PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN (2017) “Café Life”

I had lived in every form of youth ghetto that existed. Now, for my own safety, it was time to live around yuppies.

*

In 2016, I was living in Portland where against my better judgement, I became involved with a much younger woman, whom I fell in love with in a delusional, mid-life crisis kind of way.

After a month or two, I could see she did not have sincere feelings for me. So I broke it off. (Me, thinking we were a couple when in fact I was just one of many men in her rotation.)

The breakup became complicated and I was forced to abandon some of my usual hang outs and social circles. Even worse, as the months passed, I didn’t get over her. In fact, I couldn’t get her out of my head. She was haunting me.

[During this time I met another middle-aged guy who had recently been in a similar relationship. We compared notes and found that in both cases our women had wanted money and gifts and had been very outspoken in their desire for them. I asked him: “Did you give her money?” He said: “I bought her a house.”]

I remained in this anxious and agitated state for nearly a year. And I still wasn’t feeling better. I had never had a breakup affect me like this.

*

Then one day, on Facebook, I saw that a writer friend in Brooklyn needed a cat sitter for a week and without thinking called her and said I would do it. I quickly formulated a plan to move to Brooklyn. I didn’t have to stay there forever. But I had to get out of Portland.

I arrived a couple weeks later with a large suitcase and met my writer friend and her husband. They had a cute house, a couple kids, a cat.

They gave me the keys and left for vacation and I immediately started an apartment search. I signed up with some real estate agencies and each day, I would look at a couple apartments in my price range. They were mostly awful, of course. And in sketchy neighborhoods.

*

*

But this was in April, so when I wasn’t looking at apartments, I was walking around enjoying springtime in New York. I already felt better. It was good to be distracted.

One day, after looking at an apartment, I found myself in Park Slope. I was familiar with this upscale Brooklyn neighborhood from having lived in New York previously.

I thought of Park Slope as being too expensive for me and not really my style. But walking around, it looked so nice. And it felt safe. Most people there had gone to liberal arts colleges and now had media jobs or were in the arts, etc. Wasn’t that my demographic?

So, I narrowed my search to Park Slope. I figured I’d pay the extra. Why was I even thinking I could live in a dangerous, crime-ridden area? I was 56. I couldn’t outrun muggers anymore. I’d lived in every form of youth ghetto that existed. Now, for my own safety, it was time to live around yuppies and people with serious jobs.

*

*

I got a new real estate guy. He showed me a couple apartments in Park Slope, including a laughably small one bedroom in a smelly “pet” building. But it was right on Fifth Avenue and First Street. He said another person was about to rent it. I assumed he was lying. But I was running out of time and the location was good. So I said, “I’ll take it.”

So then I had to give the guy $5000 cash to secure it. At first this felt like a scam, but he did work for an actual real estate company, with a real office, which I have been to. I made the decision to trust him.

I went to a bank machine to get the money. But, of course, my podunk bank back in Portland wouldn’t let me withdraw $5000 from an ATM in Brooklyn, so I had to call their 24 hour line and explain to a lady in Minnesota that I was standing on the street in New York and I gotta give some guy $5000 cash to get an apartment.

She believed me. She did some magic on her end and then I spent a nervous half hour standing on the street stuffing $5000 into my pocket in $500 ATM increments.

I took my wad of cash to the real estate office. It was the weekend so there was nobody there, but the guy arrived and unlocked the door. We sat at his desk, in the empty office and counted out the twenties.

I felt like I was in a movie, playing the part of the clueless provincial about to get ripped off. But it was legit. I signed some papers and he gave me the keys to my new apartment.

*

So then I had a bare, empty, “one bedroom” apartment, which was two tiny rooms, awkwardly attached to each other. I did have my own bathroom with a bathtub, which I now noticed, had not been cleaned.

It was fine. I didn’t care. I had my place. I had a window that looked out onto a fire escape. Maybe I could put a plant out there.

Plus, beyond the fire escape, there was a big tree, just starting to bloom. So really, it wasn’t so terrible. I decided I liked it.

*

Galley’s of my YA novel PHOEBE WILL DESTROY YOU

*

Though I hadn’t lived in New York for many years, I did spend a lot of time there, managing my writing career. So I wasn’t super surprised one day, when I was walking down Fifth Avenue (of Park Slope) and someone called out my name.

It was a woman locking up her bike. She remembered me from when she dated a New York friend of mine, a couple years before.

Her name was Claire and she ran a Café now. She was going there. Did I want to come along and see it?

Of course I did. I had nothing else to do.

She took me to see it. The café was beautiful. The bar and the walls were dark polished wood. It had big windows looking onto the street. It had current copies of The New Yorker, and The New York Times, and The London Review of Books on a little rack, European style.

There was no WIFI—as specified by the owner—so you had to talk to people. I told her, “I’m going to live here.”

*

I immediately began meeting people through the Café. I met an artist woman who lent me a blow-up air mattress (she seemed dateable). I met a woman who had recently had a TV show produced (she was insufferable). I met a smart athletic guy from Iowa who worked at ESPN (he became a friend.)

Also, there were always interesting Europeans stopping in, because in European guidebooks this particular Café was one of the top listings of cool places to go in Brooklyn.

You could just go there, get a coffee, have a chat and continue on your way. It was the cafe life you’ve always dreamed of, but that never quite exists.

*

One day, I was sitting in the Café and I saw an Hispanic guy rolling a folded up portable child’s bed (mattress and bed springs) down the sidewalk. My recently purchased AMAZON foam mattress was giving me a back ache, so I went outside and asked the guy what he was doing with the child’s bed. He was throwing it away. His kid had outgrown it. Did I want it?

I unfolded the bed there on the sidewalk. I laid down on it, as people walked by. It was pretty comfortable. And I fit on it. “I’ll take it,” I told him.

I rolled the bed back to my apartment and set it up. It barely fit inside my “bedroom”. Then I turned my AMAZON bed into a kind of couch in the main room. With my writing desk becoming like an elevated coffee table.

I eventually bought a rolling office chair, so I could work at my desk. But the first time I tried to sit there, my chair began to creep backward, rolling away from the desk. It turned out my floor was so crooked that if I didn’t brace the chair I would always be rolling backward into my refrigerator.

It was not an ideal writing situation. That was okay. I started going to the Park Slope Public Library instead, which was nice and occasionally had freelance writer types to stare at or chat with.

*

St. Mark’s Poetry Project, NYC 2017

*

Park Slope was interesting in general. The main thing I noticed was how hard life was there. It was a constant struggle. People were suing their landlords. Fighting over gardening plots. Creating fake addresses to get their children into the right schools.

Since it was 2017, there were socio-political battles as well. Park Slope residents were fighting Trump, fighting racism, fighting rape culture, and of course, Smashing the Patriarchy. People wore pussy hats walking down the street.

*

The spiritual trend of that time was “Mindfulness”. Most Park Slope residents were living “in the moment” and considered themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

They prided themselves on their empathy, compassion and tolerance but were also capable of sabotaging their upstairs neighbor over disputed basement storage space.

If you were between 35 and 50 you had to have a child. If it was Saturday, you had to take your spouse and this child (in a stroller, even though he was 6) down to the bagel restaurant for brunch, despite there always being a line around the block.

A common sight in Park Slope on a Saturday was an exasperated executive-level mother (44), negotiating with her stroller-encased child (6), ignoring her hapless husband (38), while also trying to talk on her iPhone and not spill her green smoothie.

*

At that time, Bill De Blasio was the mayor of New York. He was often at the Park Slope YMCA where I was also a member. I would see his security detail lingering around the entrance.

De Blasio’s real name was “Warren Wilhelm Jr.” but he changed it to “Bill De Blasio” so people would think he was an average Joe from Queens and not the descendant of German aristocrats, which he probably was.

The Park Slope YMCA was where I did yoga and played basketball and once tried to join a pickup volleyball game, which was so intense and competitive, people would still be arguing the last point, while the current point was being played.

The best thing to do at the Y was find some local teenagers and play pickup basketball. Or go to the Wednesday night yoga class with the old hippy lady who made the class do breathing exercises that got you high.

*

Dude at Brooklyn Library

*

So yeah, the people of Park Slope could be annoying. But I always had Claire’s Café. And it was always nice to walk the residential streets, with their leafy trees and the elegant brownstone buildings.

That spring was especially lovely. And the following summer was shady and mild. And the autumn after was crisp and cold in that special New England way.

And of course I loved the stately Christian churches—one on every block it seemed—now barely used and in various states of disrepair. I saw a lot of those churches, making the rounds of my various 12 Step groups.

*

One day a friend from Portland called and told me about a young woman friend of hers who was an aspiring writer. She had just moved to Brooklyn. She didn’t know anyone and she would probably love to hang out. I should give her a call.

So, I contacted this woman (early 30s?). She didn’t sound that eager to hang out. But we arranged a coffee date. We met up and she was pretty interesting.

She was from Weed, California. And then lived in Portland for a time. And now had made the big move to Brooklyn to try to make it as a writer.

She was attractive and gutsy, so I thought she might have a chance in New York. If her writing was good.

*

Anyway, we met up a couple times. Totally platonic. And then one night, after some Thai food and publishing talk, she suddenly said to me: “But you acknowledge that the reason you published all those books was your white male privilege, don’t you?”

I looked at her. She was totally serious. I didn’t know how to answer. I probably admitted to some sort of privilege, since it was true that publishers still liked white male authors back when I was starting out. If their writing was good.

*

Writers, Editors, Agents: everyone rides the F Train

*

Then one day, while walking down Fifth Avenue to Claire’s Café, I looked down the hill toward Manhattan and I realized that I was finally over the younger woman in Portland, who had shaken me to my core. I hadn’t thought about her in weeks.

And yet, I still had this vague feeling of doom and despair. It was 2018. There seemed to be a new negative energy in the world, a lingering ambient hostility. It was everywhere you went. You couldn’t avoid it. It was the new state of things.

Or was this more about me getting older? And more vulnerable? Like after a certain age you’re just playing defense. Trying to protect your heart. Your resources. Your reputation. Never mind trying to accomplish anything. Now it was all about survival.

I didn’t know. Maybe it was best not to think about it. I kept walking. I went into my Café and ordered a coffee and watched people walking by out the window.

Then I read an article in The New York Review of Books. Eventually, I felt a little better about things. Not a lot better. A little better.