THE CITY by Ruth Berg

There is a parking space in front of MOMA...on the south side of 53rd. Jim is clever...he easily backs into the small space. The old Volvo even has a bit of room to maneuver....I’m not sure why Karen and Jim kept the car when they moved back to the city but if you are as clever with parking as Jim, a car is a great convenience. I open the back car door and step out onto the sidewalk. There is a Sabrette street-stand next to the sidewalk. I can smell the onions, the sauerkraut. The aroma tempts me; I haven’t had a Sabrette hot dog in years. Across the street, I can see vendors with make-shift stands selling leather handbags and large swaths of cotton material from Africa. Fifty-Third Street has changed... no longer the pristine street I once knew so well...now alive with vendors and tourist

We walk to Sixth Ave. (Avenue of The Americas...the powers that be tried to change the name during WWII...it remained Sixth) Turning north, we cross 54th St. where I lived with my dog Hambone in a narrow room, cooking on a hot plate. I went to sleep to the sounds of cool jazz vibrating the floor coming up from Jimmy Ryan’s Club below and the club’s neon sign outside my window casting shadow patterns on the ceiling and the rhythmic drum beat from the strip joint across the street as the ladies bumped and grinded.

We continue up Sixth, cross 55th St. There is the Warwick Hotel. There use to be a drugstore tucked in with the hotel. Don and I would meet for coffee there. In her late years, I can see that Old Lady Warwick has fancied herself up...doorman and all. We cross Sixth and continue walking up to 56th St. turn left. I do not recognize anything on this street...for a year I took acting classes in a building on the north side...and across the street was Jerry’s where after class we gathered ( Ina, Barbara, Marty, Tony....Don would join us.) We’d each have a stein of draft beer trying to appear world weary with our cigarettes and sit for hours discussing acting, auditions, agents. One of us would have seen a fellow student in a Broadway show, declare that he/she was the only actor who was believable, who said his one line “ Dinner is served, Madam.” with such conviction that it delegated all others on stage to a role of ham emoters. Tony drove a cab, heavy Brooklyn accent, knew he would be a star. Now when I go to see any DeNiro or Scorsese or Coppulo movies, I search for Tony’s face in the background where the extras are. We all thought opportunity was around the corner: something marvelous was to happen; just turn the corner. I often wonder are there young people still coming into the city with the same dreams, ambitions, the same innocence that we had. I hope there are. How could our futures fail us? Jerry’s is now a sleek glass building.

On the north side of 56th, there is a French restaurant with tables outside. A lone man is seated at one of the tables...inside there appears to be no one. I think of the hole-in-the wall French bakery with three tiny tables where we had breakfast this morning. It is on First Avenue at 110th St. A constant flow of customers...Karen says they sell out 2 hours before noon. I understand why. I had a croissant that when I bit into it I was covered by tissue paper thin flakes of crust. The man sitting here at this restaurant seems embarrassed. Has he already ordered? Who didn’t show up? We walk on. Two doors further is the Thai restaurant; we enter. Howard is seated at a back table. The restaurant is already crowded, tables pushed close together. We maneuver to the back table...I’ve met Howard before....a brief meeting. I know he has been engaged 4 times...different women...but never made it to the altar. I don’t know whether he broke off the engagements or they did. We sit. I think Karen must have said something to Howard about my having pursued the theatre in the past because he immediately begins asking me where I had performed, for whom. In other words, he wants a resume. I am not a particularly secretive person except....this is one of the excepts.. I become vague....I ask him if he had pursued theatre. He says “No but I could have. I was in a High School production of “Our Town” and everyone raved about my performance...I probably would have been quite successful if I had pursued it. Everyone who saw the performance said so”. I ask “Did you enjoy the work?” His face becomes blank. He says “I really was outstanding.”At that moment the waiter appears for our orders. I have a salad with an exotic alien dressing that makes my taste buds dance. After dinner we hurry back to MOMA for the Korean film. Rushing along 6th, breathless and unsteady on my feet, memories from the past, of times when I stepped out with a clipped pace in high heels...3 blocks in less than a ½ minute..

The film is weird...I can not recall the film maker’s name .its gone into a memory box only to reappear another time unexpected. But I can close my eyes and the images of the mist shrouded lake appear, the woman rowing the boat, the man stripping off the sides of a large fish for sushi then throwing the live fish back into the water, its raw sides bleeding, exposed.