‘I Can Still Recall One Subway Ride I Took After Moving to New York’

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Unusual Passenger

Dear Diary:

I can still recall one subway ride I took after moving to New York City from Cape Cod at the age of 23.

I got on an uptown train in Greenwich Village. Seated across from me was a huge, raw roast beef, nicely tied in white butcher’s string and sitting on brown wrapping paper.

Several people avoided sitting next to the beef. I thought someone might say something about it, but everyone who got on the train just glanced at it and then sat down as if it were normal.

I got off at 42nd Street. The roast beef continued on uptown.

— Jan Worthington

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Voices Atop the Stairs

Dear Diary:

“Hurry Dear; we’re waiting.”
From atop the stairs they call,
while the yellow box Checker cab honks
and honks again.

When I am six
my mom and nan
wear hats with veils,
fox furs, dark wool suits,
and silk seamed stockings.
“Hurry Dear; we’re waiting.”

We’ll ride
down Flatbush Avenue,
across the Brooklyn Bridge,
to fix their hair at Saks,
piquant with powder and perfume.
Warren and John will set it
and Kate Smith’s before she sings
“When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain”
on afternoon TV.
“Hurry Dear; we’re waiting.”

I’ll stay at my granddad’s office,
the doctor and Columbia professor,
between Lexington and Park,
with rabbits in cages,
and specimens in glass bottles.
He will see into his microscope and
talk to wax cylinders while
I’ll practice “balloon” and “bicycle”
on the typewriter, and
his nurse in crisp whites
calls me a smart little fella.
“Hurry Dear; we’re waiting.”

I’d like cinnamon toast
at Rockefeller Center
before we head for home.
The yellow box Checker cab honks
and honks again.
“Hurry dear; we’re waiting.”

But that was long ago.
I am seventy-six now
and all is gone.
Yet still from atop the stairs they call,
“Hurry Dear; we’re waiting.”

— Wayne Cartwright Beyer

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Fig Jam

Dear Diary:

A buddy from my life drawing class brought me a small jar of fig marmalade made from the bountiful fig tree in his yard.

At the end of class, I placed the jar in my portfolio and headed to the Museum of Modern Art for back-to-back screenings of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II.”

The person checking bags at the entrance asked me what was in the jar.

Figs, I said.

After checking at the desk, he told me that I couldn’t bring the jar inside and that they couldn’t hold it for me.

“It was a gift,” I pleaded. “I can’t throw it away.”

As I stood there trying to figure out what to do, a man behind me in the line spoke up.

“You have to find a place to hide it and pick it up later,” he said.

I went outside. Looking across the street, I saw several large planters holding good-sized bushes in front of a hotel entrance.

I chose one that was away from any traffic. While pretending to make a call, I placed the jar well out of sight behind the bush.

When the movies were over hours later, I returned to find the jar untouched. I picked it up and headed home.

To that stranger: Thanks for the tip.

— Joe Giordano

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Whiff of Trouble

Dear Diary:

I went to Comme des Garçon in Chelsea to pick up the Grace Coddington perfume.

A sales associate, wearing the obligatory avant-garde black, handed me the perfume.

“Long live, Grace,” he stated coolly.

As I walked out the door, a dozen teenage boys on bicycles were weaving in and out of the street and sidewalk, knocking down traffic cones and generally causing chaos.

Suddenly, a woman who worked at the store opened the door.

“If at any time you feel unsafe,” she said, “come inside, and I will lock the door!”

What customer service!

— Coco Heahlke

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Dive Bar

Dear Diary:

When I was in college, I traveled with a small group of people from Ohio to New York to attend a conference at Columbia University about left-wing politics and progressive activism.

After a long day of teach-in sessions and listening to different speakers, my friend Jackie and I decided to get away for a bit.

We wandered down Amsterdam in search of a drink. We found a dark dive bar and grabbed stools among the dozen or so patrons who were there.

We ordered the cheapest draft beer available. The bartender, correctly sizing us up as out-of-towners, asked what had brought us to the city.

We told him about the event at Columbia.

“We’re socialists,” Jackie told him.

“Oh, cool!” the bartender said. “That’s awesome.”

He continued the conversation, asking us more questions about the conference, what we were studying in college and what the trip from Ohio to New York had been like.

I gave him a $20 bill to pay for the beers, and he went to the register. A minute later, he came back with a handful of singles.