‘I Busted Out My Rusty Ballet Moves and Swung From a Pole’

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All in the Lip

Dear Diary:

It was years ago, and my wife and I were on our honeymoon. We hailed a cab near Central Park. I heard a trumpet blaring from the radio.

“Nice music,” I said.

“Harry James,” the cabby said. “He’s the best. I play a little trumpet, and I can tell you that it’s the lip that counts, and nobody has a lip like Harry James.”

“How about that,” I said. “I’m from the town in Texas where Harry grew up, and I actually took trumpet lessons from his father, Everette James, when I was a kid. I’m a fan of Harry’s too.”

We had the usual “it’s a small world” conversation and discussed some of the great Harry James hits.

After arriving at our destination, we paid the fare and began to get out of the cab.

“Wait,” the driver said. “One more thing.”

I thought we might have left something behind.

“You’ve got to tell me,” he said. “Did he say it was all in the lip?”

— Robert Plummer

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Empty Car

Dear Diary:

My boyfriend and I were headed home from a long, wildly exciting Brooklyn Cyclones game late on a beautiful summer Tuesday.

Still riding high from the home run that had ended the game, we walked toward the back of an F train that was waiting to depart from the Stillwell Avenue station. We sat down in an empty car, ready for a long and uneventful journey back to Manhattan.

Expecting more passengers to join us at the next stop, we skipped up and down the empty car while we had it to ourselves.

But no one got on at the next stop. Or the next. Or the next.

Our antics got sillier with each passing stop. I busted out my rusty ballet moves and swung from a pole in a mediocre impersonation of a Showtime performer. My boyfriend sang show tunes at the top of his lungs. We ran up and down the car and spun each other around the aisle.

Each time the next stop was announced, we rushed back to our seats with a giggle, ready to pretend that we had been sitting still the whole time.

And each time after the doors closed with the car still empty, we leaped up to start all over again.

By the time someone finally did get on, we were dripping with sweat and drenched in joy. Thirteen stops had come and gone.

— Anna Driscoll

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Houdini’s Grave

Dear Diary:

I had 72 hours to spend in N.Y.C.
I wanted to visit Houdini’s grave
I brought a rock
From his hometown in Wisconsin
I intended on putting it on his tombstone
I ended up occupied in TriBeCa
And never made it to Queens
I hope you’ll pardon my absence
With the realization that this time
It wasn’t in the cards

— Danny Klecko

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Elizabeth

Dear Diary:

I work the closing shift at a bar in SoHo. To begin my trip home to East Williamsburg in Brooklyn, I can take either the 6 at Spring Street or the R/W at Prince before changing at 14th Street for the L.

Almost every night, I take the 6 so that I can see Elizabeth, a fourth-generation New Yorker and subway attendant who always steps out of her booth so we can catch up.

Elizabeth works at stations along the 6, L and Eighth Avenue lines, among others. She has blue and purple hair and she loves the designer Patricia Field.

Recently, a guy I had been seeing visited me at the bar. On our way back to my apartment, I introduced him to Elizabeth. He loved her, and I loved watching them talk.

A few weeks later, Elizabeth and I chatted as I waited for the train. I mentioned that I had arranged an outing the next night for my friends to meet the guy she had met.

After a hung over Sunday shift, I walked to the Spring Street stop, and there was Elizabeth, wearing a Patricia Field hat.

“How’d last night go meeting the friends?”

My eyes watered. After two days, two shifts at different stations and hundreds of people passing her by, she had remembered.

“It went great,” I said. “He asked me to be his boyfriend.”

— Stephen Bradley

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Intriguing Sight

Dear Diary:

I was strolling down MacDougal Street just after the most severe part of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. I was glad to see that people were out and about, with some sitting on chairs and benches.

Among the most intriguing of these was a woman with a white cockatoo perched on her shoulder.

I approached her and asked whether I could talk to her bird.

“He never learned to speak,” she said, “but sure, say hello.”

“Hello, hello,” I said.

The parrot responded by barking, a real yip like a small dog.

“Oh yeah,” the woman said. “We used to live with a Yorkie.”

— Judith Miller

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee