There was a fucked-up trans woman on the corner of Grove Street and West 4th with a big pink chalk in her hand and a cigarette bouncing between her lips. Around her workers built a scaffold, twisting bolts, dropping pipes from the platform up above with a monstrous crash. She crept among them and their edifice crouched over, like a hunter in the woods. Looking for the place and time to strike.
Finally she wrote something on the curb in big, curly capitals. “HAPPY,” it said. “HAPPY BIRTH—” and then I was too far away, and I felt foolish for wanting to turn around and read over her shoulder. Later when I came back the other way, I wanted to know who it was she celebrated. There had to be a name. The target of her message. But that’s all it said.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY.