Donald Cashman crossed Forty-Second Street after leaving a movie theater. He stretched his cramped legs and twisted at the waist to relieve his sore hip joint. He would have liked to touch his toes as a stretching panacea, but bending over, ass protruding, on a busy sidewalk, in New York City was probably a bad idea. “Not as spry as I used to be,” he thought, with a slight and disbelieving shake of his head, with a second thought, “Time flies when you’re having fun, but leaves behind wrinkles and rust.” He could see and feel the wrinkles, so arthritis must be the rust.
He stepped close to a storefront window to get out of the stampeding bodies rushing by him. He didn’t like the feel of big city life. His ears tingled with the sounds of dresses, pants, coats, conversations, and footsteps that disturbed the air with passing bodies. It created a breeze that washed his face, ruffled his black hair, but felt good, but offensive at the same time. A ‘cattle drive’ was the word that came to mind.
He felt the center of attention. “The eyes are attracted to moving objects,” he thought, “so the eyes of moving objects must be attracted to stationary objects,” and he became the center of attention for the passing herd. Self-consciously he turned and faced his reflection in the windowpane. “Ah, fuck. This’ll make the staring worse.” He could feel the flush of heat as it helmeted his face. He was looking into a lingerie store with scantily clad mannequins. His face flushed brighter when he heard the giggles of passersby. “I must look like a perverted old man,” was his thought. “Move,” he commanded himself. He turned and walked down the street feeling sad. He supposed the lingerie store caused him to think of sex and sex made him think of his wife in their highly passionate, younger years. His mind drifted to how much he loved her. He thought, “Love is the feeling that is sometimes difficult to explain because it can’t entirely be physical or chemical. But it’s the north star to lovers. Love is like a passionate magnetic attraction that draws and guides us. It is a brightness that shines on our darkest experiences. Without it we are less happy, less fulfilled, a lesser person as if one of our appendages were missing, without it the nights are lonely, and the marriage bed is cold and uncomfortable. When true love is finally found it strengthens us, holds us tightly, warmly, and pleasurably. It makes us want to run home to the object of our love, to caress it, to add more love to it. Love feeds on us and we feed on it, a lovely symbiosis between two people. Love is our savior. Without it, we are doomed to dissatisfaction, loneliness, and desperation. Love fills that void. It makes us stand tall, be happy, and be proud of ourselves and our family.”
“Retirement life can be fun and rewarding,” he thought,” but that’s mostly nullified with the sudden death of a cherished wife, as in my case. It’s damn lonely if the woman you’ve loved for over four decades no long shares the remainder of life with you.” Lost in his thoughts he was walking slowly, so he was getting bumped and pushed, and wondered if a cattle prod would be his next feeling. He darted out of pedestrian traffic and into a men’s clothing store where he was out of the crowd and could relax. He bought a New York Yankees baseball cap and placed it on his already ruffled hair. He waited for the sidewalk crowd to thin, then continued on his way.
He was thinking of the mirror’s reflection as he tried on the baseball cap. “Wrinkles and rust,” he thought.
Donald arrived at the bus stop, and waited there only a moment when he spotted an Italian restaurant across the street, so he changed his mind about the bus and strode farther down the street to the crosswalk.
At the crosswalk, he waited for the light signaling pedestrians to cross the street. As he waited he was bumped, grazed and someone even pushed him aside from his position. While waiting, he became more aware of the assaulting engine noises, exhaust smells, tires sticking to warm tar, the need for loud talking, and the constant beeping that was irritating and brought on him a strong need for peace and quiet. He felt like a headache was brewing and hoped it wouldn’t flare up. He asked himself, “Why the hell are these hordes of people in such a damn hurry? This city defines the term ‘rat race.’” People were scurrying to get someplace they should have been ten minutes ago. It must be constantly stressed when your employer associates being on time the same as being late. He longed for the serene, pastoral, and bucolic scenes of rural Caledonia, New York.
While waiting to cross the street he noticed many pedestrians staring at their cell phones or staring downward at their feet, both reminding him of worshipers busy with some sacred activity or, maybe, they didn’t want to see all the other moving sardines packed tightly together. He hoped they didn’t smell that way. He knew he was being negative and prejudiced, so he tried for more positive thoughts and spaghetti was the best one right now.
He saw that there was also a Starbucks across the street. He could smell the coffee and was tempted until he saw the ridiculous prices. He’d switch to tea before he’d buy a Starbucks coffee. Might as well buy a coffee-flavored candy bar. He chastised himself for being negative, again.
After he crossed the street, it was mid-afternoon, but he could smell the tang of tomato sauce and decided on an early lunch. He wasn’t anxious to sit again and get sore and stiff again, so he walked past the restaurant, drooling, then towards the Port Authority Bus Station. At the intersection he turned around and walked back to the welcomed aroma of Umberto’s Italian Cuisine. A coffee cup full of sauce might be good. He smiled. “I’ll bet a cup of coffee doesn’t cost ten bucks here, he whispered to himself.
Umberto’s had outdoor seating with umbrella-shaped covers for shade. The morning had been comfortably cool, but Donald could feel the air warming already. He unzipped his jacket so it wouldn’t trap his body heat. When he arrived at the restaurant, he was lucky. He spotted an unoccupied table in the corner, away from the moving colony of ant people on the sidewalk and the growling sounds of the metal monsters on the street. It got him away from the constantly loud noises and away from the stench of car and truck exhaust smells. He was pleased when he realized the strong, aromatic sauce smell cloaked the exhaust smells. He hurried to the table and sat. The first thing he ordered was coffee. A dollar and fifty cents. He smiled as he sipped.
He ordered a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with grated Romano cheese sprinkled across the top of the pile. While waiting for his order to arrive, he thought about Mara’s family and was always delighted to see his teenage grandkids. He loved them, visited once or twice a year and they visited him every other Thanksgiving and Christmas so that her husband’s family got the see them, too. Donald took another sip of his coffee. He glanced toward the sidewalk, then the road and whispered to himself, “I could never live here. I have a comfortable, quiet home a few hundred miles to the north and I’ll be back there next week.
The coffee relaxed him, so his cramped calf muscles and hip soreness had dissolved. “Sitting was bad. Walking was good,” Mara kept telling him. He leaned back in his black, metal chair and smiled with satisfaction.
His order came, a mound of pasta and a basket of bread, the sauce was so hot it steamed. The white cheese shreds covering the top of the pile made it look as if snow at the peak of a mountain. A bloody mountain, but “Yummy,” he declared. “Meatball first.” He cut it in half and forked half into his mouth. He chewed slowly, enjoying every second. The sauce was delicious and made even better with the taste of garlic. The meatballs were tasty, moist on the inside, too. They must have been cooking in the sauce, making them moist and more flavorful instead of cooked separately and dry inside like you would get at most restaurants.
His Italian mother and aunts who did all the cooking while he was growing up left him particularly predisposed to Italian style cooking. The food was a delight to his pallet and had been since his childhood where the smells of Italian cooking took their place in the air he breathed. Italian delicatessens dominated that area which added to the rich aroma, especially the smells of tomato sauce and the ever-popular pizza.
While stuffing my mouth with another fork-full of coiled pasta, I thought I heard crying. Where was it coming from? I turned, looked down the sidewalk and saw a preteen girl crying, eyes brimming with tears. She tripped and fell not seeing where she was going due to her blurred vision, I suppose. She had a shredded tissue soaking up the tears and was constantly sniffling to control the dripping of nasal mucus.
I was staring at her, then wondering why I was the only one who seemed to care. I could feel and see the emotional coldness of the pedestrians and the people, like me, enjoying their food outside. When I focused on her again, she was also focused on me, looking directly and desperately at me.
Without much thought, I twisted the fork into the pile of spaghetti as she reached my table. I placed the forkload of spaghetti in my mouth. I could feel my cheeks bulging as she reached my table and sat directly opposite me. I had to swallow quickly and almost choked when she said, “Mister, I need help. I saw you looking at me and you had kind eyes.” I wiped the sauce off my lips and answered, “Of course. Please sit and tell me why you need help. But first, tell me your name.”
“Amelia. Amelia Rossi.”
She settled down, slowly started breathing regularly, her tears quickly drying on her still flushed cheeks.
In a pitiful sounding voice, she addressed me saying, “Mister. Please. I’m really scared.” She lowered her head, chin to chest, as if ashamed of having to beg for help.
When she looked up at me, her face looked raw and red, a few tears still in the corners of her eyes. I said, “Amelia, I’m Mr. Cashman. I’m glad to meet you, and I’ll try to help if I can. How old are you?”
She wiped away stray tears, looked me directly in the eye with a proud countenance, and uttered, “I’ll be twelve in three months. Almost all grew up.” We shook hands and I noticed her staring at my plate of spaghetti. She licked her lips and swallowed saliva as if hungry.
“Amelia? Do you need something to eat?”
“Sure, mister. I’m Italian and yur spaghetti looks super. I ain’t ate in a while.”
Her mouth must have been watering because her words sounded as if she were talking while drinking a glass of water. “OK,” I said. I’ll order you a plate of spaghetti for you.”
“Oh, no. Don’t do that! I want help, but I’m no pathic beggar.”
She meant to say ‘pathetic’ but there was no sense in correcting her.
I held up my index finger and said, “Wait a minute.” Then I put a fork full of spaghetti in my mouth, chewed and swallowed as she watched me with crinkled, curious eyes. Her eyes nearly bulged out when I shoved my plate of spaghetti across the table to her. She stared at me as if I’d pull it back and say, “Ha. Ha. I fooled you.
“Wait. I’ll ask for a clean fork.”
“Nah. No need. She reached across the table and snatched my fork off the napkin. “You aint one of those leopard guys are yah?”
“You know. Those people who have rotting skin.”
“Oh, you mean leprosy. No, I don’t have that.”
“Good,” was her brief answer. Food was more important to her than words. A few minutes ago, she was a crying wreck. Having her hunger satisfied must have been like medicine for her sadness.
The half of a meatball that I did not eat was already gone, and now she was shoveling in the pasta that made each cheek bulge like a hungry chip monk finally finding a food source.
I let her eat quietly and used the pause to inspect how she was dressed. Like many outdoor eateries, the tables and chairs have designs with empty spaces between them so the rain with fall off faster and won’t need to be wiped dry after a rainstorm. The table was somewhat see-through, so I could see her lower half.
She was wearing well-worn sneakers that were so dirty that they looked gray. One was ripped, the other with a large, frayed spot. The laces must have been white at one time, but now they looked more like black licorice laces. No socks, thread bare jeans that were too large and that needed to be washed, a multi-cracked, plastic belt that must have been as old as she was. She definitely had Mediterranean olive colored skin of an Italian or Greek. She reminded me of a young and dirty Connie Francis, a singer popular in my youth. They both have jet black hair, but Amelia’s hair was extra short as if, to save money, a bowl had been inverted, placed on her head, and the visible hair chopped off with dull scissors. Her face looked pleasant although smudged with an unknown substance. I imagined her as an adult and decided she would be a pretty girl, maybe beautiful, if no tragedy struck her in the next decade.
She was nearly finished now. Her final act of eating was to take a slice of bread from the basket, then wipe it around the plate like a sponge to collect as much as the remaining sauce as possible. Then with a contented sigh she sat back into the chair, rubbed her hand in circles around her stomach, then burped loudly. Maybe that was proper at home for her. She smiled at me. “Thanks dude. You’re a nice man. I’ll pray for you to Saint Christopher the saint of travelers. Well, walking is traveling, too, yah know.”
“For someone who was crying a little while ago, and scared, you sure are having trouble telling me your situation. You said you needed help.”
“Well, yah see, I was walking in the park, got excited by the birds and squirrels and kept chasing after them. I heard momma yelling for me to stay close, but I was so excited that my legs just kept following them. Then the gray squirrel hid, and the pretty birds flew away, then I didn’t hear momma anymore. I got all twisted up and wasn’t sure where I started. I tried to find momma but couldn’t. Momma’s going to be so mad. I know it’s my fault and I don’t know the city well enough, but momma was right behind me, then, pow, like magician’s smoke she was gone. So, anyway, mister, that’s why I need to take a taxi to get home quick I got no money, so will yah give me ten bucks for taxi?”
Suddenly she was the crying little girl again. She had just tried to be brave, but that attempt just collapsed. The tears came, her face and neck becoming flushed again. The corners of her lips, besides being stained with dried sauce, turned downward. Again, she looked like a helpless little girl lost in the big, bad city. Poor kid. “Amelia, you can use my phone to call home, or call your dad work, right?”
“OMG! You tryin’ to get me killed? I’d be grounded for life if you call my dad at the Swedish place. We just moved to the hobo town…”
“Hold on. Wait a minute. Where?”
“Hoboken. You know. Hobo town, in Jersey. We useta live in Albany, but my dad got some special math awards at night school and got hired at that foreigner’s place. Swedish something. Not the candy place. He helps the people who can’t count good.”
“You mean the Swedish Institute? That place isn’t foreign, but I guess it sounds like that. They train nurses and medical technicians. My daughter told me about it. I guess it’s a little famous for being there so long. A hundred years, I think.”
“Mister, look.” She pointed to a taxi that just came around the corner. She was bouncing in her seat with excitement.
“I gotta get home safe and ahead of momma, then maybe momma won’t’ be mad and don’t haveta tell my dad. Please, mister.” she begged.
I quickly grabbed my wallet and took ten dollars out. I looked at her sad face, then switched the ten for a twenty-dollar bill. I handed it across the table to her. She snatched the money out of my hand and said, “Thanks, mister. Saint Christopher will be good tah yah in yur trips. He’s the saint of travelers, you know. Bye.”
She rocketed out of her chair, ran halfway down the block to the taxi, and propelled herself into the back seat. The driver looked back at her, and she showed him the money. He was smiling as he drove away with Amelia being sweet and waving to me from the side, then the back window. I felt happy and proud that I could help someone in need, especially such a cute, innocent girl. Mentally I patted myself on the back and thought, “Mara will be proud of me, too. My good deed for the week of my visit. Charitable deeds have their emotional rewards. I hope she doesn’t get grounded.”
As I was lost with self-congratulatory compliments, the waitress said, “Your bill sir.” She paused and stayed by my table. I looked up at her as she was saying, “Sir, I’m new here, so I hope my service was satisfactory. If it was, I’d appreciate a kind remark written on the bill.”
She smiled as I said, “It was good service.” I gave her the money for dinner and a generous tip and said, “I’ll write the kind remark right now. You have a pen?” She handed me a pen; I gave her a complimentary remark. She read it as I wrote it, then flashed a toothy smile and said, “Thank you. That was generous of you to have lunch with your granddaughter.” She walked away before I could correct her.
Suddenly a busboy was there to clear off the table. I gave him a friendly smile as I was in a good mood and self-satisfied. I said, “I just saved a girl who was lost. Gave her money for a taxi ride home.”
“Did she say her name was Amelia Rossi?”
“Uhm, in fact, she did. How do you know?”
“You took the table over here out of the way and in this shaded corner, so I didn’t see her, or I woulda warned you. Her name is Connie something. She’s got a reputation for doin’ that kind of thing all over the city. The taxi driver is her father and the car that looks like a taxi used to be a real taxi until he bought it at an auction. No ‘taxi’ sign on the roof, right? No commercial license plates either, which a real taxi would have. They have a good con going. Her name is ‘Con-nie,’ get it?”
Crestfallen, I stood and walked away feeling like a big, slimy fish. I had a pain in my mouth. Maybe it was the fishhook. “Sucker,” I mumbled.
END
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