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I’ve Got To Get Out of New York

Anne Turner Taub

    It was a typical Greek restaurant in New York City, which meant that there were as many Italian entrees on the menu as Greek. Mary Ellen Owens had been coming here for years and she always felt that the scene was like a play—like that play Separate Tables—the same cast of characters every night. An older lady with a forty-ish daughter, the eighty-year old mother with her middle-aged son. There were several couples like these—all come for the early bird special—hardly ever a husband and wife—by this time one of the spouses had usually passed away.
    They all came for the early bird special—for $l.00 more you got coffee and dessert with your main meal. The waiters knew their favorite tables, and had their place settings in correct order even before they sat down. All the couples sat at tables for four—the waiters automatically took away the two extra place settings before they even opened the outside door—sometimes they left the extra napkins for those who were particularly careless in their eating habits. There were usually one or two singles—a lady with severe curvature of the spine who talked incessantly with whoever sat near her, even if the person nearest to her was three or four tables away. In fact, in all the years Mary Ellen had been coming here—seven, actually—this lady was the only one who had spoken to her—but, funny, once Mary Ellen had acknowledged her friendliness, and even initiated a conversation the next day, the woman had never spoken to her again.
    We should all be friends, Mary Ellen thought. We’ve seen each other, actually eaten together, for seven years. Why don’t we form a friendship—but maybe it was because this was New York No matter how many times they met, either in the restaurant or out on the sidewalk, the customers acted as if they had never seen each other before.
    Mary Ellen hated to eat alone. That was why she ate out every night, although it had become quite expensive. She was in her 50’s, never married, and fossilized into an office job.
    Suddenly a thought reached her. She asked George, the waiter, “What happened to that old gentleman who sat in the last booth on the left?” He was a very overweight gentleman who always wore a hat, even when he ate. He would always start talking to the person at the table next to him but he was one of those people in any public place who seemed to be talking to their companion but were actually addressing the world at large, and could easily be heard in every corner of the room.
    “You know,” Mary Ellen said to the waiter, “the man who always described the plot of every movie he saw. He had a big cigar and always had a glass of wine with his meal.”
    “Oh, Mr. Johnson,” said George, “didn’t you know? He passed away three months ago. Heart attack.”
    She was stunned. Three months of eating without him when she had heard and watched him almost every day for seven years? And she had never noticed that he was gone. Mary Ellen was appalled. What’s happened to me? Is this what New York does to you?
    The waiter, George, continued fondly, “You know he was a concert pianist, played at Carnegie Hall a lot.”
    That loud-mouth non-stop talker, Mary Ellen thought, a concert pianist? Amazing.
    “He also wrote the music for songs, you know. Remember that song that was so popular a few years ago, ‘I see orchids and I see you’”?
     “Of course I do,” said Mary Ellen, “it was one of my favorites”, and she hummed a line.
    “He wrote the music for that. What a guy! Good tipper, too.”
    The waiter went away, humming the tune.
    She left the restaurant in a state of depression she could not understand. The man meant nothing to her. She had never spoken to him. What difference did it make? He was too pretentious and too loud, why did she care? But he had given her many hours of pleasure with that beautiful song. Why hadn’t she been nicer to him? Just said hello once in a while.
    When she got to her apartment house on the next block she saw Michael, a tall young man of 28, standing in front of the building, looking somehow unfinished. As usual, he had on his black leather jacket adorned with all manner of metal gadgets—hooks for guns, fishing gear, tools—equipment he had never used and would never use—but which jangled from his jacket in joyous kinship with his high leather boots and skintight black pants.
    “Michael,” she said, “where are your wheels?” Michael without his motorcycle was a phenomenon never seen. She supposed it was logical that indoors he must live without his “bike”—a huge black monster that took up as much airspace as it did parking acreage on the ground—but looking at him now he looked strangely bereft.
    “Oh, they stole it”, he said, but he didn’t seem unhappy.
    In New York, it was never necessary to explain who “they” were. It was part of being a New Yorker to know that “they” were never identified, but always out there. She began to commiserate but he said “Oh, the cops found it. They towed it away.”
    “That’s great,” she said.
    “No,” he said, ‘they’ve had it for twelve days and they’re charging me $l5 a day for storage.”
     “Why, that’s terrible, but I suppose you’ll have to pay it.”
    As she spoke, she began to realize that he was one of those people who conducted conversations as if they were playing both sides of a volleyball game. First, he’d say something bad—you’d understand and feel sympathetic. Then he’d counterbalance that with something good. You’d feel happy for him, at which point he’d give you more bad news. This usually was the pattern for the whole conversation —the seesawing of your emotions began to drive you nuts.
    “So,” she said, “I guess you’re just stuck with the towing charges.”
    “Oh, no,” he said, smiling, the bike was all banged up anyway. It would have cost me $500 to fix it up. I just left it there. I got my eye on a l967 vintage model.”
    Mary Ellen walked into the building. It had been a very rough day and she didn’t know where she was at.
    This is New York, she thought, I’ve got to take a vacation. She had told herself this everyday for all the years she had lived in New York. When she got into her apartment, she lay face down on the bed for some peace and quiet. Her head was turned to the night table and, on eye level with her face, she watched a roach crawl across the night table—a scout perhaps, breaking new territory for generations of roaches to come.
    God, it was slow. She had read some scientific article that said that New York roaches were among the fastest in the world.
    My god, she said, what am I thinking? What is happening to me? When I saw a roach when I first came to New York I would have fumigated the whole apartment, night and day, for a week.
    I’ve got to get out of New York, she said to the roach, I’ve got to get out of New York.
    She lay there, her eyes not three inches from the roach who proceeded unfazed over the impedimenta—aspirin bottle, box of tissues—of the strange beings that inhabited his apartment, his apartment by right of prior tenancy. With single-minded determination, he proceeded on his appointed task of going from one end of the night table to the other.
    What am I coming to? I’ve got to get out of New York. She brushed the roach off the night table with the box of tissues, watched him explore another area of his territory, and then, having lost interest in the roach, she realized that this was probably the only new experience that had happened to her that day.
    The next day there was a knock on the door. To her surprise, it was the lady with the forty-ish daughter from the restaurant.
    The old lady said, “I’m Mrs. Blount—we know each other from the restaurant. I feel like we are old friends, we have patronized the same restaurant for so many years. I even remember that time you had to come in with a crutch because you had broken your ankle skiing—so, the waiter said. Well, I was glad to see that it didn’t take you long to get well.”
    “You remember that?” Mary Ellen said, “That was four years ago. Suddenly, she realized that the lady, Mrs. Blount now, was not really interested in the conversation, that she was obviously under a great deal of stress.
    She started to ask when Mrs. Blount suddenly put a tissue to her face, shielding her eyes, saying “I’m sorry, I can’t help it”, as she began to cry, silently and tearfully.
    “Come in, won’t you?” Mary Ellen asked.
    “Oh no, I couldn’t,” said Mrs. Blount, “I only came to ask you if you would want to come to the funeral for my daughter. She was—” she closed her eyes in pain, “she was hit by a car yesterday when we were coming out of the Early bird—” Mary Ellen wondered is there always something ludicrous in the severity of death? Mrs.Blount continued, “And it was all over in seconds. I was even there and saw it happen.”
    “Oh, I am so sorry,” said Mary Ellen. What could she do? What could she say? She felt that she hardly knew the daughter. Had never really even spoken to her.
    Mrs. Blount dried her eyes and said, “I just wondered if you would want to come to—” she began crying again, this time openly—“to Emily’s funeral. It’s at ten Saturday. When I see you at the restaurant, I’ll give you the card with the details.” She continued, “I hope you can come, you’ve known her for so many years.” Known her? All I have ever said to her was hello, thought Mary Ellen, but I guess if you add up all the hellos over seven years, you might have enough words for a pretty long conversation.
    “Poor Mr. Johnson, the gentleman who died three months ago; he would have wanted to come, I am sure. He always thought you were such an intelligent person—he said you always listened to everything he said, even though he was halfway across the room”
    “Of course, I’ll come,” said Mary Ellen, after expressing words of sympathy. Mrs. Blount continued; she obviously wanted to talk about her daughter, or just talk to someone to relieve the pain.
    “Emily,” she hid her face in the tissue again, then continued; “Emily and I felt so bad when your romance fell through last year.”
    Mary Ellen fought to keep down the geyser of anger that was erupting through her at the nerve of these people peering into her private life. At the same time, she was afire with curiosity. “How did you know about that?”
    “Well, one day we saw you on the street with a nice man, and you were both laughing and having such a good time. And after that you always finished your whole meal and sometimes even had an extra dessert, even though you are allowed only one on the Early bird.”
    “But then, it was so sad. Emily and I felt so bad for you. You started pushing away your food. And when you stopped eating dessert! Well, if that doesn’t tell you something is wrong, I don’t know what does?”
    This is New York, she thought. I do matter to somebody. And I guess—the thought raced across her vision like a newspaper headline—they matter to me. She thought about the people in the restaurant, the waiters, Michael the motor cyclist—the webs of interaction were so fine, but—she smiled a little—they were there. She got dressed to go out, to go to the restaurant and today, she decided, she would smile at everyone who looked her way.

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