Out there, there's a world outside of Yonkers
Full of shine and full of sparkle
As we made our way toward Yonkers, it occurred to me that my entire conception of Yonkers was based on the musical Hello, Dolly!
That charming and buoyant film opens with a cheerful steam train puffing its way up the Hudson River Valley until it arrives in bucolic Yonkers.
At the station, dozens of nattily dressed people dance their way onto the steam train to New York City.
I watched the movie twice during the pandemic. Near the end, Dolly (Barbra Streisand) sings about the tender and thrilling joys of returning to her favorite New York restaurant after an extended absence made necessary by penury and grief.
As she looked upon the smiling faces of all the friends she knew and loved in better days, and sang and danced with them across the restaurant, I wept in my living room alone.
Of course, when I saw Yonkers, I suddenly got the joke—the opening scene was played for laughs to an audience of New York sophisticates who knew Yonkers as something less than idyllic.
But we weren’t in Yonkers strictly because of Hello, Dolly! Yonkers sits just outside the five boroughs, which meant we could stay in a rented apartment for a week, which is something the Big Apple no longer allows.
In Hello, Dolly! two young men from Yonkers dream of one day going to New York. They sing a song that was later made more famous in the movie Wall-E as a poignant reminder of the former glories of a habitable Earth.
Out there, full of shine and full of sparkle
Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby
On our first morning in Yonkers, my son and I walked to the train station and waited on the platform for the train to New York.
We were alone with a view of the Hudson River.
Across from us, at the station parking lot, a construction crew began jackhammering concrete.
I gestured to the crew. “Here we have the Quietude Abatement Team.”
“It’s way too quiet in this sector, I need a jackhammer deployed now!” Truman said.
“Moments of tranquility got you down?”
“Pipe dropping team! Metal-on-metal clanging team!”
“Drill squad!”
“The key to our work is, it has to look plausibly productive. Like actual forward constructive progress is happening. Only then do people accept the noise as the price of progress!”
The train arrived. It looked nothing like the one in Hello, Dolly! but the views of the Hudson were nearly the same as we moved south along the valley.
Soon we arrived at Grand Central Station. We weren’t overwhelmed by its glittering, astounding architecture. We were simply everyday New York commuters taking it all for granted.
After transferring to the subway and exiting at Union Square, the young man peeled off for his classes, and I made my way toward Washington Square.
It was a beautiful day. And as it happened, it was also my birthday.
Walking past a construction crew, I imagined they were members of NYC’s Quietude Abatement Team. They looked plausibly productive.
Reaching the park, I walked through the huge white arch and around the fountain and found a quiet bench where I could sit and do my usual morning breathing exercises, pausing now and then to allow secondhand marijuana smoke to float by without breathing it in.
Who was I to blame people for getting blitzed on my birthday?
Gazing up at the larger-than-life George Washington enshrined on his arch, I was reminded that my ancestors were his next-door neighbors. They’re frequently mentioned in his diaries. Stonestreets here for dinner last night. Utterly charming. That kind of thing.
And while I don’t want to take anything away from George, I feel like there should be a triumphal arch in this world for great dinner guests.
After breathing in the resplendent air of the park, I gently ambulated to a nearby cafe where I found a lovely white marble table next to a window trimmed with topiary, and sat there with my laptop writing.
Writing to clear one’s mind is another ritual practiced by celebrants of my birthday.
Now and then I sipped my overpriced matcha latte and texted with Lisa, who was supposed to join me for a day out. The plan was to later reunite with our son after his classes ended, see improv comedy at the UCB theatre and have a late dinner, before taking a urine-soaked train back to Yonkers.
As it turned out, NYU was celebrating my birthday by holding its graduation ceremonies that day. On the surrounding streets, graduates parted their purple robes and struck the highly sexual poses that please Instagram’s algorithm.
Eventually, Lisa arrived from Yonkers and we met under the arch in Washington Square. Moments later, we were joined by our son, whose improv classes were done for the day.
We spent a few hours exploring Greenwich Village. It’s hard to imagine a better urban campus than NYU. Quietude and thrumming energy coexisting in harmony.
That evening at UCB, the first show we watched served as a kind of audition. Teams of comedic actors performed sketches for about 15 minutes before another team came on, each team hoping to earn a regular performance slot at the theatre.
At this show, the lightning-in-a-bottle moments were few and far between. One of the writer-performers reminded me of my younger self, going for the joke too aggressively. In my case, it was an attempt to process trauma with comedy, but it made the comedy feel almost traumatic.
We exited the theatre and re-entered it for the next show.
From an audience prompt, the improvisers began the show as a dating game, where a bachelor must choose between women, each stuck at the bottom of her own well, yelling out in total desperation for release.
Naturally, he picked the one who graphically described the sexual acts she would do for him in exchange for being rescued.
The bachelor then introduces her to his family. At the dinner table, she begins describing his mom’s cooking in graphically sexual terms—and that’s when we realize that she’s just like this, whether she’s trapped in a well or not.
Now that was lighting in a bottle. And a very thoughtful birthday gift.
And so we would wake up each day in Yonkers, and the young man would leave on his own and make his way to New York City for his improv classes.
Most evenings, Lisa and I would take the train down and meet him for a show at UCB, then take the train back through the darkness of night.
At the end of our week in Yonkers, we had brunch at Jacob’s Pickles on the Upper West Side with two of Lisa’s college roommates who now live in Manhattan, Renee and Eleanor, along with Eleanor’s husband, Dave.
They asked us how we liked Yonkers. We simply groaned and they reacted as if to say, “Yeah, we coulda told ya that.”
A discussion of possibly suitable towns and neighborhoods ensued. Have you seen? I think you’d like.
I said, “To put it in boxing terms, I want a place that’s far enough out that I’m not getting hit in the face.”
Dave beat me to the punch. “But close enough that you can hit back!”
“Exactly.”
Bobbing and weaving, we moved inside of New York’s reach, checking into a hotel in Long Island City.
We could keep costs down by moving in and out of the city like this. Hotels are more expensive on the weekends. We saved by staying in NY hotels during the week and in suburbs on the weekend.
When we first arrived in NYC weeks earlier, Amy had asked me about all this moving from one place to another.
“Aren’t you exhausted?”
Yes I was. But as with Rocky Balboa in the first film, I needed to go the distance. And in New York that would mean moving 11 times to 8 different places.
Long Island City is a bit like West Oakland. You look out your window and there, across a small body of water, is some of the world’s most expensive real estate. And below your window is an industrial slag heap next to a junk yard and a power plant. And you wonder: How in the hell?
It was in Long Island City that we received some long-awaited news: Our son’s financial aid offer for the coming year at college.
Ever since he told the college he would be taking a gap year (which is something I still can’t believe is routine), I’ve worried they would come back this year and say: Joke’s on you—now you have to pay even more. Ha!
The new financial aid offer was not as good as last year’s—it was slightly better. Ha!
We looked at the numbers, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
It was a blue sky day the following morning. Around 11 AM, Lisa and Truman left the hotel and took the subway toward Amy and Matt’s on the Upper East Side.
The young man wanted to prepare a lavish multi-course dinner for them, which would take him most of the day.
Meanwhile, I worked at the desk in our hotel room, surprised by how much the solitude helped me feel energized and focused. In combination with the good financial news, I felt better than I had in a long time.
I put on my headphones and danced in the hotel room to “May I Have This Dance” by Francis and the Lights.
The dinner hour approached. I zipped my laptop into its carrying case, left the hotel, walked 20 minutes to the pier, and waited on the floating platform for a boat.
This was my first time on an NYC commuter ferry. It beats the subway by a mile.
Out on the water. Memories of Tahoe. That motion.
I looked up at the Manhattan skyline and marveled at Roosevelt Island as we passed FDR’s Four Freedoms park.
Freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom of worship.
Freedom from want.
Freedom from fear.
I was wowed by the speed of the ferry and how quickly the boat could dock and depart from a pier. Almost like a subway stop.
By the time I disembarked at 90th Street, I was walking on air. Checking the map, I made my way toward Amy and Matt’s house with a spring in my step.
Then, at the exact moment I passed Whole Foods, my son called to ask if I could stop to get a couple of ingredients for the dinner, including daikon. Of course.
Once I found the daikon, I called him back on video to visually verify the product and quantity. I then made my way down the narrow escalator next to the cart elevator and through a warren of narrow aisles toward the checkout area. When I rounded a corner and saw a single-file line of 50 people, I was stunned.
“Excuse me!” A rude woman was eager to push her cart through the space I occupied in my Sunday clothes. I stepped aside, and she muttered, loud enough for me to hear, “Just stand there.” As in You just stand there, but dropping the you.
A low blow, with no referee to complain to.
I joined the queue waiting underneath large signs proclaiming the values of Whole Foods while a disembodied automated voice announced the number of the self-checkout station assigned to the first person in line.
Self-checkout is glamorous—that’s you on the screen!
I left the store with nary a shred of the ebullient feeling I had when I walked in.
And I was having a hard time letting go.
Just stand there.
In a one-up, one-down world (that’s incidentally owned by Jeff Bezos), is a micro-aggression an attempt to forcibly shunt oneself into the one-up position? In the final analysis, is that what all acts of violence are?
Now in flight but still feeling fight, I recognized the feeling as a need to win the one-upmanship game. I let the feeling go.
I could now perceive what a light and bright day it was. Everyone on the street seemed happy. The doormen I passed. The lady returning from a day at work. The mom with the stroller.
I reached Amy and Matt’s brownstone.
That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t holding my laptop.
I had set it down near the daikon.
I screamed NO!
I threw the daikon in front of the basement door and sprinted down the block.
Paying no attention to traffic lights and all attention to traffic, I ran across one street after another.
Running flat-out for blocks, I noticed a taxi at the curb and jumped in. We were off.
A few blocks later, the cabbie stopped, I paid him quickly, jumped out and sprinted—the store was in sight.
I leapt over bags of garbage at the curb, weaving around people.
“Excuse me, sorry!” I yelled, running up the narrow escalator toward the produce section.
I arrived.
There it was. Still sitting in its zippered case next to a pile of produce boxes.
I did not yell out. I did not say anything. But with the greatest relief, I picked it up, tucked it securely under my arm, and calmly left the store.
Part of me knew that my laptop was backed up to the cloud, and that I therefore might not have lost everything I’ve ever written, every idea I’ve ever recorded, every picture I’ve ever taken. But another part of me, perhaps a more primitive part, believed my soul was inside that metal box.
Sitting around the dinner table, we were presented with one delicious dish after another.
Persian cucumber consommé amuse-bouche.
Romaine salad with Chinese black vinegar dressing, sesame, and cucumber.
Sweet potato gnocchi with a dashi beurre monté and scallion curls.
Chicken katsu with Cara Cara orange segments, daikon, and plum gel.
Cheesecake with a black tea pear compote.
For me, everything was amazing with one exception: the daikon. Let’s just say I didn’t care for it.
I told Amy and Matt that I left my laptop at Whole Foods, ran back, and it was still there. “I think maybe the produce boxes helped it go unnoticed.”
“Sometimes it’s good to just be lucky,” Amy said.
Accepting that I simply was lucky, a feeling came over me—as if I had been anointed with oil or otherwise sanctified.
Now, with new authority, I could write about NYC’s Quietude Abatement Team, the promise of sexual favors screamed from a well, micro-aggressions and micro-greens, the bliss of a lavish meal amongst those you know and love, and the desperate need for this world to build a triumphal arch dedicated to dinner guests who are, let’s be honest, utterly charming.