The Grindstone
I was two weeks old the night we met in SoHo and you showed me how the world works. Back then, I still couldn’t sleep through the night. I’d lie face-up on the bed I’d bought from the last roommate, listening to the traffic on the BQE a block away. The cars whooshed all night and it sounded like the ocean, though it wasn’t scary like the ocean, it didn’t obliterate you—make you feel mortal—the way staring out to sea did. It made you feel a part of something. You were a friend of a family friend, and you texted me, “Dinner, Tuesday, SoHo?” and I got ready in the rent-stabilized, Fort Greene apartment I shared, where I’d made my room a shrine to the city. I hung a torn-off... Read more...
