Loss and the City

“Roll up your windows! Lock your doors!” my dad whisper-growled to us as he made the exit off the expressway and deep into the heart of the 1980’s Bronx. Unlike roaches that scatter when light is turned on, the squeegee cleaners espied our station wagon and invaded from every direction. ‘Clean’ was now fair game.

Even as my dad made very obvious ‘no’ signals with his head, hand and mouth, they swooped down with their makeshift soapy water dispensers and sponge sticks to muddy the windshield.

“Jesus Christ! I said no! You mother guy” my dad howled.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he turned to the passenger seat and asked me, ‘Do you have a nickel to give them?’

At that young age, I knew a nickel wasn’t much money.  Most certainly not enough to split amongst the 6 cleaning people I could see. (Were there any people under the car?) My eyebrows took residence on my forehead as I looked at my dad and automatically dug into my coin pocket. Whatever coin I pulled out, I relinquished it to my dad. I was NOT going to crank open the window and give the vultures my precious hand.

My dad cracked the window enough to push the width of the coin through the slot he created. The main entrepreneur looked at the dime and scowled.

My dad screamed “I told you I didn’t want you to clean my window so that’s all you get!” He then pressed his heavy foot onto the accelerator. The behemoth screeched and careened as it turned tossing me against the door. Good thing, I had locked that door after all. For a brief moment, I imagined myself rolling out of the car, being beaten on the same road where we gypped the squeegee guys of their deserved pay.

Back then there were so many suspicious characters, like the squeegee people, who would menace ‘The Big Apple’ and its 5 boroughs. You devised various techniques to dodge bad deeds or unsavory people. You would chant the very useful ‘make no eye contact’ mantra to yourself as you proceeded with your plans. My dad always had an arsenal of comments to recite for any given situation. As they ‘cleaned up’ the city and it became less dangerous, there were fewer incidents with the likes of the squeegee people and panhandlers on subway platforms and cars. My dad however would still have a token term for any ‘riff-raff’ he saw regardless of whether they were threatening or not.

In recent years, all the efforts to ameliorate the quality of life in the city are vanishing. The singers, beggars and squatters are back in full force in subway cars. Groups of homeless people dance, sing and urinate in front of subway entrances (not necessarily in that order). There’s even a group of 5 who I have christened the ‘bad street boys’ that I see most mornings on my way to work. I’ve begun to repeat my ‘look down’ chant numerous times daily. While this makes me sad for the state of the city, what saddens me most is that I can no longer partake in these observations and complaints with my dad.  I’ll no longer hear the audible outburst “You mother guy!” from my dad’s lips, except in my own head.