The Weekly Screed (#843)

New York polite
by David Benjamin

“It is one of the sublime provincialities of New York that its inhabitants lap up trivial gossip about essential nobodies they’ve never set eyes on, while continuing to boast that they could live somewhere for twenty years without so much as exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors across the hall.”
                                             — Louis Kronenberger

MADISON, Wis. — Happenstance has dragged me here and there. So, I know places. I’m still surprised about this. As I was growing up in a hamlet called Tomah (the Athens of Monroe County), I didn’t have any expectation, or any discernible desire, to know anyplace at all. I was rooted there, in juvenile ignorance of mountains, tropics, great cities and scenic vistas.

There were, of course, a few expeditions, most notably a train ride to Milwaukee with my grandfather to attend the auto show, where my scenic vista was a lot of brand-new ‘58s parked on rotating stages. And then there was the highlight of my ephemeral Cub Scout career, a bus trip to Minnesota, to visit Niagara Cave (no relation to the Falls).

Once below ground, I was the only kid in my “den” who knew beforehand the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. I was a library rat, and I’d already read at least two books about caves. I had pondered spelunking as a vocation. That might have been the moment I realized that I could probably teach the Cub Scouts more than the Cub Scouts could teach me. Later, I had the same problem with 4-H. By the time I hit ten, I was an intellectual snob, even though I hadn’t been anywhere beyond Harmony, Minnesota. And I didn’t expect to go.

Only when Mom uprooted me and moved to Madison did I discover that I’m a city kid. Well, I’d suspected as much, even in Tomah, where our last dwelling was a second-floor slum that overlooked the town’s main drag, which was also Highway 12. All night, 18-wheelers — bound for Chicago, New York, Sioux City, San Pedro, Paris, Bangkok, the moon! — roared past and rattled the frost off our windows. Every Friday night, the street was thronged with shoppers ’til 9 p.m., and still busy thereafter — with drunken farmers, carousing GIs from Camp McCoy and a few loose women — ’til 2 a.m. when the Crow Bar, the Elbow Room, the Hofbrau, the Sportsmen’s Bar, the pool hall and three other downtown taverns had to close. I was a main-street Bedouin with no curfew and I loved it. I delivered handbills for the Coast-to-Coast hardware and had a connection for remaindered comic books at Burris’ five-and-dime. During the holidays, Christmas came to me. All the stores were on my block and the guy selling fresh-cut trees set up shop at the foot of our stoop. My favorite carol was “Silver Bells” because I honest-to-God thought that living on Superior Avenue was “Christmas-time in the city.”

After a while in Madison (pop., 125,000) and a few urban stops that followed, it came to me that every city is no bigger than Tomah once you get to know it. First thing you do, you find the library.

Among the cities I’ve stumbled into is Boston, where I lived on St. Botolph Street, survived the North End, holed up in Jamaica Plain, and hung out at Sgt. Brown’s Memorial Necktie. I’m also pretty much at home on the Peninsula just south of Frisco (which the folks in Frisco don’t like you to call Frisco). I got to know Tokyo well enough to write a guidebook or two and get myself in trouble with the Sumo Association. I’ve roamed Paris so much that I even — occasionally — surprise Maribel, my French tutor. She learned from me, for example, that there are four screaming madmen on the facade of the city hall in the Tenth Arrondissement. But hey, Paris is still her turf far more than it is mine. I’m the Cub Scout, she’s the cave.

I don’t know New York like that. But I lived there for a while and I recognize it, understand a few of its idiosyncrasies, can tell a native from a hick at first glance, know how to buy meat at Zabar’s and cheese at Murray’s.

One of the lessons that changed me from a bumpkin to a street urchin was figuring out pedestrian style. In Tomah, it’s easy, genial and voluble. You pass close and say “Good morning.” We call this “Wisconsin polite.”

Your typical Tokyo walker, however, is territorial and aggressive. They come straight at you and dare you to crash head-on. One day, after seven years in Tokyo, I wearied of playing the patsy in sidewalk chicken. Enough, I said, and hip-checked a 100-pound geezer into a vegetable bin. Ah, sweet victory!

In Paris, they’re arrogantly oblivious. You’re the invisible man, shrinking aside lest you’re squished ‘neath Gallic disdain, a smear on the sole of a tasseled loafer.

But New York, well…

Fear — no, suspicion — is your co-pilot. New Yorkers give their fellow walkers a judicious berth. Whether Bleecker Street or Myrtle Avenue, you steer right, clear a dozen inches and never make eye contact. New York is mecca for weirdos who need only a glimpse of pupil to bond with you for life or — too often — death. One veiled glance can trigger an endless lunatic monolog, a pursuit of a thousand city blocks or a dozen years of miserable marriage.

Or all three!

Last week, on a crowded stretch of 47th Street, I was overtaken by a New Yorker. As he brushed past, through tourist-tangled holiday traffic, my hand clipped his arm — lightly, briefly. He turned his head, not looking at me but showing just enough cornea to express displeasure. Our contact seemed barely worthy of acknowledgment, but noting his attention, I kicked in my Midwestern manners and said, “Excuse me.”

This had no effect. He offered no response, withdrew his gaze hastily and visibly increased his pace away from me. At this, my (dark) city self took over. As I always do when I extend courtesy and get none in return, I said, mostly to myself, “Well, excuse you, too.”

But he heard! The head turned and, for an instant, the gecko-eye glared.

Here then, is what I’ve come to regard as “New York polite.” He had bumped into me without remark but had greeted my apology with a dirty look, followed by a second dirty look when I heralded his rudeness.

So, how is this “polite?”

Hey, we’re talkin’ New York here. He did not halt, grab me by the lapels, shove me against the wall, bang my head and yell into my face, “Hey! I’m WALKIN’ heah, m***********!”

All in all, a swell guy.

Next day, back in Wisconsin, at my morning coffee outpost, I encountered a fellow patron in a narrow space between tables. Immediately, I said, “Oops, sorry.” He said, “Oh no, excuse me!” We both smiled and made room. As we squeezed past each other, he patted my back amiably and wished me good morrow.

Poor bastard wouldn’t last ten minutes in Brooklyn.