On my way to dropping off Jackie at camp I thought of something to write about—nothing great, but something. An event in my everyday life, possibly a recurring event. It occurred to me: of course that’s something to write about. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s exactly the sort of thing to write about: mundane yet amusing, emblematic of city life, or modern life. And I can’t remember it at all.

On the Roof

The planes flew overhead as usual, maybe a little low on account of the clouds. In the distance the city trembled ever so slightly from all the noise you couldn’t hear.

A few houses down a family was having a barbecue. Dad at the grill. Mom and the little ones up some steps, sitting on a fancy outdoor couch. Look at them, eating at a proper time. With the nice grill and the good outdoor furniture. How much richer they must be than us, I thought. How much better. And then I thought, how could you think a thing like that?

As I drove a nail diagonally through the table, hoping finally to fix that part that’s always breaking off, I became aware of a din across the street. It was a woman screaming. I paused to try to make out what she said.

“You tell her! You tell her! You tell her!” she howled, on the edge of articulation.

Then: “You’re killing me! You’re killing me!”

No one seemed to reply. Or if they did, they did so quietly.

In Birthday Room #3 there was pizza and soda for the kids, pizza and water for the parents.

As their photos played on the screen on the wall they all shouted “Me!” when it wasn’t them and “Not me!” when it was. Like they’d all just discovered irony. Like the apes at the beginning of 2001, using a bone for a weapon. Evolving.

You look on the internet a minute and you find that the guy in the ape suit from that movie was a friend of John and Yoko’s and he wrote a book about his years hanging out with them except now he’s battling with Yoko about can he ever put it out, and anyway now is 2008, so who knows anything, really? For the love of God.

I yelled at a car again, someone driving at me in that tricky intersection of 7th Ave and West 4th. But see, I had the light—the walk signal. All the cars think it’s like an off ramp from a highway ‘cause it’s at an angle but it’s just like any other city intersection where you have to constantly remind yourself not to kill people—they have the right of way.

I held my hand up at him, the universal signal for stop right there. He was still coming and I was walking slow. He slowed and steered behind me, reluctantly, obviously enraged, flipping me off and shouting whatever from his hermetic, upholstered realm.

“It’s a red light, asshole!” I screamed, loud enough for him to hear, which felt good, but it wasn’t exactly true, which felt weird—he did have a green light, but he had to stop for me—but all in all it felt good all the same.