I was walking home down Seventh Avenue, past the Duane Reade and the apartment buildings and the little bars and delis, unhurried, dreamy, done for the day.

To my right, a cab sped up to beat the changing traffic light. A loud, dull thump sounded, and in my lousy peripheral vision, something cart-wheeled through the air. People screamed. Almost instantly, men and women grabbed for their cell phones, and were punching three digits onto the keypads.

I headed for the little crowd gathering at the intersection. Outside the trendy Cafeteria, a young woman with sharply beautiful features and hair pulled back in a long ponytail kept repeating herself, the way people so often do in moments of trauma. “The cabbie hit him. He hit him. He just-- hit him.”

I kept asking questions as I made my way to the scene. Turns out that a guy somewhere in his forties, in a fatigue jacket, jeans and sneakers, a Walkman on his head, stepped into the intersection a second too soon, as the cabbie sped through it a second too late.

I think about this a lot. The Critical Moment. That split second when carelessness collides with circumstance, resulting in a tragedy painfully out of proportion to the offense.

We’ve all heard the stories. An apartment-dweller falls asleep with the space heater a little too close to the bedspread; it catches fire, leaving a dozen people hurt and homeless. A late-for-work commuter opens the car door without looking, and a hell-bent bicycle messenger smashes into it.

Then there was the sunny September Sunday morning, thirty-five years ago, when a driver on a Chicago highway overpass changed lanes without looking-- and drove my brother and his fiancée off the road to their deaths.

Back on Seventh Avenue, by the time I reached the intersection, the paramedics (St. Vincent’s, still functioning at the time, was just five blocks away)had clamped one of those thick protective collars onto the victim’s neck, and were lifting him into the ambulance on a stretcher. “At least he’s not dead,” a short, squarely-built woman with curly salt-and-pepper hair said behind me. Cops scribbled down witness information. A squad car had already whisked the cab driver away.

I stared at the puddle of blood in the street. Where was Walkman Guy headed on this beautiful evening? Was someone waiting for him, starting to worry? Did he have a sister and a fiancée?

I don’t remember walking the rest of the way home. As I reached for the phone to call the hospital, I realized I didn’t even know the victim’s name.

The next morning, I checked 1010 WINS and the newspapers. Nothing. Do they even bother unless it’s a fatal hit-and-run?

A work assignment, e-mails, chores and bills demanded my attention. Apparently I dealt with them. I do remember staring at a favorite quote on my bulletin board, “No man is an island, entire of itself…” , as thoughts about Walkman Guy, the cabbie, the beautiful pony-tailed woman, the salt-and-pepper haired lady, the bystanders with the cell phones, my brother and his fiancée haunted me.

It’s so easy to mess things up in this life. So easy to hurt people. So easy to be wrong. Make your mistake in Manhattan, where people live crammed so closely together, and you can detonate a shock wave of horror and pain.

Pony-tail Girl looked as if she’d been raised to not suffer a moment of unpleasantness in her life. Salt-and-Pepper Lady looked as if she’d suffered entirely too many. The guys in the sport coats with the cell phones stared stunned, as if they’d seen this moment in a thousand mediocre movies, but never completely understood the pain it would inflict when played out by live humans ten feet in front of them. My brother, with his sweet deep voice and big quizzical smile, never really leaves my consciousness, but the sickening thump and the body hurtling through the air catapulted me directly back to the worst night of my life.

Back at home, I realized I never actually saw the cabbie. I assumed the law would decide his fate.

None of us can afford to tiptoe through life with such meticulous caution that we never make a mistake. Especially not on the speedway known as life in Manhattan. Rev it up, or you blow the deadline, fall short of the quota, lose the fare, get left behind.

Most of the time, most of us get away with it. Driven and impatient, we rush from one destination to the next, too often assuming it’s the other guy’s responsibility to get out of the way. We inflict God only knows how many lesser hurts, apologize to the people we ram into on the sidewalk, resume rushing forward. Fortunately, most of us will never kill anybody with our determination to get ahead.

But in my life I’ve been staggered by the carnage one split second of thoughtlessness can leave behind. By the realization that somewhere, beneath the rushing and the scheming and the mania for accomplishment, lie wounds so deep they never completely heal. Memories of days and nights you thought the sorrow would kill you. Nightmares to which you kid yourself you’ve been reconciled. And I’ve been staggered by how easily total strangers can inflict these wounds-- and rip them open them again.

“Never send to know for whom the bell tolls…” Just hope that someone will kick the space heater an inch or two towards safety, that some Good Samaritan will honk a warning, that the hippie and his girlfriend in the next lane will speed up and drive away safely. That the critical moment will pass unremarkably, and a second of thoughtlessness won’t shatter a perfect spring evening, a Sunday morning in September, or someone else’s life.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Christine Nieland graduated from Northwestern University. She has worked as a filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and story editor in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. She currently works as a writer, researcher and story analyst for RHI Entertainment, and in her spare time, she’s a figure skater.
 

Her mail came addressed to two completely different names. Behind her back, everybody called her Bingo. Eventually, she did the same.

Our eight-unit building has two apartments on each landing. Bingo lived across the landing from me. When I first moved in, I tried to be cordial, and she chirped her hellos and told me how happy she was to have me as her new neighbor. She started giving me things. Kitschy fold-up tray tables with faux black marble tops. Little spring-bouquet and cartoon-animal decorated note cards I eventually threw away. Then one day she offered me a knit black vest that reeked so powerfully of bourbon it made my eyes water. I said No Thank You.

Maybe it was then that Bingo’s attitude toward me began to roller-coaster, alternating friendliness and fury for the rest of the time I knew her. It probably would have happened anyway.

Bingo told me she was a hand model for a local art school. Everyone else said she was a retired prostitute. Those letters to the two different names appeared to be earnings statements from financial institutions. So maybe some prostitutes really do save up their money.

The clanging of bottles would herald her arrival. Bingo drank. And when she drank, she fell down. I’d frequently hear the tumbling of Bingo and unknown objects to the floor inside her apartment. When she drank in bars, she’d fall trying to make it back up the stairs to her place. We’d hear that too. One day I found her lying at the bottom of the stairs, rolled up like a little hedgehog in a terribly matted pink fake-fur jacket and wrinkled black miniskirt, dead leaves and twigs stuck all over them. As I helped her up, she mumbled about having fallen down in the park.

We never knew quite what she’d do next, or what would set her off. One afternoon an actor stopped by my apartment to pick up a script. We were both in a hurry, spoke briefly, then he took off. A couple of minutes after he’d gone, Bingo’s screaming voice assaulted my door. “Cunt! Bitch! Bitch! Cunt! Cunt!” and went on for several minutes. I didn’t think this was necessarily a crime, so I didn’t call the cops, but I rang up the landlord for guidance. Held up the phone so he could hear the continuing screams. “Forget it!” he laughed, “She’s harmless.” And that was true. She scared the hell out of me anyway.

Apart from that psychotic dirty look she’d sometimes shoot your way, she never did actually hurt anybody, though sometimes she got into screaming fights with people over nothing. And every now and then she’d do something flat-out insane. One night she stood in the garden, bleating a fractured monologue about how the Catholics were going to get her, but the Russians were going to get them. One day she had her answering service call me to ask what I wanted from her. Her smoke alarm had started chirping as the battery ran out; she had no idea where the sound was coming from, and assumed I was tormenting her. One Christmastime, she ran up and down the stairs ringing a Salvation Army bell. She dropped her underwear onto the tree branches outside the windows of Glen, the cute pastry chef who lived in the apartment below her–apparently unaware that Glen was gay. She also dropped her used tampons into the courtyard below her east window, seriously disconcerting the young couple who found them outside their door.

Every now and then late at night I’d hear her conversing with a fellow barfly at her front door, Bingo murmuring a boozy protest, the guy saying something original like “Come on, baby, you know you want it.” They’d go in, and sometimes a scuffle would ensue. She’d scream for help, knowing I’d call the police. They’d show up, there’d be slurred explanations about Catholic missionaries or something, nobody’d get arrested, and the cops, rolling their eyes, would retreat till the next time.

The end began for Bingo with one of her famous falls. I didn’t know about it till months later when she told me she thought she’d broken her arm, but never went to the doctor. The bone didn’t set properly, so she lost the use of it; it hung stiffly at her side, and she needed help taking care of herself.

I was heading out for a meeting one day when I heard this rhythmic grinding noise coming from the stairway. Some kind of machinery? Hornets? A radio show? The plumbing malfunctioning? Nope. It was a man in a down jacket snoring away on the landing. An acquaintance of Bingo’s with no place else to go.

He moved in and became her “caretaker.” I still heard the falling-down noises every now and then, but he ran all the errands, took in the mail, lugged the groceries. At one point it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Bingo in months.

Bingo’s great luck/bad luck lay in the miniscule rent-controlled rent she paid, a fraction of the fair-market price.

One day a crew of workmen descended on the apartment. They came out rolling their eyes the way the cops did. One of them mentioned to me the irony that the “caretaker” was beating the patient up.

The landlord got her declared incompetent and evicted her.

And so she was gone. Replaced by a parade of attractive, fit, cheerful young career women, Katies and Jennifers and Stephanies. The change reminded me of Times Square. The seamy, dangerous and forbidden giving way to the corporate, bland and clean.

Most of the time I’m consumed by my own work and life. I’d only think about my odd neighbor after one of those episodes with the cops, or some notable screaming/falling/discarding of intimate objects incident. But Bingo did force me to think about her ex-profession. I work in film and TV, where hooker characters abound, as gimmicks, plot conveniences and vehicles for glamorous actresses to dress down and win Oscars. But in reality–john after john after john, violation after violation after violation– Did the terrible routine of her profession shatter her sanity? Was she unhinged to begin with, and the booze and career choice push her over the edge completely? Or did it all mesh together, like Bingo tumbling down the stairs? Why did she think she needed two names? To pretend that one of them wasn’t really her?

Two weeks ago I did something that had never occurred to me before: I Googled Bingo’s two distinct names. One gave up no results whatsoever. The other produced just one little notice–that she died in upstate New York earlier this year.
 

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Christine Nieland graduated from Northwestern University. She has worked as a filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and story editor in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.  She currently works as a writer, researcher and story analyst for RHI Entertainment, and in her spare time, she’s a figure skater.

I browsed my way to the back of the store, where I weighed the relative merits of the big plastic dinosaur versus the cinnamon bear hand puppet.

A teenage clerk sat behind the little counter, chewing gum as she read a children’s book. Ballerina dolls and airplanes dangled overhead; toy jewelry and miniature books lined the countertop. The young clerk could have been part of the toy display.

The doorbell buzzed.

The clerk didn’t move.

The bell sounded again. Two, three, four times in a row.

I checked out the clerk. She only had to lean forward slightly to buzz the door open, but instead just sat there, rigidly hunched over the storybook, chewing assiduously.

“That book can’t be that engrossing,” I thought. “I wonder if she’s hard of hearing.”

The buzzing stopped, replaced by a polite tapping on the door glass. “Hello?” a male voice sounded. “Can you open the door, please?”

On the sidewalk outside the door stood a handsome, impeccably-groomed man in his late thirties, toting one of those rich-looking brown leather briefcases you see in the specialty stores, and wearing a trenchcoat that probably cost more than I make in a month.

“Hey–can you let me in?” he repeated.

Despite this guy’s obviously stratospheric income bracket, I guessed that we did have one dilemma in common–an impending special occasion and no enthusiasm for noisy, battery-powered conventional toys. As the only customer in the store, I felt obliged to support my fellow deadline-beater. I looked at the clerk and started to say something, but the man at the door beat me to it.

“Aw, come on!” he complained, “You’re not letting me in because I’m black!”

The girl hunched even harder over her book; I think she would have jumped in and closed it around herself if she could have.

Trying to approximate that expression that relief pitchers level at batters with two men out and runner on third, I glared at the teenage clerk. She looked at me imploringly. “The last two times I let black guys in here, they robbed me!” she blurted.

I had no way of knowing whether or not that was true. I guessed it was an exaggeration–it’s more likely that two guys robbed her once. But she was physically shaking, so I did believe that somebody robbed her. Most likely not an investment banker.

I’m a writer. I spend a great deal of my time crossing out my first impulse, re-working every expression of thought before committing it to the public. It’s a very enjoyable and reassuring process. Nothing reaches other people till I’ve satisfied myself that it’s ready. But there is one drawback–I don’t get enough practice thinking on my feet.

I felt terrible for the man outside. But I knew I had no authority whatsoever to tell the terrified clerk what to do. I couldn’t think of anything to say. So I adopted an expression I hoped conveyed a plea for rationality, plus an assurance that in the event she let the man in and violent crime ensued, all one hundred three pounds of me would leap to her defense.

She only ducked further into her book.

I exchanged looks with the man at the door, and shrugged sympathetically. He could have asked me to let him in, but he didn’t. I could have gone to the front of the store and opened the door for him, but I didn’t. I don’t know why.

The man turned in disgust and walked away, taking his billion-buck briefcase with him. I reluctantly decided not to make my nephew suffer for someone else’s racism with a late-arriving birthday present, so I paid for the cinnamon bear. The clerk’s eyes never lifted above the cash register. I never bought anything in that store again.

This all happened several years ago, but the moment when the three of us stood paralyzed has always stuck in my mind. It is a grim, perfect image of some frustrating truths about the state of race relations in this country.

Behind the cash register, the terrified white person who can’t tell a Crip from a Merrill Lynch representative if his skin color happens to be black. The wimpy liberal sickened by injustice, but too polite and unimaginative to do anything about it. And, banging on the window, the impeccably-groomed guy in the thousand-dollar trenchcoat. Prosperous and successful, but, on some unforgivable occasions, still denied access to the beautiful toys.

As part of the security plan, a Frozen Zone– no unauthorized vehicles or pedestrians– has been created around Madison Square Garden. The Zone itself is actually quite small, but the street closings and security checks create a major headache.

Monday, August 30

RNC Day One. The sun beats down and the air’s not moving. A demonstration travels up 7th to the Garden. On 9th from the Village to Midtown, cops stand posted at every corner, scanning the pedestrians, chatting, fanning themselves with their hats.

The closer you get to MSG, the more crowded, tense, confusing and scary the whole things gets. More cops mill around 31st and 9th; metal barriers line the curb. Pedestrians are stopped from crossing either north of 31st or east of 9th. One after another, they ask cops questions; the cops point around the barrier and north. Inside the Zone itself, concrete barriers, TV satellite trucks, red, white and blue charter buses, orange plastic traffic cones, camera crews, the Garden itself, cops, cops and cops combine to form a picture of loosely controlled panic.

The overstressed and overheated seek refuge in the Cheyenne Diner (featuring “Buffalo Burgers” and frescos of Indians astride steers), just outside the Zone at 33rd and 9th. Manager Spiro Kasimas looks around at his two dozen or so customers–cops, fire fighters, tourists, demonstrators, journalists and locals. “Right now there are four people here I know. I asked around beforehand. Eight out of ten of my regulars said ‘We’re takin’ our vacation this week.’”

Across the street, authoritative Officer Nesmith stands at the pedestrian bottleneck, answering question after question after question. He gives directions north, south, west and all the way around.

With truck deliveries into the Frozen Zone prohibited, men pushing hand carts loaded with ice, soft drinks and big square cartons of catered food line up in the baking heat, eventually get to display their various forms of identification, then get passed through. A low-flying helicopter noisily buzzes the Garden. Again and again and again. A wilted-looking protester carries a sign: “Hermaphrodites are people too.” He passes a woman with a sign of her own: “NYC Women to RNC: Get the Fuck Out.”

Tuesday, August 31

It’s A31, the day designated for demonstrations involving, depending on which radio station you listen to, “non-violent protest and direct action” (NPR) or “Anarchists!” (1010 WINS).

But the weather has broken, the demonstrations are happening somewhere downtown, and life around the Frozen Zone has settled into its temporary routine. Seventh Avenue is now open, the sidewalks less congested.

The McDonald’s is once again accessible. However, only a handful of customers sit inside.

Yesterday, Spiro had nailed the truth about business in and around the Frozen Zone. “I’m doing good, but there on the other side (east)– nothin.’”

Most notably, no Republicans. Mayor Bloomberg chirps about the $265 million benefit the Convention will lavish on the city. Nobody’s seen it around here. The locals most imperiled and inconvenienced are taking a hard financial hit as well.

In the 33rd Street Galleria, past the Impressionist reproductions, New York posters, A-Rod and Mike Piazza bobble-head dolls, manager Nasir Sharif sits all the way in back, all alone. “Last week was really busy,” he says. “We hope we get a check in the mail next week from Mr. Bush. He wants to fix the economy, he can start here.”

The bad times continue at the A & H Plaza deli. Cashier Cindy Bat sums up business in one word: “Terrible! Look at me! I’m doing side work, there’s no customers to serve!” Any problems getting deliveries? “Only two deliveries!! Nobody’s here!” A pair of actual Republicans, small people in conservative suits carrying slick Bush-Cheney folders, quietly purchase some lunch and slink away.

H & M security guard Shirley Grant would rather talk about the Sunday demonstration than the flagging business. “Did you see the coffins? That was great; that’s something people need to see.” Despite the massive police presence, she worries about Thursday. “He’s coming, and you never know, it just takes one crazy person…”

Somewhere back there in the Frozen Zone, beyond the cops and the metal barriers and the satellite trucks and the concrete blocks, past the i.d. checks and metal detectors, Mayor Bloomberg quietly fantasizes about bringing the Olympics to NYC. And President George Bush, the man who promised to unite, not divide, America, will be staking his political future on the claim that he has made America safe.