When I awoke in the morning the rain was still coming down, harder than it had Sunday — and it continued to do so well into the afternoon. My original idea had been to go to museums, but then I remember — “Monday, duh … museums are closed!”
Instead, once the weather cleared, I hopped on the 1 and went pants shopping around 34th street … alas, no luck accompanied me, and I left Midtown without a single purchase. I browsed Kmart, H&M, and Macy’s, but in all cases pants were only available for midgets … that is to say, for people with a 34″ inseam or shorter.
Macy’s otherwise had an impressive selection of Dockers.
I wandered around a bit, down south a few blocks past Madison Square Garden, for example, west a bit, back north, and then I took a ride back north. The sky was cloudy enough that the visit to the Empire State Building was not what I was in the mood for.
Uptown again I stopped by Labyrinth Books, down the street, and found a few things, new and used, that I liked, but I can get them all in Madison anyway … but it does remind me a bit of the old Avol’s, but mixed with the downstairs of the University Bookstore … old and new books.
This evening Jyoti went for a walk, and so I went alone to the Hungarian pastry shop and sat for a while doodling and reading — Kafka on the Shore is excellent, though I only read it in bits and pieces. It’s witty and smart, a little bit fantastic, good dialog but also exposition, which I like. And twists and turns.
In front of me — I face the front — sat a woman, and soon two more arrived. They knew each other and all talked in Russian; I could pick out a word here and there, and every so often they code-switched and sometimes just switched to English. At least one was a native speaker of Russian, but all were also New York English speakers. One of the interesting facets of listening to them was comparing their Russian and English; without exception they had deeper voices in Russian, higher in English. I have a deeper one in English, and higher in German. I forget how I speak in other languages.
Eventually a 40-ish man joined them. He walked in, walked by, stood by me, then turned around and returned to them, pulled up a chair, and sat down as if he belonged. I could not tell. He seemed to know at least one of them, and as they talked it became apparent that he knew at least someone connected to one of them. And that he was not quite sober.
“I’m not trying to be rude,” he repeated several times later on; just the reading of the women’s body language made it apparent, in their coolness and distance, how they sat up and did not lean together comfortably or conspiring, that he was not really welcome, and that they were a bit uncomfortable regarding how to get rid of him. But they were polite enough or passive enough or unsure enough that they didn’t want a confrontation and they didn’t just want to say, “Please leave.” Evidently, as mentioned, he knew someone connected to one of the women. And the one furthest from me, taller (5’7″-ish, slender, long-haired, and the least Russian looking) than the rest, mentioned that the shortest and nearest to me had just gotten back from 7 months in Russia and that they were trying to catch up with the other, the one who had been there when I arrived. She was of medium height and slender build with slightly angular and hard features unlike the smooth taller one and the plumper short one, and with wavier long hair tied in an impromptu bun, the way of a studying student, and she had been reading earlier. She stood, went to the counter, and paid the bill. She returned, and the plumper but still small one retired to the restroom; when she returned all three left.
The man promptly stood, turned, went a bit further back in the cafe, and took a seat at a table of European women who had started a conversation.
And I doubt they knew how to get rid of him, either.
When I was getting ready to leave I overhead a barista or two make a comment about someone being drunk, and I suspect they meant the Russian guy, about 5’10” or 5’11”, of average but fit build, a tad swarthy but with light skin, despite the apparent contradiction, and clean-shaven, well-groomed — and when they spoke of him the tone of voice indicated they knew him. A regular.
I left, moseyed home, saw Jyoti on the steps out front talking on the phone, and so I came up and returned to the online world that accompanies me to whichever city I visit.
