AUGUST IN NEW YORK

By Devin Friedman 

AUG 21:

As I was walking past Friday’s in midtown, a seven year old kid came stumbling out the door saying, "That's enough Shirley Temples for this kid. Eh, ma?"

AUG 23:

This family was walking in front of me on fifth street. They were all really fat and sullen. The trees on the block were in bloom and all their tiny bright green flowers appeared almost to glow in the twilight. They came down from the branches in the wind, falling over me and the family and blanketing the street with no sense of economy. It’s weird, I had forgotten that trees blossom. The mom spun around in the street with her palms up and said, "It’s like natural confetti." Her daughter, pranced ahead and, I swear to God, whinnied, and then pranced on back.

AUG 26:

There are these two homeless guys who’ve been around lately. One big black guy, rangy, who wears a button that says, "We’re coming." And this other Mexican guy with the puffy face of a perpetual drunk who hit bottom and kept on going. The black guy is always talking and the Mexican guy is clearly the silent side-kick. It’s possible the Mexican guy doesn’t even speak English, which would make it a really funny situation. But I can’t say it’s true. Anyway, I pass them on First Avenue, and I hear the rangy black guy say, "Of course Jesus went to China! How the fuck you think that motherfucker learned Kung Fu?"

[Devin Friedman writes mostly magazine stories.]