We'd like to hear stories from people who have been involved with or affected by the Occupy Wall Street movement, here in New York City. Whether you are part of the 99% in Zuccotti Park, the 1% trying to get to the exchange floor, or the police in between, we'd like to hear from you.

Selections will be posted on a rolling basis. Deadline for inclusion in an OWS Story of the Week email is December 16. You can submit your stories by clicking on the "Tell Mr. Beller a Story" link here or at the top of the page.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

ceg

managing editor

A Free Evening of Non-Fiction In The Lower East Side.

Reading on September 23 will be:

Rob Williams - Bear Patrol 

Lily Shen - It Is Easy To Speak Chinese

Kenneth P. Nolan - Farrell’s

Nathaniel Page - Spanked 

The host is Connor Gaudet - Hung Out

About The Readers...

We received many responses; here are a few.

Phone Numbers of Strangers

by Neesha Navare

She Looked Like She Was Dancing

by C. R. Lofters

Dear NYK People

by Christian Bonnard

Guided Tour

by Susan Volchok

NYC Me

by Adam Baer

Another Visit

by Peter F. Eder

Dear Jon

by erika

My Friend, The Fire Chaplain

by Kathleen Crisci

October 7, 2001

by Patrick J. Sauer

Photographic Memories

by Christie Grotheim

Manhattan Eyeline

by Jackob G. Hofmann

I Have to Be Here

by Kate Walter

While we welcome all stories from returning and first-time writers alike, we’d especially like to hear from those of you who had pieces published on the site directly in the wake of the tragedy. What has the space of the last decade meant to you? What has changed since your first piece appeared on the site? Please let us know.

To submit stories, click "Tell Mr. Beller A Story" at the top of the page or just click here.
 

Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, September 7.

My girlfriend Victoria and I live on the third floor of a pre-war, red brick building on 19th St. in South Park Slope. Our back windows afford a nice view of all the backyards on our block and those of the homes on the north side of 20th St, which abut ours- each a tiny Kingdom for it’s little Monarch – sometimes with a miniature Versailles, and children running around just as filthy and shoeless as serfs of yore. Each kingdom is separated from the next but by a fence of chain links or tall wood plank.

Some have been maintained, but not many. The once magnificent grounds have fallen to disrepair. Flagstones once used for a footpath to protect a lush green lawn or prizewinning rose garden from unwelcome footfall are now just barely bald-spots in an expanse of weeds growing unchecked and wild.  What mostly remains is hard-packed dirt and dog shit-covered Astroturf; reliquaries of rusted out barrows, barbeques, and the rubble of excess materials from construction projects, decades since passed.

And at the foot of all these yards standing proudly tall are the blind sentinels of each delinquent kingdom- the seemingly pointless ladders to nowhere, the clothesline towers.

When I moved to Brooklyn I had no idea what these were, as all I saw were not actually in use anymore. But then someone told me, “those are for clotheslines.”

JUST for clotheslines?” I thought. It seemed so strange. All that height – the metal and concrete, a towering eyesore, in a city where people's showers are put in kitchens and toilets are put in showers for an extra foot of space; a city where economy of space is a religion. A tower just for laundry? It just seems so improbable.

When my girlfriend and I moved in together, the size of our average load of laundry doubled. We live far from the Laundromat – at least what we consider to be far, which is two long blocks and one short block. For whatever reason, we immediately became incapable of doing laundry. New socks and underwear would be purchased. Travel bags on visits to my parents would become stuffed to capacity without benefit of folding. Occasional emergency wash runs would be made to Vic’s parents in Midwood. But a full load of laundry was apparently impossible. A large pile would sit in the corner of the bedroom, and be cherry-picked again and again for salvageable items until finally consisting of nothing but sheets and towels.

Exercising became problematic with no clean workout clothes. I would run on the track at the Y or in Prospect Park, stink-lines trailing behind me, people falling away like flies. To combat this problem I began taking gym clothes into the shower with me after my run and would vigorously rub Garnier Fructis conditioner into my shorts, adding a squirt of Kiehl’s for good measure. However, with no place to hang them other than on top of the shower, they would drip on the floor or onto the dry towels, staying damp for days, and in the end just smelling mildewy and stale, like a summer camp changing room.

I decided that the problem was NOT in fact insufficient cleaning methods, which eventually became tossing a capful of Ultra Gain into the shower, then stomping and squishing my gym shorts with my feet as I bathed myself, like some disgusting 18th-century vintner trying to achieve an earthier tannin,  while giving his grapes what-for. The problem was that I didn’t have anyplace to properly dry them. I needed a clothesline.

I assumed the installation involved climbing the tower as opposed to firing some kind of harpoon gun from our window, but wanted to make sure. I typed “installing a clothesline tower, Brooklyn.” My search yielded a youtube video entitled “Joseph installs a new clothesline, Brooklyn.”

It did not include Joseph falling to his death as I assumed it would, but it did confirm my assumptions about ascending the tower. I’m sure this was safe when the house and tower were built in 1910, but I questioned the structural integrity of the rusty quarter-inch metal bars at Centenarian age.

I measured the distance from the house to the tower. It was almost exactly 50 feet so I would need a bit more than 100 feet of rope. Of course the hardware store only carried 50 and 100-foot lengths of clothesline, so I begrudgingly purchased two hundred feet as it began to rain.

About a week later, there was a break in the rain and I decided it was time. I could finally wash my gym clothes and hang them out to dry! Victoria refused to be any part of it, not wanting to be witness to me falling to my death, so I had to be my own spotter.

I tied one end of the line to the pulley outside my kitchen window and tossed the coil down into the yard. I had promised Vic I would use a “safety harness” so I cut a length from the extra coil and strung it through the belt loops around my waist, then around the tower. With a good square knot, I leaned back and felt the rope tighten around my hips. As long as I remembered to keep my pants on, I wouldn’t fall away from the tower, but straight down and be able to quickly grab a rung.

Safely securing the end of the rope I had thrown down from the kitchen around my neck, up I went, hand over hand. I had to stop and clear myself of some old cut cable wires and dead ivy to get up. And some tree branches. And some live wires. But soon I was at the top, three stories up on a structure with rungs just wide enough to accommodate one foot. I was gripping tightly, pressing my body to the metal, trying to keep my weight centered to minimize the swaying which did have me a bit concerned. I untied the rope from around my neck, slipped it through the pulley above my head, and secured it to my belt. And down I came, hand under hand.

I released myself from the safety harness and feeling quite satisfied, began walking away with the line, preparing to hoist it up to my window. Then, looking up, I realized I would have to send the rope over the branches, adjacent to the second story of my building, in order for this to actually work. Fuck.

I secured the extra coil, which I would need for additional weight and length when throwing the rope over the branches, safely around my neck, my harness back around the tower, and the end of my future clothes-line to my belt.

Up I went hand over hand, over the old cable wire, dead climbing ivy, tree branches and live wires. I broke what branches I could (they were dead and it’s a neighbor’s tree) to facilitate the process of getting the rope over the tree. Clutching to the tower with the crook of one arm, I bunched up all the dangling rope with other and attached it to the coil tied around my neck. Finally removing the extra coil from my neck, I said a prayer and lobbed it in as high and long an arch as I could, over the branches and into the yard. Success!

Arms shaking, but victorious none-the-less, down I came, hand under hand. After a struggle getting the line over the low-hanging lights and ivy structure the old landlords had by the back of the building, I ran upstairs with the extra coil, secured it to the fire escape and dropped it’s length down to the yard. I ran back downstairs into the yard and tied the two lines together, then ran back upstairs to pull the whole big motherfucking mess up. Finally I slid the rope through the pulley and tied it to itself. Huzzah!

Testing the pulleys however, I discovered that the rope had come off the pulley-wheel at the top of the tower and was pinched at the pin. Fuck.

Up I went, hand over hand, over dead cables and live wires and tree branches. Clinging for life, swaying in breeze, remove and reattach rope to pulley and come down, hand under hand. Finally. Back in my kitchen the tug the rope and hear the satisfying squeak of the pulley taking the line in and out of its grooved body. I can wash my clothes. Once I buy clothespins.

Connor Gaudet lives in Brooklyn and does freelance anything for a living. He writes whenever he isn't reading and is the current Managing Editor of mrbellersneighborhood.com.

I entered Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza and headed south towards 9th Street where there are some picnic tables I could make use of. I was shifting gears and beginning to pick up speed when I saw it flash by below my tires. Just a blink of green and white, geometric patterns and sharp angles amidst the chaotic cracks and non-repeating lines of the bumpy charcoal-grey sheet of asphalt. In the same instant I made eye contact with Washington, he was gone.

I hit my brakes and oozed to a stop (rather than screeched, as I lost my front brakes a few days ago and my rears were hanging on just barely). Fearful of losing my bounty to the next passerby, I used the last of my momentum to whip my bike around to the right, hoping to ward off any other pursuers with my stern glare. An all-to-serious-looking biker in red and white spandex whom I had cleverly distracted by making him veer sharply to avoid hitting me was the only person nearby. “Yeah, keep moving, “I thought as I watched him pedal by.

Not wanting to allow time for the wind to take my treasure, I gently dropped my bike without bothering to kick the stand. I ran back to the dollar only to find that there was in fact several dollars! Unfortunately, in addition to my newly multiplied wealth, there was also a New York State Driver’s License.

It belonged to a woman in her late 30’s, a Christmas baby like me, who lived on Vanderbilt, a few blocks away. I felt angry, robbed of my guilt-free money! I knew I would never be able to enjoy spending it, even if it was only a few bucks. A happy hour beer. A soft-serve chocolate vanilla swirl ice cream with chocolate jimmies. All would be as ashes in my mouth, knowing that returning it to its rightful owner was fully within my abilities.

I briefly cursed myself and my parents for raising me right, but finally decided that returning the lost money would be worth it and possibly more fun than keeping it as long as I pretended to be a detective on a case.

Looking at the facts before, I decided she must be biking, as cash and cards do not just squeeze out of a back pocket unless as the result of some kind of repeated action, force or pressure, like that of gyrating gluteus muscles rubbing vigorously against a bicycle seat. I also deduced that she couldn’t have passed by too long before, as unattended money doesn’t sit unnoticed on the ground for too long. Also, judging by her license picture, she was a little on the pudgy side so I figured I could probably catch up to her.

I saddled back up and continued on my way. I wanted to catch her on this side of the park because to not do so, would mean going down a big hill and then having to come back up an even bigger hill. On a bike that is rapidly ageing like Mel Gibson at the end of Forever Young, it is not a pleasant prospect.

I pumped away, overtaking most people pretty quickly, craning my neck and checking bikers who made likely candidates and also a few who made less likely candidates, but I wanted to be thorough in my search.

I really enjoy finding lost objects (not just money), whether I am able to return them or not. There is a kind of magic to them, like they have many stories to tell but no words to tell them, leaving us to wonder and guess. They are mysteries to be solved, and naturally, I take it upon myself to solve them. It’s the perfect outlet for my inherent desire to be a private eye- to track down some missing dame or in this case, track down the dame who owns some missing thing that I have found.

Approaching the downhill slope I saw a potential and coasted after her. It was not long before I realized it was not her and just kept coasting. I was fairly certain at this point I wouldn’t find her here, but I had come this far so wanted to see it through to the end.

In my head I begin to compose the note I will drop off with the cash and ID at the address on her license – several versions, some admonishing her carelessness, some hoping to kindle her faith in the good of humanity, all signed with my first and last name so that she can find me easily enough if she happens to be a millionaire dowager who wants to reward me for my honesty.

Once in Washington DC, I found a digital camera on the ground and tracked down the owners by looking through their pictures to see where they had been that day and figuring out where they were likely heading next. I caught up with them four blocks or so from where I found it. They hadn’t even noticed it was missing- nor did they speak any English, so I couldn’t even impress upon them the amount of deductive problem-solving energy that I had expended upon the camera’s return. That was the real tragedy! They never knew my brilliance! They probably thought I saw it fall out of their pocket thirty seconds before and just picked up and handed it to them.

I finally came to the foot of the giant uphill struggle to the end of the loop, and kicked it into an easier gear. It is the same hill on which Colonial soldiers felled an enormous oak tree across the road and held off advancing British and Hessian soldiers during the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. I will concede that it was probably harder to get up then, but it is still a pain in the ass to get up on a falling-apart, 3-gear bike.

I started to climb, thinking of how much smarter it would have been to have turned around and done the loop in the opposite direction when I found the money, thus cutting her off halfway around, as opposed than chasing her like an electronic rabbit around a track.

The end of the loop was just beyond the top of the hill, and I did not plan on making the rotation more than once. Chasing some phantom that may not even be there around and around and around. But finally, sweaty and winded, I approached the hill’s crest and saw her. There was a garland of nylon flowers on the back of her bike. I could see she was wearing glasses like the ones in her picture, and her hair was up. She was standing astride her bicycle at the very top of the hill, patting and searching the back pockets of her Spandex pants.

She looked around her a bit and got back up on, riding slowly and unsure, no doubt distracted. I finally caught up with her and came along side, making cautious eye contact a few times as she started to pick up speed, no doubt wondering why I was not just passing her.

“Marika?” I said, still out of breath from the hill. She turned her head and looked at me as I reached out with the bills and license, and said, “here.”

She saw it and took it from my hand with a smile and with obvious relief said, “Oh thank you! Oh my God, thank you!” I smiled and nodded her welcome and sped up without looking back to say anything else, make awkward eye contact, or even to see if she got off the path at the end of the loop.

I didn’t see the point in telling her about my chase around the park, other than fishing for praise I suppose. She seemed sufficiently appreciative of my handing it to her without knowing where exactly she dropped it- unlike those snooty Germans back in DC! I’d been tracking her for 20 minutes, but to her, she had been in trouble for less than 30 seconds. I don’t know. Maybe she would have been happier in knowing that there are some people who would go to those lengths to return her lost property. Or maybe she would have been creeped out that some sweaty guy on a bicycle had been following her around the park and planning to go to her house if he couldn’t find her there.

I biked on past where I’d found the cash, into a nice small grove of pines near 9th street, sat down on the ground, and began to write.

Connor Gaudet is an unemployed, 27-year-old writer/musician, living in Brooklyn and surviving on government assistance. He keeps track of his triumphs and humiliations at thedailyhell. He also runs the Mr. Beller's Neighborhood reading series.

I arrive at the main restaurant at 4 AM to pick up the baked goods and pastries, which I have never tasted but hear are delicious, and bring them to the several other locations around Brooklyn and Manhattan, where hungry and hurried commuters will buy them on their way to jobs they can’t quite explain why they’re in such a rush to get to.

I return home from the pre-Rush Hour deliveries at about 5:45 AM, where I sleep until about 7:15 AM, when I awake, shower, and go back to the main location to pick up and deliver the prepped food to one of the satellite locations.

The company owns two vans. One is a fancy new freightliner; shiny grey paint, tall proud windshield, and side-view mirrors that are not cracked, chipped, or missing. The other van is an old, dying, beat up, graffitied Ford, which cost $300 and is lovingly referred to as “The Crack Van.” When I describe this vehicle as “beat-up,” you must understand, I am actually being quite charitable.

It was called Crack Van before I came to be working for the restaurant, leaving me to speculate on the origins of the name. There are several that I have hypothesized, and I imagine that one, if not all of them are probably correct.

One reason the Crack Van is so named, might be that it looks like a van in which a crackhead might live or at least sleep or urinate. It looks quite abandoned any time it is parked. And when it is in use on the roads, it just looks like someone is driving an abandoned van. Another reason, could be that it looks like a suitable if not designated location for a woman (or man for that matter) to perform sexual acts on a person or themselves in exchange for crack. The final possible reason is that if vans were drugs, this van would most certainly be crack.

It was once white, but not since long before I came into contact with it. Years of outer borough grime and graffiti, winters of over-salted roads, and streaks of other cars paint has left her freckled and muddled into a dull and ugly gray.

Outsiders who don’t know or care for the vehicle as I have come to, sometimes mistake it for something else and refer to it as a “Rape Van.” In fact, more than once, I have arrived at a catering job and been told by an aghast British doorman that he would, “sooner expect to be abducted in such a vehicle than be delivered lunch by it.” Well, theirs are clearly plebian eyes, for anyone who truly knows the Crack Van knows that it is unmistakably and uniquely a Crack Van.

The sliding side door only opens from the inside, and even then only half way and with great difficulty, thus eliminating any need to ever lock it. The back doors can only be unlocked from the inside, but only opened from the outside (and even then it’s tricky). In order to load the van with pastries (or conduct any kind of kidnapping) one must climb back over the unattached mini-van bench seat, which I will momentarily explain, unlock the back door, force open and exit through the sliding side door, walk around to the back door and push it in while pulling the handle on its axis in order to gain entry- thus eliminating any element of surprise you would need to carry out your kidnapping, rape, or delivery of baked goods.

For the peculiarity of the mini-van seat to be fully understood, you must first understand that this is not a mini-van. This is a commercial delivery van in every sense of the word. However, this commercial delivery van does not have commercial license plates. It has regular passenger plates. The reason for this is for the company to avoid higher insurance rates on the van and to allow us the use of restricted roadways such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the FDR, which prohibits all commercial traffic. Though the seat is not secured by anything more than milk crates wedged up behind it causing it humorously tip over backwards anytime I accelerate, by its very presence the Crack Van is technically a passenger vehicle, and makes this irregularity of licensing completely legal.

It should also be noted that the passenger license plates are from Michigan, despite the van’s obvious New York origins (You can tell by its accent). Anyone who has seen the Crack Van or been within a two block radius of it while its engine is running will know that it would never pass a state inspection or emissions test in any state that requires one. As Michigan is one of the few states that do not require a vehicle to be in compliance with Federal Emissions standards, we are free to continue choking the air with exhaust and CFCs completely unchecked, all while following the letter of the law.

The needle that indicates what gear you’re in usually points to “Park,” even when zipping along the highway at 40 miles per hour. When I actually do want to put it into park, it generally goes into reverse, the shifter perhaps prevented from falling into place by that stuck indicator needle. I initially tried to overcome the problem by setting the emergency brake when I parked, but found the emergency brake pedal to be only that- just a springy pedal with no actual connection to the brake itself. So now, the lever must be forced with all one’s might, in order to actually park it.

There is no clock. Just a radio/tape-deck. I did not realize they made car radio/tape decks without clocks since the advent of the digital LCD faceplate.

In order to use the Hazard Lights, the key must be in the ignition with the battery engaged. This is frequently necessary for double parking during delivery and often drains the battery, necessitating a jumpstart.

If I attempt to start the engine with the brake depressed, something in the battery shorts and I have to pop the hood and physically jiggle the battery connector cable until I see it emitting sparks. This disconnection in turn causes the non-clock radio/tape deck to reset itself to 530 AM (the station, not the time obviously) and erases all my present stations, so I have to find WNYC and WQXR and reprogram them frequently.

I enjoy listening to classical music while I drive the Crack Van because I enjoy classical music. It relaxes me. I also enjoy the comical disparity of classical music being played in such a vehicle and hope I give a laugh to any observant person who might notice it. This would not be unlikely, as I have to turn it up very loudly whenever I drive on the BQE or over a bridge because it sounds like a lawn mower traversing a gravel driveway when I accelerate past 35 miles per hour.

There were once features like heat and Air Conditioning and a Defroster, but these were gone long before I sat behind the wheel. In winter months, I would see my breath in a fog before me all day, forming a condensation on the windshield and then freezing into a layer of frost- necessitating an ice-scraper on the inside of the windows as well as the out.

The right side-view mirror, like a battered medieval jouster of yore, is cracked in many places, from countless encounters with other side-view mirrors. The left side-view mirror used to be taped into the plastic mount until February of this year, when someone scraped most of the tape away along with the ice and it flew off one morning, presumably to shatter into hundreds of tiny shards as I drove South on the FDR.

The Crack Van lists violently to the right, especially when braking. This caused me to destroy the side-view mirrors of at least three vehicles during my first week. As a result I’m not allowed to drive the fancy new Freightliner. The other driver- hired just last week- isn’t allowed to drive the Crack Van as he is unaccustomed to its many unique quirks, and would doubtless be killed on his first time out.

The irony of this is not lost on me, even if it is lost on my employers. The Crack Van has been deemed too dangerous to be driven by anyone but me and I have been deemed too dangerous to drive anything but the Crack Van.

Like some kind of antithesis of The Lone Ranger and Silver or Batman and his Mobile, we rove the streets of New York, bringing pastries to the masses and making these dangerous streets just a little less safe for everyone.

Post-Script

On April 10, 2010 the crack van expired. The engine revved, a piston shot clean through the bottom of the chassis and into the pavement, and oil bled into the street. By the time the tow-truck got there, it was too late. The crack van was just too old and had lost too much oil. Its time had come. It will be missed.

Connor Gaudet is an unemployed, 27-year-old writer/musician, living in Brooklyn and surviving on government assistance. He keeps track of his triumphs and humiliations at thedailyhell. He also runs the Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood reading series.

It wasn’t long before my jealousy got the best of me and I had to run back home to change into my workout clothes so that I too could be lavished with praise and attention–just for running.

Without bothering to stretch or warm up, I ran down St. Mark’s and hit 4th Ave. at a good clip. It was easy enough slipping through the crowd at the bottom of the street and there I was amid the herd, just another salmon swimming upstream to the cheers and applause of all of New York. Adrenaline pumping, I grabbed a Gatorade cup from a volunteer and smiling idiotically, doused my head with it, shaking out my hair like a model in a Pert Plus commercial.

I had snuck in at about the 7-mile marker and with 2 hours having already elapsed since the start of the race, it wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop I was competing against. For one thing they were 7 miles more weary than I was. For another, it had taken them over 2 hours to run those 7 miles. That’s like a 17-minute mile. I was weaving and bebopping in and out of them like a fish through coral. Most runners had their names written on their shirt or shorts so people could give them a personal cheer and push them on. I didn’t have anything with my moniker so I was wearing my Obama shirt much to the excitement of the Brooklynites lining the sidewalks.

“Yeah, Obama! Yes You Can!” they shouted.

“November 4th, two more days baby! Wooooo!” I would reply to more enthusiastic applause.

I was really looking forward to running over the Brooklyn Bridge – to be part of that aerial shot of colorful shirts streaming from one end to the other. It had been playing out in my mind like a Lifetime original movie. A close-up on my face–a look of grim determination, running in slow motion. Slowly, the camera pulls back in a glorious swooping crane shot revealing around me the river of people that I am to defeat against all odds.

Imagine my disappointment then, when we turned off Flatbush and started north away from the Bridges. “What the fuck!” I thought, “I want my bridge moment. When do we go to Manhattan?” Of course, I didn’t want to appear to be the rube who forgot his map, so I just followed the crowd through Fort Greene and into Williamsburg.

The crowds varied from neighborhood to neighborhood, but there was a sizable turnout on pretty much every corner. In Williamsburg where even the hipsters were not pretending to not care about the event, I noticed the spectators were bringing out paper towels, orange slices, and bananas for runners to take as they went by, as well as Twizzlers, chocolate and other various leftover Halloween candy. The bananas struck me as odd though. I understand they’re to keep potassium levels up, but it just seems like the last place you want to have hundreds of discarded banana peels is in the path of 30,000 runners.

After a while I began to notice that there is a certain arrogance among marathon runners. For the most part they pretend to ignore the crowds and just grab things out of people’s hands. There was no “thank you,” not even a nod of recognition as they snatched a water or banana from the eager-to-please spectators. Like greedy little goats at a petting zoo, they shoved their snouts into the palms of children until they were licked clean, then sought out the next hand of grain.

It also became apparent that they took public urination to be one of their inalienable rights and would drop trow at any unclaimed loading dock or chain link fence. They were literally pissing ON Porta-potties while standing in line to use them, I kid you not.

Around my 7th mile I started looking for a good place to sneak off the course, but I hadn’t realized how solid the crowds would be. I didn’t want to be observed and branded a phony or a coward or worse still a cheater taking a short cut- especially while representing Obama. I was starting to feel a bit fatigued but I also still hadn’t had my bridge moment and was wondering when we were going to cross the river. It was at this moment while adjusting myself as I ran that I noticed that somehow during the course of events one of my testicles had disappeared into my body. I realize that the sight of a man running through Queens with both hands groping around in his shorts and a look of panicked desperation on his face might be a common sight on any given day of the week, but for me it was quite unusual. I came to a chain-link fence that wasn’t currently being urinated upon and under the guise of doing some hamstring stretches I frantically searched for my ascended gonad.

Thank God he hadn’t wandered far, just a little off the reservation. I vaguely recalled hearing something about the body doing this to keep warm and conserve energy in times of physical duress. I tried to coax him back out, but he wasn’t having it, so I figured, fine! I’d let him have his way and I’d have mine. He could sit in his room and sulk! One ball or two, I was crossing that goddamn river! I bade the men who had begun to urinate next to me a good race and off I went again.

I didn’t have to wait very long for my bridge moment, unfortunately it was more inglorious than I had hoped for. We ran on the lower level of the 59th Street Bridge, frankly one of the city’s douchier bridges, choked with exhaust fumes from the cars and trucks driving just a few yards over our heads. If there were helicopters with cameras to capture events, they’d more likely be reporting on the gridlock caused by the Marathon on the upper level, rather than the pathetic chuds limping along through the dimly lit bowels of the lower. The wretched refuse of the teeming shore, bringing up the rear– hours after the frontrunners had crossed the finish line. Running a marathon takes a dedication to personal excellence, tremendous determination, and a fierce power of the will to push you to the finish line. For me it took a series of escalating whims.

I had finally attained my completely arbitrary goal of reaching Manhattan and in so doing, I claimed my 9th mile. Though slightly weary after 2 boroughs, I figured I might as well make it an even 10 miles. Because there’s nothing exciting about 9. Besides, if I had stopped running then, I would have had the entire afternoon to kill and with nothing more pressing, probably would have just gone home and masturbated. There would be plenty of time for that later. Whim number 1.

I met my 10th mile on 1st Avenue somewhere around 80th street. I had just slathered my raw and burning nipples with Vaseline given to me on a wide wooden tongue depressor and was feeling a second wind coming. The sidewalks were packed with spectators, so I decided to keep going to the Bronx where the crowd would be thinner and take the subway from there. Whim number 2.

The crowd in the Bronx was very animated, with bands and dancers on every corner. There was a slight undercurrent of cynicism in the crowd there however. They were all quite friendly and happy to have us, but knew we wouldn’t soon be back. One sign summed it up, “Welcome to the Bronx! See you next year…” Ahh, the Bronx. The forgotten borough. The pity mile.

I saw a 6 Train Subway station, but realized I had nearly run 13 miles–a full half marathon, and thought I may as just do that much before bowing out. Whim number 3.

My 13th mile was just over Madison Bridge back in Manhattan. I had run a half marathon! Feeling very proud of myself, I began looking for a safe place to vomit. I could feel the salty saliva rapidly lubricating my mouth and knew that it was only a matter of time. Not having planned to run a marathon when I got up that morning, bleary-eyed and slightly hung-over, I had consumed a large breakfast burrito and piping hot cup of black coffee. How I had not shit my pants already was beyond the realm of my understanding.

I slowed to a walk by Marcus Garvey Park and went to the sidewalk behind the crowd to stretch my leg on the fence. I was preparing to regurgitate my breakfast and several gallons of Gatorade when I heard it. I don’t know where it came from, or even if it was directed at me, but someone within my earshot uttered a disparaging remark and I took it personally. “Looks like someone didn’t train!”

Oh really! Oh really!!? Of course it was true, but that didn’t make it sting any less. No! In fact, I hadn’t trained, nor had I stretched or eaten pasta or oats or whatever the hell you’re supposed to eat before running a fucking marathon. Frankly, I thought that made it all the more impressive that I had made it as far as I had. And if she’s got enough breath in her lungs to make smart ass remarks, then she sure as hell isn’t running any marathons! Well I’d show ‘em! I’d show all of ‘em! Whim number 4.

I swallowed my vomit-precursing saliva along with my suppressed rage and forced down whatever had been working its way up. On my feet and fueled by absolutely misplaced indignation and a desperate desire to save my pride from further mild bruising, I dragged myself to my feet and fell back in line with the other runners down 5th Avenue.

The next several miles are a bit of blur but I remember a sudden moment of clarity when my actions of the day became crystallized before my eyes and I was able to kind of leave myself and look at them as though through the eyes of another, more rational person. As I quietly observed myself bounding and heaving up and down the streets of New York, I had to wonder, What the fuck–is wrong with me?

With zero training and a bad back due to childhood scoliosis, I was practically guaranteeing myself serious injury at a time when I have no health insurance, no job, and no money. So why was I running? Pride? Boredom? To have a story to tell? Maybe it was a bit of all these things, the whole reason being something greater than the sum of its parts. Frustrated and bored, unemployed and with little direction in my life, I think I needed to accomplish something, to challenge myself and succeed.

Keeping this in mind, and convincing myself that if walking on my knee hurts it, then running must be good for it, I continued on at kind of a heaving canter all the way to the end. Or at least nearly. I didn’t cross the finish line, but left the track about 300 yards from the end, staggered through a hole in the fence, and wandered into Central Park. It’s one thing to allow people to cheer for you for running, but another entirely to allow them to cheer for you for winning, or even finishing the race.

I hadn’t run for recognition, or to get a participatory medal or space blanket I didn’t deserve–and I wasn’t looking to deceive anyone. If I had crossed the finish line, it only would have detracted from the value of what I had actually accomplished.

I began to meander aimlessly, like a shock victim away from a crash, not knowing where to tell my legs to take me. It was about 3 PM. I had been running for over three hours and had gone about 19 miles. I couldn’t stop moving though, I was stuck on autopilot. I knew that my time with the other runners had come to an end when they crossed the finish line and became something I was not. So having no one left to run with, nowhere left to run too, I crossed under a bridge and finally found that Brooklyn-bound train.

Connor Gaudet is an unemployed, 27-year-old writer/musician, living in Brooklyn and surviving on government assistance. He keeps track of his triumphs and humiliations at thedailyhell. This is his second story to be featured on Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.

My office is on Hudson and King Streets and I take the C train to the Spring Street Station. It’s only a five-minute walk. I had some money on me and was planning to stop for a bagel, but kept thinking how dry bagels are even with the cream cheese and having eaten nothing all morning I didn’t really have that much saliva to facilitate the mastication process.

As I ruminated on my hunger, I came up above ground to see before my very eyes a much spittier and even more delicious solution. Just across 6th Avenue was a fruit cart and its little peddler.

Fruit should hold me over for five hours, I thought, crossing the road. The Fruit Man is dark olive-skinned and very short and has a trim mustache. Even in the sweltering mid-day July heat he was always wearing Khakis and long-sleeved button-downs, all tucked in like he was at the office.

I looked over his selection and saw that “Juicy Peaches” cost seventy-five cents a piece, or three for two dollars. He noticed me looking and grabbed one off the top and shoved it in my face.

“The peaches,” he said admiringly, through a thick accent, “So fresh. Soooo delicious.”

Remembering from grade school never to smell anything a strange man sticks under my nose, I lowered the peach from my face and took it from him, pretending to examine the firmness and ripeness of the skin.

“Okay. Can I get two for a dollar?” I asked. Whatever, I had the two bucks but I’m a cheap bastard and didn’t want three peaches. But two…two is the magic number.

“No. No no. Three for two dollars?”

“No. I only want to spend a dollar. What else can I get for a dollar?”

He looked around his cart searchingly, not wanting to lose the sale, and finally picked up a small banana off the top of a stack and put it in a small plastic bag.

“Here. Banana and peach for one dollar,” he handed it to me smiling, adding that he was losing a dime on this transaction as special favor to me. I returned the smile and thanked him kindly, because who knows what a dime is worth in his native country? Peach in one hand and banana bag in the other I headed down Spring Street to work.

Now I’m not usually in the habit of agreeing with fruit vendors, but this guy was right. It was the juiciest and most delicious peach I had ever eaten. The slightly green banana was kind of disappointing afterwards, but hungry as I was I had eaten both of them by the time I reached the office.

The next morning I went grocery shopping and was so in the mood for more peaches, I decided to pick up a couple. I had the option of .99 cents a pound or a 1.99 a pound. I went for the good stuff. I had tasted peach ambrosia. I didn’t want to be disappointed. I picked out three peaches, checking each for firmness of flesh, ripeness of skin, and what I figured to be its juice potential.

When I got home, I checked the receipt. Three peaches had cost me $2.91. That’s like a half a pound each. Growing up in a world where a pound of Swedish Fish can make you deathly ill and a pound of cocaine can fetch several thousand dollars, I guess I had overestimated just exactly how much you got in a pound of peaches. And these really didn’t seem like any extraordinary peaches.

It was this line of thinking that made me say, “Fuck it, it’s cheaper just to go to the fruit man, who has awesome peaches.” So even though I had three peaches for which I had just paid $2.91, when it came time to pack my lunch, I made a sandwich, but did not pack a peach.

Off the train and across the street, I approached Fruit Man with my two dollars at the ready. He finished up with his customers and I said in a strong clear voice, “Three peaches please,” thinking what a compliment I’m paying him by actually wanting to spend more money on his fine produce today. Proud you should be Fruit Man. Proud you should be.

He selects three peaches from the pile, puts them in a small bag and hands it to me. I thank him kindly with a smile, thinking what a nice morning tradition this will become. I’ll be a regular. He’ll get a new shipment in and recommend the plums, very ripe in August. Or the nectarines, too tart now, but give them a week. My own personal fruit vendor. He’ll pack up in the late summer or early fall and say goodbye, and then remember me next May when he sets up shop on the corner again. We’ll meet eyes across the Avenue and smile and wave and he’ll ask how my winter was as I approach. Just fine Fruit Man, just fine!

I took out the top peach as I walked away and consumed it with relish. Juice dripped down my hand but I artfully avoided getting it down my chin. I finished it about the same place as the day before and discarded the pit through the same chain link fence in front of a parking lot. Future generations will know it as the Peach Tree Parking Lot, I thought, feeling quite satisfied with myself.

I arrived at my office and out of curiosity I casually looked in my bag at the remaining pieces of fruit. What I saw, to my dismay were two lumpy, brown, squishy, shitty, shitty peaches. Two of the shittiest peaches you could ever see. Two peaches you would assume have been sitting forgotten in the fridge behind a bag of oranges purchased after you forgot you had the peaches in there. I stopped in my tracks and checked the clock in the lobby. Was it worth going back? Surely he didn’t mean to give me, his new friend and regular customer, shitty peaches! Did he?

The truth of it started to set in. I was livid. I was no more special than any of the other rubes he cons every day. Put a pile dog turds in a bag and single bunch of grapes on top. That’s how he makes his living. He’s ruining the image of the honest American Fruitseller. Or at least the image of the honest Foreign Fruitseller Selling Fruit in America. He’s hurting his own image! Destroying what so many of us hold so dear. The friendly neighborhood fruit vendor. I should have known, with his khakis and long sleeves in the middle of July. What ever happened to trustworthiness? Standing behind your product? Winning repeat business? I was really pissed, but I already five minutes late, so I went upstairs.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” I was greeted by Josh, the head of my department as I walked by the front desk.

“That mother fucker, the fruit guy sold me these shitty rotten peaches!” I said, still completely indignant and thankful to work in a casual office where cursing is encouraged as a means of expressing extremes of both anger and joy.

Josh didn’t seem understand, “What, didn’t you pick your own fruit?”

“Well…” It hadn’t occurred to me to do this, as I was inherently trusting in Fruit Man’s willingness to sell only the finest of produce.

“You gotta pick your own fruit, man. You didn’t know that?”

“Well, yeah but,” I began, trying to defend my now obviously foolish actions, “he was standing there, you know… by the peaches.”

“Huh ho. Man, he saw you coming a mile away,” he laughed at my idiocy.

Josh was chuckling more inwardly than directly at me, truly enjoying the situation, which pissed me off more than if he had just been breaking my balls over it. He was taking time away from his busy day to let the scene play out in his mind like some ridiculous Buster Keaton film in which the hapless protagonist’s actions are so transparently the opposite of what any normal intelligent person would do, the audience is simply left to groan at the screen and shout, “Don’t do it!” to the deaf ears of poor luckless Buster as he purchases the bag of dog poo from the unassuming fruit vendor wearing a top hat, cape, and Dali-esque mustache.

“I’m tempted to go back and say something. Exchange it or get my money back,” I said, testing the waters, essentially seeing if my boss would let me leave work to harass the man who sold me bad fruit.

“Uh huh,” he said, probably just getting to the part where Buster opens the bag and sees the dog poo.

“I guess I could do it at lunch,” I said and walked away, my head hung low.

At lunch I sat alone at the long kitchen table prodding the peaches, looking for spots that weren’t mushy and brown, hoping I could take a few bites. From the two, I ate maybe a third of a peach total.

I decided it wasn’t worth going back and making a big stink about it. What satisfaction would I get from calling this guy out on what he already knows he does, something he does intentionally, and will continue to do regardless of my actions? Even if other people were there to see me protecting their consumer rights, calling him out on his shady business practices, they would probably just say, “You’re buying something from a man who can literally pick his store up and run. What did you expect? And why didn’t you pick your own fruit?”

No, there would be no justice served cold for this man today. I would swallow my pride and the two dollars and take away a valuable lesson that apparently everyone else had already learned. One more nugget of truth to go along with “don’t smell gifts from strangers” and “the more you touch it, the longer it will take to heal.” Always pick your own fruit and never trust a man who does not sweat in 90-degree heat.

Connor Gaudet is a recently laid-off, 27-year-old male, living in Brooklyn, surviving on government assistance, and trying to “make it” as a writer. He keeps track of his triumphs and humiliations at thedailyhell.