I got out of the eye doctor early and didn’t have to be at work till 1. So I walked, up from Murray Street through Tribeca.
I came across a construction site, veiled behind that blue plywood wall with the little portholes, just one or two, you know, just big enough so you can peer in if you want but you know they don’t want you to. When I did I saw them directing a nozzle, hung from a crane, that poured concrete into a field of rebar. And so there goes up another fucking building.
A French couple was arguing. The man had a little shopping bag with a baguette sticking out of it. So they hadn’t been arguing for long. And better not be for too much longer. She had the upper hand. Complaining, reproaching. Asking those rhetorical questions that make you feel like an idiot. He didn’t have much to say. I lost them at an intersection when they hung back, preferring to bicker than to watch the crossing signal.
An older man in a Yankees jacket was on the phone. Here’s what I heard him say: “In your nose? In your nose? In your nose? In your head?”