And Even When It Sleeps It’s Still Awake

In New York when it rains in the early mornings I walk up Broadway, letting my feet carry me forward through the flashing lights of 42nd Street. The nocturnally beautiful signs are as bleary and bleak as the weather in daylight, faded and useless when the darkness of the night won’t lend them its mysterious glow. In the daylight Time Square is dull and lack luster, dormant until the night when its soul is found where the wild things are.

At night, under the hot protruding lights, the distorting neon signs that illuminate a new reality, it is easy to become some other entity. Here, the body melts into the roar and smoke of lustful adventures until you are a predator stalking through the night. A mischievous pixie of darkness, you imagine yourself dancing hypnotically in a dark club off the highway, the chill of the Hudson barely noticeable through your flushed skin, your adrenaline pumping veins.

Here, away from the glare of the strobe lights, a woman might touch man’s arm suggestively, a boy might whisper endless promises to a girl’s ear, wooing each other in shadowed mystery. And from this seductive darkness you begin to feel alive, at once greeted by the elusive ambience of the this different world where the music pounds through the walls like a steady heartbeat, mine, yours, Manhattan’s. Eyes closed, smoke sashaying from your cigarette, you trample through the throngs of tourists, businessmen, people, hoping to be as illuminated by this nightly magic as you are.

Not paying attention, I mistakenly bump into a stranger, and let the nocturnal shine fade as on route, I pass BB Kings blues club. During the day it groans an out empty hollow sound of the rhythm it sends out to New York after dark, and receives back in quick footsteps, loud clapping, and excited yells. Everything is hot and sticky as the perspiration of excitement air-dries quickly off the skin. This is how I imagine it at four in the morning, this boisterous city before dawn, a scarce number of people stumbling beneath these nearly burned out signs, yawning. And it yawns back too. Its snores the whispers from the midnight train as it rattles on, hot air floating up through the grates, a quiet sigh, until snores again. The city is tired.

As I walk past the strangers, the neighbors, the lovers of New York City, I can feel their shuffle through the crowded streets, matching each other like the fit of a jigsaw puzzle, never bumping, never touching, as they relay through invisible racetracks towards their destination. Brushing past them, I can smell the delicacies of the New York City’s street vendors, treats reserved only for the brave: hot dogs, pretzels, shish-kabobs… Inhaling deeply, I can feel the salt on my tongue.

I stop deep in thought and consider sacrificing my dollar for a plain hot dog. Assessing the unfinished portion of my journey, I offer the vendor my change.

“Anything on it?” he asks. I shake my head and he offers it to me with a smile. Satisfied I continue on route.

The walk seems endless, an infinite trudge by small unnoticed shops I can’t afford to buy things from. I struggle through puddle filled sidewalks until I find myself within Columbus Circle. Feet tired, I rest amongst the hustle and bustle of the downtown city traffic.

Sitting under the golden glorified globe of Columbus Circle, I ignore the glare of the candescent sun and the heat of the early summer. Though no longer the an unsteady abstraction of light, the city keeps moving, keeps breathing, keeps beating. As cars drive, going and stopping in a perpetual game of Mother May I, it’s impossible to miss how downtown New York still pulsates with life. Everywhere is thriving, bursting with it.

Though the tall concrete structures of New York are now fast asleep, flower petals dance across the street to meet me from Central Park, making twirls and arabesques until they plie to the ground, resting until the light breeze tempts them to dance again to the daytime music of chirping birds and speedy cell phone chatter. From afar, the public bus blares its horn and a siren rings loudly as it screams its way up Broadway. I try not to cover my ears, smiling wryly at how “un-New Yorker” the reaction would seem. Still, around me times goes on, though more slowly, and no one takes the time to notice.

I breathe in the polluted New York City air and sigh.

It sighs back.

It feels good to be home.