Free A New Yorker's Stories by Philip Gould

could use. At the stroke of twelve the check-out clerk rang up my purchases and off we went. Jake, as cavalier as usual, saw me back to the door of my apartment house.

CHAPTER V: NEW YORK

BOTH ENDS OF 23rd STREET
    Today was another New York Day! I had prepared for the day the night before by writing all the objectives and numbering them in the order of execution with consideration to strategic subway stops and convenient bus connections and the time factor for each event.
    I had to fast this day for blood taking. So without breakfast I left home around nine- thirty already a little late. There was a stop first at Walgreen’s pharmacy to drop off four prescriptions. I was not a little dismayed by the express train flying past my local stop filled with travelers in mid-morning too late to go to work, I thought, and too early to be sight-seeing or seeking entertainment. It is a puzzlement for me to figure out what so many people are doing traveling in the middle of the morning. I grabbed the express train waiting at the 96th Street station just to save a few minutes. The prescriptions were dropped off, and three vials of blood were taken a little later at the lab; the schedule was working. When I stopped at the corner deli I was really hungry. I ordered a take-out sandwich and coffee which I consumed, partly, on the bus going to 23rd Street. I was on time for the physical therapy session at the VA hospital. The session was productive especially since I was asked to lie upon a padded table to perform certain stretching exercises. Between movements I could simply relax and catch my breath. At twelve noon I headed over to the local senior citizen center for lunch just in time to get in the serving line without having to wait. I’m on friendly terms with several seniors there so we could converse over lunch.
    Then I took the 23rd Street bus going west all the way to Eleventh Avenue and to the “Black Market” where I met some of my African friends and spent another hour and a half looking at African artifacts. The scene there is actually in a downward spiral. Many fellows are returning to Africa probably never to return to the United States given the difficulties regarding immigration protocol. The storage house in former times was a haven for the African merchants, a place to socialize, to display their wares, to share life’s ups and downs. It was for a long time a very convivial place but little by little, due to the change in the neighborhood, the space became too valuable for just storage. Chelsea was gentrifying, boutiques were entering the picture not to mention the flood of upscale galleries. The African dealers were literally squeezed out. Besides, African artifacts, like other third world objects are not infinite, they get used up and bought up and eventually disappear never to be replaced. We are living through an historic moment, as it were.
    One of my African friends accompanied me home via taxi because the bag of African brass figures I bought was too heavy for me to lift. I served my friend a late lunch and off he went. I collapsed in my bed for an afternoon nap until six. Another day in New York, only in New York, where so many events could be crowded into one day. (9/12/07)

THE CARLYLE
    Yesterday was a day to remember. It began inauspiciously because the subway was partially closed, at least, the trains were bypassing the local stations on the Upper West Side. There are little posters plastered all over the station but no one really pays attention to them before it is too late. New Yorkers depend on their public transportation when it works. On this day it was not working and I was in a desperate way to reach my destination for a luncheon appointment, not just any luncheon appointment, but a very special one at the Carlyle Hotel. I have never been there, though the name is legendary and of another world I never expected to inhabit even for a second. But I am incredibly late. What to do? I