fostering the massive wildfires.
I sought shade, however The American Elms or Ulmus Americana in the park are under threat from the virulant Dutch Elm Disease. THe fingi had devastated America's elm population in the last century. The graceful shade trees had perished by the millions. Main Street in Westbrook, Maine lost them all. The ground beneath the elms is off bounds, except for one grove. I wish them well.
As I strolled at a very languid pace, due to the pollution. I picked up plastic trash. Tourists, vendors, and New Yorkers passed the fallen wrappers, as if they are invisible. Only partially true. They step out of the way, even with their eyes glued to the cell phone.
Eddie Meicke my old biker friend from the Far Rockaways said, "When the shit get a foot high, then step a foot higher."
I rested under the shade on a bench. The ice cream vendors were loading their carts. There were no buyers or not enough to profit from peddling cold drinks and ice in the torrid heat. I also quit the park and rode the N train south. A functioning AC in the cars. I got off two stops short of Bleecker Street, where I am temporarily housing with Raoul, awaiting senior Section 8 housing from the city.
David Goldberg and Dakota Pollock are opening Bernie and Herb's, a bar on West 16th Street. The names come from both their fathers. Dave was happy to see me and complained about the smog.
"Maybe it's safe in here."
An air-conditioning worker, obviously MAGA, remarked, "Yeah, all the libtards will blame this air on Trump."one will be safe in 2050."
"Not me. I blame it on us all. All bad is invisible, until it affect us."
People love to blame everyone else for everything or even better to someone not within earshot.
Me?
I know what I do and pick up the trash.
Maybe a waste of time, but bending over keeps my old bones limber and if I turn around at from where I came that actor's statement to DUSTIN HOFFMAN from the party scene in 1967 THE GRADUATE, "The future is plastic." rings false. unless the future is doom.
A dream of paradise even on a day as lost as July 17, 2026.
ps I still haven't retrieved my Persols.
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Much more to come__
