Jackson is unhappy. He enjoyed the play we saw but does not want to wander around Times Square. He is complaining about the crowds, the noise, the lights, and everything really.
CJ says, “Shut up and you’ll get ice cream.”
“Oh that’s right,” Jackson never makes any attempt to disguise sarcasm. “You can’t get ice cream anywhere else.”
“Stop being a sarcastic asshole,” CJ snaps.
When your best friend’s other best friend is also your boyfriend, you stay out of their fights so I say nothing and try not to think about the crowd pressing around me. Although it’s nearly 11 PM, it’s as bright as daylight in Times Square and hot in a way that pins you down as if you had lost a wrestling match.
I squeeze Jackson’s hand because I hate Times Square too. But Jackson hates it and thus, hates New York. I hate it because I love New York so much.
Sarah and CJ also hate Times Square but are willing to tolerate it for ice cream or the Disney Store. Everyone hates Times Square; some people just consider the things in it worth braving it for.
I want Jackson to see more of New York. I’m convinced that if he could see the Strand or the Union Square Market or Greenwich Village, he would like it. The New York of my childhood is exciting. The neighborhood where I used to live had a mailman who loved opera and occasionally you would hear him burst out a few bars of Verdi or Puccini or Mozart and then go back to mail delivery. But Jackson comes here once a year and only ever sees places like Times Square. If it were any other neighborhood, I would want to wander, explore, and hopefully find a hidden gem like a secret used bookstore or a woolen giraffe hat. But this is not my New York, so I just tell myself to shut out everything but finding the ice cream and following CJ’s spiky blond hair through the cloud.
But it could not have only been one block. Two. Three. I am reminded of an acting exercise I have done several times where I have been told to walk as if surrounded by Jello. So many people and too much light and the colors of the different advertisements clash horribly. Too many different people are shouting at me about tour buses of Manhattan or the world’s greatest wings. Finally we see a place where there is ice cream, A Cold Stone.
“Oh boy,” Jackson says, really losing patience now, and I know he’s about to comment that we have a Cold Stone in Pleasantville, but I shake my head and remind him in a low enough voice that CJ and Sarah cannot hear, “It’s Sarah’s last night.”
In two days Sarah is leaving for college in Denmark. She keeps avoiding the subject or joking that it isn’t going to happen. At the beginning of the summer, she had admitted that she didn’t know how to do laundry, and an hour before she had bought the first wallet she’d ever owned. For her, ice cream from Times Square will taste better. So I will say yes to anything she asks for in this New York that isn’t mine.
Cold Stone is painted a deep red and the lighting is a shade of yellow that turns the brown in Sarah’s hair into a five-day-old bruise. Cold Stone is relatively quiet though a little packed, but the line isn’t particularly long so we wait until we get close enough to see the menu. I am too tired for ice cream.
But now it is Sarah’s turn to sigh. “It’s two dollars more than in Pleasantville.” The magic of ice cream in Times Square is gone. She does not look dejected or upset, but the light has gone out of her face. “Do any of you want to order something?”
I shake my head and CJ mutters, “Capitalist scumbag corporations.”
“Oh good.” Jackson turns towards the door. “It’s nice to know that all that was for nothing.” While Jackson does have a sarcastic side it is usually not this prominent and he usually is not one to complain.
We go back into the chaos and start walking towards Grand Central. I take his hand again and remind him, “The play was fun.”
“Yeah,” he admits and then points out the man who is smoking pot in the street.
Sarah turns to us, her face alive again. “Guys, let’s go to the Disney Store.”
“Yes!” CJ starts bounding forward again. For some reason, the hatred of corporations does not extend to the Disney Store. “I know how to get there from here. It was where the Restore the Fourth Protest started.”
I see Jackson sigh a little but he says nothing.
One block. Two blocks. Crowds. Yelling. Pulling Jackson along because he’s too polite to walk through crowds effectively. I’m starting to have trouble thinking.
At the Disney store, a man with a mustache greets us and says, “Welcome to Disney.”
As soon as we are past him Jackson complains, “This isn’t Disney. It’s the Disney store.”
“Shut up Jackson,” Sarah says, not as angrily as she is pretending to be. “You have no magic in you.”
I am in some agreement with him. The walls are lined with things I have neither the desire nor means to buy so I stand with him by the wall and talk about the corn roast we’re going to tomorrow. At this time of night, The Disney Store is the antithesis of Times Square. The few people there are calm. The colors are subdued and matching. I suddenly realize that my head has been pulsing and my hands are shaking. Everything slowly calms inside me. CJ and Sarah are walking around and looking at things and having a detailed discussion on the history of animation that neither Jackson nor I can follow.
At some point I say, “We really shouldn’t miss the next train.”
As we leave the store, the man with the mustache wishes us a magical evening and Sarah’s face shines as she says, “You too.”
Park Avenue. During non-business hours it is quiet though in the distance we can still hear Times Square. I can think again and my ears have stopped ringing. My grip on Jackson relaxes. I strain my ears for mailmen singing opera. We begin to make our way back to Grand Central. We pass a rickety little convenience store whose doors are open, so I can see the freezers inside, right behind the fruit stand.
“Hey.” I will save this night for Jackson and maybe for all of us even if it is only a little bit. “They have ice cream here. Maybe they sell those little Haggen-Dazs cups.”
They don’t but they sell those Haggen-Dazs stick things, which are better than nothing, and at least chocolate-y. We pass an office building with an indoor garden and stare at it through the glass, as our fingers turn sticky with ice cream and for some reason, to me, this is the most New York thing we find the whole night. CJ asks if any of us want to come into the city next week to protest the anti-gay laws in Russia. At the mention of next week, Sarah’s face falls and the subject is dropped.
And then we are running so we don’t miss the train, because we are just visitors after all. We come to see our own New Yorks. Sarah’s will be the magic of ice cream in Times Square at 11 o’clock at night. CJ’s will be the root of all evil (and therefore the best place to fight the man). Jackson’s will be for special occasions that are absolutely impossible to find anywhere else. And mine will be for surprises and mailmen who want to be opera singers.
On the train back, Jackson reads Into Thin Air and I read his Green Lantern comic. CJ and Sarah talk about animation styles.
Sarah drives us home from the train station. I lean against Jackson in the backseat. And maybe because it’s almost 1 AM or because we have so little time left, we don’t pretend Sarah isn’t leaving anymore. We say goodbye. CJ tells us they are doing a Wiccan ritual tomorrow and would we like her to wish for anything specific.
I mumble half-asleep in the backseat, “I wish that Sarah has a wonderful time in Denmark and makes incredible lifelong friends, and it changes her life.”