‘The Pathway I Was Walking on Was Next to a Fenced

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METROPOLITAN DIARY

A buzzing sound uptown, undecided about dinner and more reader tales of New York City in this week’s Metropolitan Diary.

Dear Diary:

I was walking home from the subway station at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, enjoying the latest in a string of warm, breezy, late-spring days.

As I passed a playground at the edge of Morningside Park, I buzzed my lips — something I had begun to do since deciding to finally pursue a lifelong aspiration of learning to play the trumpet.

The pathway I was walking on was next to a fenced-in basketball court where some children were shooting hoops while others watched. A girl who looked to be 10 or 11 was sitting at the base of the fence with her back to me as I approached and then passed her.

All of a sudden, she started to jerk her head from left to right and back while fanning her ears. As she was making these motions, she looked over her shoulder toward me and discovered where the buzzing sound was coming from.

“I thought it was a mosquito,” she said.

I smiled, apologized and explained that, yes, it was me and that I was “exercising my embouchure.”

As I moved away from her, I continued to buzz, enjoying the splendid day that it was.

— Ozier Muhammad

Dear Diary:

I was on the prepared food line at Zabar’s behind a slightly built older woman. The counterman asked what she would like.

She said she couldn’t decide.

The counterman smiled.

“You had the chicken last night,” he said, “so you should probably have the fish tonight.”

“Thank you, Manuel,” she said. “I will.”

— Les Mattis

Dear Diary:

Growing up in rural Georgia, I had always been warned about New York City. My father, who was born in Atlanta, went so far as to tell me he would pay for my film studies “anywhere but New York or California, as you’re weird enough now.”

I remembered my one crossing of the Mason-Dixon Line, to Illinois as a child, for the joy I felt at seeing snow and the trauma of hearing adults curse.

So when I set off at 20 in 1975 for a highly anticipated, chaperoned tour of 12 countries in 10 days, the prospect of changing planes in New York for a flight to London filled me with trepidation.

Sure enough, the flight was delayed, meaning I would have to spend the night in the city, if just at the airport. Somehow, I struck up a conversation with a baggage handler.

“Why don’t you come to a party with me?” he said.

He soon got off work and shepherded me to a teeming apartment with pot smoke and friendliness filling the air, and conversation and cocktails flowing freely.

I socialized for a while and then found a space in a closet to nap until the baggage handler woke me and graciously took me back to the airport to catch my plane.

— Deborah Wilbrink

Dear Diary:

I was desperate to give my last pleco away. It was the only one left from a tankful of fish I had adopted from a neighbor.

Checking Craigslist, I found a posting that said, “Need large plecos/possible trade.” I contacted the poster, and we agreed to meet at the Times Square station on the platform for the A, C and E trains. I put my fish in a bucket of water and headed out.

When the man and I met at the station, he put the bucket into a rolling suitcase and then zipped the suitcase up. He said his wife was a teacher and that her students would love to have the pleco in their classroom.

I thanked him and watched as he walked away with the suitcase and bucket and pleco in tow.

— Michelle Ann Carvell

Dear Diary:

On a broiling summer day in July 2008, I was in the underwear section of a deserted men’s department at Macy’s in Herald Square, taking advantage of the store’s air-conditioning as I looked for some new underwear.

A small older woman approached me and asked in a lilting Irish accent if I might help her.

Of course, I said.

“I’m looking for a pair of underpants for an older gentleman,” she said, “but I don’t know what style an older gentleman might wear.”

“Well,” I said, “I might avoid briefs, if I were you.” I ushered her away from the displays of the more revealing items and toward some practical alternatives.

“Perhaps a boxer or an old-fashioned Y-front,” I suggested, “and in not too lurid a color. Or you might even run to a check.”

She seemed to like that idea and picked out a three-pack of checked boxers. Then she hesitated and explained that she only needed one pair. We searched again and found a single pair.

She seemed pleased with her choice, and as we said goodbye, she thanked me gently for my help.

“By the way,” she said, “I forgot to mention that the gentleman in question is deceased.”

— Jeremy Wayne

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