Like a lot of New Yorkers, I’m missing the outside. New York City apartments are not designed for quarantine situations; this city isn’t designed for quarantine situations. We must make do, though, and in the meantime I’ve found that reminiscing about sweet old days, when a nearby pedestrian’s cough didn’t set off alarms, is one way to go. I’m in a position where my biggest worry is when I’ll get back on the soccer field, so I have it much much much easier than most in New York. I can’t imagine how hard it is to have lost friends or family to Coronavirus, nor do I have to worry about my parents’ finding/keeping their jobs after New York beats the virus. But I’m not all blank there. I have a sliver of a vision of what it’s like to lose a job. And it’s enough to put some grey into one memorable blue sky day I keep coming back to…
So it’s late summer in the city. That time when the sun’s beginning to chill, when you’re soaking up every moment of the fleeting season. For me, this stretch of the year is the last before the serious school soccer season so often I’m doing my best to get in shape. Running mostly, sometimes with my friend Olivier, a track kid (though not a star who’d leave me behind).
Anyway, we met up to run downtown. We chose our favorite path, along the Hudson River Parkway. When we jog Olivier pulls out his phone and plays his Itune library’s music, sparking our running argument. Olivier insists that buying a streaming service wastes money. O has been frugal since fifth grade and he’s unwilling to change his ways. He says “just buy individual songs that you like.” I counter each time, talking up the virtues of streaming services, but Olivier holds firm. On this run downtown he only played the couple songs he’d bought. He alternated between hardcore Tee Grizzley, who’s actually very good, and lame sound-cloud rappers. Now, as I mentioned, I like Tee Grizzley, but blasting
FIRST
DAY
OUT
while running by little kids on the relatively genteel Hudson Greenway is probably not the best move (then again crazier stuff happens in NYC). After a couple sharp glances from concerned parents, Olivier got the message and turned down the music. But we stayed up as we pushed on. Eventually we reached 23rd St., after passing the Intrepid. Olivier was beat–turned out he’d been focusing on non-stamina workouts. I took up Olivier’s method and we decided to finish our exercise with a…non-stamina workout, eating tacos. We opted for Los Tacos Numero Uno in Chelsea Market. I got my normal order: three cheap, moderately spicy adobada Tacos. Olivier got the same. He takes a bite, digs it. Another, smooth sailing. Then it went bad. Olivier half-laughed, “huh, real spicy.” “Yeah, I guess?” I said. Olivier’s smile melted away as he began gasping. Tears started streaking down his cheeks. The spice was killing him. (These were moderately spiced tacos, after only two bites!) I had to stop myself from laughing as we rushed down to the lower level of Chelsea Market to find milk (for dealing with spice) in the supermarket. Like most things in Chelsea (other than those tacos) everything in the Market was ridiculously pricey, so my frugal friend refused to buy a tiny carton for some stupid price. He looked up the nearest Duane Reade, and we went off to find milk.
Olivier turned the corner, and began running (much faster than he had during our jog) to the store. I was at his heels as he burst through the doors. He sprinted to the drinks aisle. I walked by the fridges while he searched for milk, and noticed the stores of ice cream had been depleted. I looked a bit closer and saw that all the ice cream was on sale, really good deals. I called Olivier over. It was like we had found El Dorado. Olivier’s spice problem was solved, and I could get a bunch of ice cream for cheap. We swept the shelves of all the remaining good flavors (though the Hagen Daz was already all gone). We got ice cream cookies, Klondike bars, sorbets, everything you could imagine. This was the best sale I’d ever come across. Wondering if it was too good to be true, Olivier and I bumbled over to the checkout with ice cream piled in our arms. With wide smiles and loud chuckles we came up to the cashier. We asked him “what’s with the sale?” The young guy across the counter, empty of the normal chocolate treats for impulse buyers, shot us an icy look: “the store’s closing.” His glare stayed on us. He didn’t have to spit out: “Players! Enjoy that ice cream.” Olivier and I turned our eyes down. We felt like idiots. Jumping for joy at a big sale in a store that was closing down. I wondered what was next for our cashier. Was he gonna get a new job at another Duane Reade? Would the new place require some insane commute or a killer schedule? Or maybe his bosses were done with him. I wondered when he’d learned he’d be losing his job at this Duane Reade. Was it just dropped on him out of nowhere? That was the one thing that got to me most when my dad lost his job. I was a 4th grader at the time, and I didn’t really understand what it was all about. But I do remember being shocked at the fact they had told my dad (and others) that they’d been fired and would have to leave immediately. The fact it happened so quickly, without regard for someone’s processing, hit me.
I like thinking back to running with Olivier (and rolling with “First Day Out”), but I don’t regret the way the day took a hard turn. It reminds me all over again to take in the shock that comes with job loss. A shock that’s reverberating throughout the country right now.