I was driving son to Delaware for more premier soccer.
As you cross into New York heading south on I-95 you get ready, you hope, for a quick 25 minute blur from the outskirts of the bronx past the projects and street signs like jerome and amsterdam aves thru to the george washington bridge. Pulse quickened, hyper-alert to a different world too vast and intimidating to want to see, half-conscious of millions of stories with not enough space, or courage, to hear. Check wallet, lock doors... humiliated, cowering white boy with these impulses exposed.
And then on the right, just past a mass of steel underpass, there is the Cross-Bronx Motel — a 10 story cinder block... its “guests†there for a few months instead of days, or for a half-hour, if you know what I mean. A curious, maybe even funny, image in a theater seat watching a spike lee film, but what about for real, at ground level, staring at the door? The liberal elite don’t know the answer, except through “internship†seeking course credit and feather for Columbia Law.
About seven stories up, three windows from the right, there it was... red toy guitar sitting on its head.
And three days later, championship medal in hand, taking the NJ turnpike north... past woodrow wilson, grover cleveland, vince lombardi travel plazas, americana on steroids with a jersey drawl. NYC coming into view, and we wondered... would the red guitar still be there??? We had made up stories about how the guitar got to its perch, and the owner... a little boy no doubt, with his Dad, or his Mom and his siblings, waiting for the next stop.
It was there! Still there, in the exact same spot! We were relieved, even comforted —why, I can’t explain although I should try to think.
So the plastic red guitar became a story, a little family thing. And a few months later we were driving to NYC for a mini-vacation around 42nd between 7th and 8th. Priceline rate tucked securely in the bag. 30 miles away we grew so excited, wanting to show mom and sister this nugget and prove our great find.
AND THERE IT IS! — The Cross-Bronx Motel!
But the plastic red guitar was gone...