You are currently viewing the stories for December, 2013

My Neighbor Cries a Chain Link Fence

by 12/31/2013
Neighborhood: Astoria

To the young beautiful woman with tears in her eyes who lives above me: now I know why you run in the apartment for hours backandforth backandforth. I know why you don’t talk in the hallway. I know because the building is old and my ceiling is thin. I heard the furniture thunder last night […]

Polyester Skirt Suit

by 12/28/2013
Neighborhood: Prospect Park

I was wearing a camel-colored Brooks Brothers skirt suit that my father had bought for my mother in the early 80s when garments from Brooks Brothers were still Made in the USA, and people actually bought polyester suiting. My mother disliked its texture and never wore the outfit, so the material was cardboard stiff by […]

Good Humor

by 12/06/2013
Neighborhood: Bowery, East Village, Lower East Side

The week before my high school graduation, I wandered into the Good Humor ice cream garage on East 3rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, just a block from my apartment. I was looking for a summer job. A friend of the family, a college kid named Keith, was working the books there, and he […]