There was nothing visible of any value-- just a pair of shoes that don't fit me and a jean jacket. I was parked right across from the apartment. A neighbor said it must have happened between 4:30pm and 6:30pm because it was fine when he got home from work but busted when he took Marty the brown dog out for his walk. He sniffed at the glass this morning while we talked, and then looked away uninterested. A big black dog came by, holding a rock in his mouth, his jaw propped open at a 90 degree angle. They growled and growled. There were seven cars hit at once, he told me, once the big black dog was gone. It's different around here in the summer. You should park up at 45th or 46th, there's more foot traffic near those big apartment buildings. Around here they can get away with it in broad daylight.
I already knew that daylight won't keep you safe. The funny thing is that I was at home when it happened, in the kitchen. I was baking some chicken in a big pyrex pan while my roomate made some quinoa and black beans. We talked back and forth like a water-logged tennis match-- there's not much to say when Sarah's gone. I opened the oven to pull the pan out, and it broke right in front of my eyes. Look at that! I said. He helped me pull it out without spilling the bubbling juices and we set it in the sink, our hot padded hands moving together like off-beat syncronized swimmer legs. It broke at every bend, like a cardboard box unfolding into half inch thick slabs of clear glass. I immediately cut my thumb, just grazing a piece, ate my chicken with a thought of wonder, relayed the story to my boyfriend over the phone, and watched an episode of the Soprano's up in my top floor West Philadelphia room while the ceiling fan whirred and my Prismacolor markers scratched over leaf after leaf of paper.
And then the morning came, same as yesterday and the day before that. Made a ham sandwhich, found my badge for work, deliberated over a shoes and sweater combination that looked both professional and like myself. Today though, I packed my running bag for a trip to Fairmount Park after work, and bounded down the stairs. Into the kitchen, back upstairs, up and down, collecting the things I always almost forget, and outside to the car. I was going to drive today so I could go to the Park after work. Someone smashed the passenger side window on my car, and I wonder what my face looked like when I saw it at first. People walked past me, always that quick amble downhill towards the trolly. I had never taken the trolly. Fuck, I thought. (At this point in my writing the mail lady slips two pieces of mail through the slot and I think someone is entering. Hello? No response. I look around the corner from where I'm sitting on the Spanish Orange colored couch. Nothing but the letters on the ground. Man I'm jumpy.) I called Jon, because that's what I do when I don't know what to do. A moment of panic. Call the Police. It's a big city you know. That's what they kept telling me.
Is it the biggness of the city that makes these things happen? The anonyminity? Evil things happen in small towns, as we all know in Blacksburg. Is there just a bigger likelihood that crazies live somewhere with a big population? The poverty? I mull it over while sweeping the glass out of my car. Little blue and green clots of it, scattered over the seats and ground. They left all of my cds--they weren't looking for folk music.
The day got hot, and my anxiety took hold of my thoughts and body. I ended up driving to Girard and Columbia, dropping the car off with a guy named Rich who seemed really nice. I walked to a coffeeshop and I felt like people were staring at me. They knew I wasn't from around there, but they didn't look so different from me. My order began with a preamble appology for it's annoying complexity, and ended with what I wanted: a soy latte with caramel flavor. He toyed with me. Everyone toys with me when I wear this black button-up dress with this red sash. I was dressed up for work, where I don't care if they like me, but I'm trying to learn how to grow up. I need a better role model.
I sat at a table next to a window and read the biography of Ben Franklin I've been toting all around Philadelphia and pulling out at the dull points-- which pop up frequently when you know only a handful of people, and most of them in a business casual sort of way. Rich called me and began apologizing, he had ordered the wrong piece of glass. He pointed me down Girard towards another shop, my sense of ground was deteriorating by the minute. Where am I? I walked into a greasy hole in the wall of a shop, where a 7 foot tall man with a deep voice and a washcloth on top of his head leaned over the smashed out windshield of a car, with his back against the wall of the cramped workspace. The corners of the washcloth stuck out like points on a colonial hat; he ignored me. A woman with a bandage on her leg said, hey hun, go on in the office and she'll take care of you.
In I went, and explaining my situation, I moved from corner to corner of the small office avoiding the path of windshields being carried from one entrance to another on the shoulders of blue-shirted mechanics. Want to go fishing?-- one asked me. Who me? The motherly woman asked. No, he laughed. I felt like an object of pity and staring. They gave me my options, and after a moment of hope announced with shaking hands, that they could take care of it tomorrow and for $20 cheaper than Rich. Since the whole operation would take up half of my funds for the rest of the summer, I agreed. But how would I get home? My head is pulsing. Patrick will walk you.
I lost my key on the sidewalk for a while, Is this really happening? Patrick helped me find it and asked me where I was from. A little town in Virginia. I'll take you to the L he said. Is that a bus? It's a train. It'll talk you to the trolly. I got in his red pickup truck and heard half of what he said. He's lived in Philly all his life. He almost left for West Virginia when he retired 10 years ago. I missed a few of his sentences after that. Go up those stairs right there (he pulled off the road), don't go over the crosswalk. Ask about a transfer. See you tomorrow, baby.
I clutched my bags to my side, and I felt completely naked like in a middle school bad dream. A guy on a bench in jean shorts and a white tshirt looked at me while he smoked his cigarette. A woman with short red hair was on the pay phone. I'm about to get on the L, she said. I'll call you later. They were my only companions. The train pushed up, the blue fabric on the seats made our skin seem more colorful, popping out. I was reminded of so many movies when I took my seat. When we went underground it was like the magic school bus trip through the large intestine, only the stomach was a structure of I-beams, or a disneyland roller coaster through a haunted house. Every light shown on patches of quick grafitti in the alcoves. Blink Blink Blink Blink. Dawg Roger Quinton Philly. A SEPTA empolyee sat next to me on my deaf side and tried to talk about the heat. He has three hours more of walking back and forth on the platforms he said. I wanted to trust him but that voice about my naivety kept sounding off. We got off at 15th street and I asked which way to the trolley. Here I picked up on the trail of an indian man who heard my question and offered to show me since he was going the same way. I again, with no better option, agreed. He kept asking me questions, and I wondered whether I should give false answers. We got on the trolly and he asked the driver if we were going to my neighborhood. 40th street, I said. 40th and what? 40th and WHAT? B..baltimore, I think. Oh. Yeah I go there.
Waved to the Indian guy at his stop, and with the safe completion of every step of my journey I became more and more trusting in the city of brotherly love. (I want to go home.) Living in the city is tiring. When will I feel like a regular on a transportation route? I need to learn the basic things first, like you have to step down to open the trolly doors. (Now when you go to Philly, you will know this and have avoided the first act of ignorance. Remember also to always say both streets at an intersection. For example, don't say you live on Pine Street, say Pine and 43rd.) How long would I have to live here before I looked like I belonged here? I do enjoy life here-- but it's life as a visitor. At first the city was just a surface, a style of houses, a noise, a smell. Now it's a substance, and I live in it, like it's an ocean or a tree and I'm an apple lodged in the very center. The only difference is awareness. But what a difference it makes. To know that you aren't safe in the daylight. But that you are surrounded by people like you. You can't go looking for honesty. You'll come out with disapointment and a desire to return to Virginia. But you can look for toughness, for gumption, for a new feeling that makes you want to walk home faster so that you can write down the story of your day before you become consumed by tomorrow.