I’m visiting New York after a long time away. Here’s a change: there are a lot more people from the Andes. That’s not the sort of change you hear about, like legal pot or the streets being clean, but see it and it’s going to strike you. Nutrition must be a problem because some of the people are tiny. You see one of them and it’s like a hole opens in the crowd and down a level there’s an adult walking with an impossibly narrow width across the shoulders, shoulders that are themselves palm-size by my reckoning. Their bodies are spare and miniaturized: sometimes rickety, sometimes wiry, but everything’s in proportion the usual way except a lot smaller. A lot of Mexicans and Central Americans are low but wide; these people are lower but not wide. That tininess can throw you, especially when you notice their faces, which tend to be wrinkled, grooved, or carved. Some of the people look 100 years old. Others fall more within the normal range for age, but they’ve lived someplace hard and have the eyes and mouths of people who’ve been dealing with heavy matters. These are women and men who could teach the rest of us about adulthood. But they’re the size of eohippus.
Someplace between Flushing Meadows and Corona Park there’s an underpass and the trash along the curb looks like the old days. Traffic coughs past you and then you emerge into the light and look along the fence blocking off Shea (if I have the geography right). As I emerged and blinked, a square-angled car painted a fiery red passed by. Squiggly blue flames stretched along its side, and I think strings of white light bulbs might have outlined the car’s frame. Beneath the underpass the driver backfired his engine twice, letting out a smart pair of rifle cracks. These bounded to the roof overhead, bounced back down, bounced back up.
Being kinetic and high-strung, I doubled over and shouted “Motherfucker!” at my shoes. A man from the Andes was walking past me toward the underpass. He had a square chin, a square jaw, and a hank of black hair combed onto his forehead. His face was lined; altogether it was a cowboy’s sort of face, as from the movies, but located a distance below mine.
He nodded at me and pointed in the direction of the car. “Cray-cie, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Cray-cie.” “Oy,” I said. It was an American moment.