Free Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

sister.
    I know, right? Kinky. You could watch.
    This stings. More than it should.
    I tell her to watch her arm while I close the door, then lean in.
    No offense, but you’re not his type.
    Why not?
    He’s celibate. By choice.
    She smiles.
    That’s it? That’s nothing. I know plenty of lapsed celibates.
    That so?
    You bet. Even lapsed a few myself.
    We take the livery cab north toward Mark’s apartment at the former Trump Tower off Columbus Circle. Not a Brooklyn livery cab either. This is no rusted-out Crown Victoria. It’s a bulletproof limo, sleek as a sea lion.
    Dashboard Geiger counter starts clicking and the driver steers a wide arc east to avoid Times Square. On these far-east avenues in Manhattan, heading uptown, you could almost believe the city is just like it was, only less so, cleared out, like how a sleepy summer Sunday used to feel. A few stray pedestrians. The random rogue yellow cab. Bright window signs promising blow-out sales.
    But then we cut across midtown, which is a ghost town. Just trash and empty storefronts, long since looted. No more blow-out sales. Just blown out.
    Dashboard Geiger chatters again and the driver cuts north.
    The lack of tourists alone leaves it spooky. No one snapping photos, wrestling maps, gawking at skyscrapers, waddling along in a cluster, clogging the sidewalk, kids trailing behind licking soft-serve ice cream and wearing seven-pointed Statue of Liberty crowns made of sea-green foam.
    Now there’s plenty of room on the sidewalk for everyone, if anyone was out on the sidewalk.
    No traffic.
    Streets are clear.
    The brighter side of car bombs, I guess.
    They still go off from time to time. The car bombs. Planted by copycats with lesser ambitions. Easy to pull off now that no one’s paying much attention to the streets.
    Just another ongoing inconvenience of life in the big city.
    As long as you’re not standing too close, I find you flinch a little less every time.
    In the end, half stayed, half left.
    Simple math.
    Not all who stayed hid in penthouses either. Some still run delis, wash dishes, fold laundry, mop lobbies, ride buses, drive cabs. They either moved back in to Manhattan when the last wave left or they still trundle in on broken trains from the outer boroughs. Too dumb or too poor or too hopeful to pull the plug and pack up and leave like the rest. All those diehards who refuse to let the city die.
    In any case.
    No mystery to it. Just basic subtraction.
    Cut a city in half and you’re left with half a city.
    But you definitely notice the ones who are gone just as much as the ones who stayed.
    The driver pulls up to the building, idles out front as we head inside.
    Trump Tower. Former hotel and soaring glass eyesore. Named for the Donald of course. Long since dead. First thing the kids did when they pitched their camps in Central Park was lasso his statue, pull it down, put a dress on it. Last I saw it, it was still riding on the roof deck of a double-decker tourist bus, forever looping the park.
    Mark’s apartment’s not the penthouse, but it’s close enough. Not sure how Mark affords it. He’s got some secret deal with some closet benefactor. He’s coy about it and I don’t press.
    From his living room, we can see the camps in Central Park. Bonfires dotting the dusk.
    On the avenues, police cars park, lightbars swirling. A show of force.
    Mark’s got two drinks in his hands, one liquor, one seltzer. Liquor’s for me.
    Mark sips the seltzer.
    Looks like the mayor’s decided to finally crack down.
    Now? Why?
    I think it’s the Crusade. You must have heard about it. Harrow at the Garden.
    You ever met him?
    T. K. Harrow? Oh no. But I never really felt like we were in the same business, to be honest.
    We watch as the cops lay down bright orange barricades.
    What are they doing? Chasing them out?
    No.
    Another sip.
    Sealing them in.
    Persephone comes out of the bathroom, poured into snakeskin pants.
    What do you think? Nice, right? Chinatown special.