The Bicycle Basket Thief

Saturday around ten in the morning, two months after the September 11th tragedy, my husband and I stepped out onto Saint James Place to head for breakfast. I turned to check on my bicycle chained to a post in front of the old Jewish cemetary.

Another bicycle was parked next to mine on the sidewalk. A skinny shaved-head white man in black loose clothes bent busy over the handlebar of my bicycle, wire cutters in hand.

“Hey! This bicycle is mine!” I shouted. Daryl and I walked toward the suspicious man who turned red, but didn’t run from us.

“What're you doing?” I asked seriously.

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re stealing my wife’s bicycle basket, ass wipe, that’s what you’re doing!”

“Are you stealing the basket of my bicycle?” I asked, squinting in disbelief.

“Look, I need a basket. I’ve been watching this abandoned bicycle since eight this morning. This is the third time I came to take the basket. The first time, I didn’t have any tools. The second time, I had the wrong tool, and all that time nobody came to claim they owned the bicycle,” he said with a Spanish accent.

“We're the owners. This isn’t an abandoned bicycle, and if you need a bicycle basket, buy one, asswipe,” my husband said.

“Yes, I paid only five dollars for this basket at K-Mart for pity’s sake,” I said, not understanding the absurdity of the theft.

“Hey, word to the wise! Keep your eyes on your belongings. This is New York City,” the burglar said sarcastically, perched on his bicycle next to mine, then made his splendid and furious getaway.

“Idiot! Loser! You failed three times to steal a bicycle basket,” Daryl yelled and unlocked my bicycle to carry it upstairs.

“Unbelievable, we engaged in conversation with the failed burglar of our bicycle basket!” I said. “I tell you, amore, his advice isn’t bad.”

“He's a low thief! Idiot!” Daryl said and carried my bicycle upstairs. "Look! The basket is still attached! He cut the wrong wires!"

©2009 Regina Edelman

We Only Eat Life

by Regina Edelman

Many living bodies will pass through the bodies of other creatures. That is to say, uninhabited houses will pass in pieces through inhabited houses, giving them something useful, and bringing with themselves their own harm. This is to say, man’s life is made up of things which are eaten, and they bring with them the part of the man which is dead.

–Leonardo da Vinci

I read to Daryl for him to approve my writing:

Yesterday I fasted and went to the doctor for a checkup. My doctor is Chinese, but grew up in São Paulo where I came from, and practices here in Chinatown where I live now. The Chinese markets here display tables full of food propped outside their storefronts onto the sidewalk, and even sell live turtles for soup. I think they’re for soup. I only have vague knowledge of how to cook a turtle, and I don’t even understand eating them in the first place. Once Daryl’s old roommate told me that he saw a party of diners in a Chinatown restaurant cooking a turtle in a pot over sterno in the center of the table. Alive, the poor beast tried to run away from death, which is certain we all know, but closer to that turtle. The poor thing tried to climb the hot walls of the pot, but how could the innocent run from the cowardice of her condemnation? The Chinese party pushed her back down to the bottom of the pot with its water close to boil. They laughed until the poor turtle died. Horrible! Cruel! But is it any different than the killing of cow, chicken, pig, fish, the poor sheep, or how many other lives in other places and times we don’t know of on Earth? It’s not a question of who eats what, no matter what hemisphere. The fact is that we only eat life. The only difference depends on whether we kill in sophisticated form, fast with no crying, or brutally like worms do. The sun, father of colors and lights showed clear and tinted the fruits in the Chinatown market: fresh vegetables covered in spines, green leaves that we know, that we don’t know, strange roots, ducks hung upside-down, chicken feet, testicles, and ribs of cow or pig, intestines hard to define if pig’s intestines or what are exposed for sale in the butchers’ and restaurant windows. Dried and salted strange little creatures like cockroaches are merchandise too in the exotic markets. A scenario in the pasture of man on my way to the doctor’s office on Canal Street filled with children yelling playing running, and old ladies who told fortunes. A shoe repairman squatted on a stool with his tools laid out on the sidewalk, busy with his customers waiting for their shoes. Clumps of men and women played dominos at tables in Columbus Park. Women fed the pigeons in spite of sign plates that read, Do Not Feed the Pigeons, on the park fence. If I was a pigeon, I’d like to raise my family in Manhattan, easy food here, for man, squirrel, rats, and cockroaches.

A fish at least two feet long jumped from a table. He twisted on the hard sidewalk, despairing without oxygen. With a spear, the fishmonger hooked the fish’s head and put him back on the sale table where he belonged now.

Daryl stopped reading and looked seriously at me. “This is beautiful, Gina,” he said. “What are you going to do with this?”

“I’m going to write a novel.”

“You can write a novel. We have a lot of work to do,” he said.

©2009 Regina Edelman

Busy as a Call Girl on Valentine's Day - 4 of 4

I woke disturbed by the same bad dream I always have of being chased by the police because someone told a lie about me. Janey and I showered together then dried each other off with threadbare bath house towels from a warm pile on top of the hot water pipes. Then bundled again, somewhere between Williamsburg and Greenpoint, we walked silently west toward the East River, Manhattan skyline red and gold beyond. She knew a man on the sidewalk and they talked a few steps away from me.

Walking away with her, I asked, did you sleep with him?

Just figure I slept with every man I talk to.

On the subway ride under the river into the city, I chewed on that pill and the last three days. We ate breakfast in a greasy spoon in the East Village before Janey said, I have to go.

Where?

A job.

Where?

Can’t say. I’m not sure. My work is irregular.

What do you do?

Help friends.

Help friends?

Like I said, it’s irregular. People don’t always need help.

I picked up the check and we split our ways.

I waited for Janey to call, but she didn't, busy as a call girl on Valentine’s Day, so I went back out for a drink to fill in the time until I die.

My carrot-topped friend Constance sat on a bar stool at the far end of my favorite haunt, a brilliant purple octopus tattoo engulfing her freckled left shoulder. I bought a round and told her, I been seeing this girl. She’s a stripper. I been taking her out. She won’t tell me where she works since the strip joints closed.

I can tell you, she dates men for money.

We went to the steam baths with a stripper friend of her’s.

Let me put this nice. You’re a trick.

She gave me this jacket.

I think a guy named John had the jacket before. Watch out. There’s two of them. They’ll steal all your money they can.

They don’t got to steal. I’ll give it to them. I don't care.

You should.

That night, the phone rang and Janey said, I have to talk to you.

I don’t want to talk anymore.

I have to see you.

What do you want?

I don’t want anything. I have to see you, Big Daddy. You know where to meet me. I have to see you now. I need to see you. I can’t tell you over the phone.

You got it. I’m leaving.

I trudged uptown from Chinatown through the slush and was surprised to see Tommy and Banana sitting in the window of an Italian restaurant on the way. They waved me in.

Where you going, Big Daddy? Tommy asked.

You look tired, Big Daddy, Banana said. Sit down. Have a drinkypoo.

I’m going to see Janey for the last time.

Have a little nibble, Big Daddy, Banana urged, hoisting a forkful of spaghetti under my nose. Tomato and meatballs. Your favorite.

I’m not hungry, I said, chomping the spaghetti. She could have taken me for more if she wanted. I tell you, a prostitute can fake love better than a frigid woman can fake she likes being touched. I don’t know.

At least a whore let’s you off the hook, Tommy said.

Shut up, Banana said.

I schooled Tommy, you know they beat you with oak branches for twenty bucks at the Russian baths.

Drink a little, he said.

I ain’t thirsty. Where you get that sweater?

Banana.

Nice. You’re lucky. You like this leather jacket? You can have it. You need something funky.

What’s the matter, Big Daddy?

I know exactly how this is going to turn out, I said, got up and took a taste of Tommy’s bitter black beer, then tramped the last blocks to the Starbucks in the East Village where Janey wanted to play our story out.

In back on a plush seat, she made herself small again on my chest, on my lap, and asked, remember you said you want me to be safe and happy?

Sure.

I need money, however much you can give me. I hate to ask.

I gave her nine hundred cash, more than I really had, and said, I ain’t no sugar daddy.

No, you’re not the type. You’ll pretend you don’t know me if you see me on the street tomorrow, but I’ll remember you for the rest of my life. She kissed me and said, Happy Valentine's Day.

Next: Handsome in America by Regina Edelman