JEZ: Jamaica Center/Parsons Archer, Queens

Tuesday, March 29, 2011



We take the J because we both live on it, but it’s also the end of the line for the E and the Z. Wait, do I live on the J or off the J? I live off the BQE, but I’m pretty sure I live on the J, and I definitely wait in line. Well, actually I’m not sure what I say when I don’t think about it, but when I do think about it, I wait in line. Waiting on line reminds me of the basements in my college library, where you had to follow colored lines on the floor to find various sections. I loved following those lines and the stacks that moved to let you in among the books. Now they probably have some Jetsons-like automated system that pops your book out of a slot in the wall. Oh, who am I kidding. Do college students even read books? Back then I was amazed that people used to write entire books without word processors. Current students probably wonder how we researched papers without the Internet.

Anyway…

The most surprising thing about reaching the end of the J line is how crowded the train is, and the station too is large and bustling. Damaso guesses many of the riders might be going to York College, and signage around the station points out several other local attractions.









We exit into a neighborhood that immediately reminds us both of downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall. Right away we see a narrow passage under a colorful sign that says Food Fest, and we debate whether to disqualify a food court but decide to go check it out. Inside, we’re tempted by the modestly named Taste and See, and we trade potential tag lines for their Indian food:

“What have you got to lose?”

“Could be okay!”

“Not that bad!”



The food court is sunny and clean, but even though we’re hungry, we’re too curious about the neighborhood to settle yet, so we press on. Besides, Damaso needs to visit an ATM, which turns out to be the perfect errand, as the Citibank is down a side street directly across from Patty World Jamaican Restaurant & Bakery, gaudily decorated with fake bunting—a rectangular banner displaying the printed image of red, white, and blue bunting. Jamaican sit-down? Fake bunting? Forget the food court. We're going here! Damaso will finally get his curry goat!



I order the first item in the traditional Jamaican breakfast category, callaloo codfish, which says it comes with dumplings and bananas. The counterwoman looks at me slowly and asks, “Do you want the dumplings?” I affirm that I do, and she walks away sighing heavily. The sign says my meal is $6, so I’m surprised when she asks me for $12 for the meal and a bottle of soda. I thought she was charging me extra for the included dumplings, but she confirms that the meal is $6… and so is the 10 oz bottle of Roots Man Drink. Immediately I’m infuriated that no soda can possibly cost that much but simultaneously convinced that this must be the most delicious drink ever. I fork over the $12.

The walls are bright yellow with brown trim and decorated with mirrors and paintings of Jamaican life, including market scenes and a cricket match. The tables are standard Formica, but the chairs are fancy white and gold dining room chairs. If they weren’t ensconced in plastic upholstery covers, they would be very nice in the waiting room of a funeral parlor.



Damaso’s curry goat comes with plantains, cabbage, and about a square meter of dirty rice. It’s delicious. I don’t see any codfish on my plate but soon realize it’s cooked into the callaloo. I’d thought callaloo was the name of a particular green, a la kale or collards, but the word can refer to any greens mixed up into a soup or soupy mush, usually with seafood. It’s tasty, and it comes with the world’s densest starchy sides—a boiled green banana and a saucer-shaped dough rock, presumably the dumpling. We both cover our food in hot sauce and eat till we’re stuffed.





The Roots Man Drink may defy my descriptive powers. Let me try: blech! Remember those exclamations in the middle of the Batman TV show fights? That’s what it feels like hitting my tongue. The fascinating label (which looks like the back of a label but then has no front) features a long list of ingredients, including strong back, chew stick, poor-man-friend, man-back, blood wisp, and raw moon bush, but I detect not-so-subtle notes of blood, aspirin, and whatever that cough syrup was called that advertised that it must work because it tasted so bad. I can hardly drink it, but I keep trying because it cost $6! Maybe it’s an acquired taste, and I’m determined to acquire it by the end of the bottle. Some sips are okay, but then the aftertaste sucker punches you in the umami. Damaso lets me wash it down with some of his water.









While we’re eating, another patron enters and asks whether they have an ATM. They don’t, but the Citibank is directly across the street. Instead of crossing the street, she starts counting her cash and trying to figure out what she can get without backtracking. When she pours out her change to complete her bill, Damaso gives her a dollar. Neither of us buy $2 videos from the kid who strides in to vend, so he says he might have to head into Manhattan to unload them. Manhattan seems to be a long way away.

Before we leave, I return to the counter to load up on take-out baked goods. From the Royal Caribbean Bakery products (tag line: “mmm… Jamaican Me Hungry!”), I choose a Jackass Corn Coconut Biscuit and a Round Spice Bun. Obviously I pick the former because it says jackass, and I pick the latter because it seems so superfluous to label it “round,” when it’s clearly round. I also get two non-packaged homemade treats: one looks like a snowball with a red splotch on it and the other resembles peanut brittle. They both turn out to be cloyingly sweet coconut pastries, but the biscuits are delicious—spicy, dry, and not-to-sweet—they were perfect with tea.

The weather is crisp but gorgeous, and neither of us are in any hurry. A sign for $9 wigs lures me into a giant going-out-of-business sale. They don’t have the wig I want (platinum bob), but I keep wandering through the racks of stockings, hats, sandals, and clothes, convinced that I must need something. The store occupies an entire block, and we exit onto a pedestrian mall on the opposite side from where we entered. There seems to be a Rainbow store on each block. I don’t know that I’ve ever bought anything at Rainbow, but I like the brand because they always feature big-bootied mannequin bottoms outside the stores. I used to get upset when I couldn’t find clothes that fit me at the Gap until I stopped shopping at white people stores. Eventually I stopped shopping retail almost entirely (in favor of thrift stores, which offer fewer options to paralyze me), but I still get lured by the displays of $5 tank tops and $10 dresses.

Meanwhile Damaso is fascinated by all the stores offering massive discounts on coats, including buy one, get one free deals leather jackets and North Face parkas. Usually I'm the tourist, and he's all business, but this is the first time he wants to linger in the neighborhood as much as I do. At one point, he stops to take a photograph, and I keep walking. As soon as we’re separated, the world changes. Three different men talk to me within a block—nothing threatening, just making conversation, complimenting my smile, my hat, whatever comes to mind. When Damaso returns to my side I become invisible again.

It’s bittersweet knowing this will be our last trip before he moves to Barcelona. In this project, as in so many things, he has called my self-bluff, getting me to stop talking and start doing. Of course, if you're reading this, I've found some way to show these, but from my perspective right now, I’m finishing writing up this tenth trip before I’ve begun creating the means to publish the report from the first one. Now, though, I have the deadline of debt: Damaso’s put work into this project, so I’ve become responsible to him to make it happen. On to the next step, and I’m looking forward to his next visit home in July. That’ll be the perfect time to explore Coney Island, the Rockaway Beach shuttle, and plenty of ends to other lines.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

SIR: Tottenville, Staten Island

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Holy end-of-the-line, Batman, Staten Island is really far away! Like, it’s another world far away. Everywhere else we’ve gone, once we get there it feels like the center’s just moved, but in Staten Island it feels like even the locals know they’re far from “the city.” You’d think the separatist movement would be more active.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This trip starts at the ferry terminal, officially the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal. Well, actually my trip started when I left my home in Brooklyn, late to meet Damaso on the J train, and then stood paralyzed outside my apartment trying to decide whether I was dressed appropriately. I finally concluded that I’d be sweaty and miserable all day if I kept both coats I had on, so I ran back to shed a few layers. By the time I made it back to the J, I was sweaty anyway from being late and running, but I was also late and wrong: I had been dressed appropriately, had caught a moment of heat in the sun, and would now be freezing for the rest of the day. Damaso, always dressed appropriately in warm clothes that wick, was proportionately irritated to be kept waiting so long at my fumbling incompetence.

The J doesn’t run all the way downtown on weekends, so we transferred and then walked a few blocks through battery park community gardens and living statues of Lady Liberty. It took quite a while to get to the ferry terminal, but it still felt like the trip began there. When you’re underground in a subway, you could be going anywhere, but when you’re waiting in a giant room with pigeons flying around and some dude playing Balkan violin music you can barely hear over his recorded backing track, you know you’re leaving one island for another.

I’ve taken the Staten Island ferry a few times since the city spruced up the terminal in 2005. Usually I just get to St. George, turn around, and come back. It's the hip way to show visiting friends the Statue of Liberty without paying the fees and waiting in the lines for the actual Liberty Island ferry. Last time I went, I walked to the Staten Island 9/11 memorial in freezing rain and then turned around and came back. This time it’s cold but crisp and bright enough to keep me in sunglasses even inside the terminal. As we wait, I idly read the zipper scroll: corn is up. Red wax is up. Wait. Red wax? I ask Damaso, and he suggests maybe it’s one of those odd old commodities like pork bellies. The next “stock” to scroll is ice, also up. Finally we realize it’s an ad. Nicely played, Maker’s Mark. You got us. Giant Maker’s Mark ads surround the waiting room. Each poster is different, but I don’t understand any of them. For example, one has a row of upside-down bottle necks pointed down and an alternating row pointed diagonally. Damaso explains that the bottles look like the legs of the Rockette’s kick line. I’d understood that; I just don’t know what the Rockettes have to do with whiskey. I frequently get only the wrong half of the joke. I get the joke part but not the normal meaning, and single entendres aren’t funny.

The ferry crossing, as always, is spectacular, but instead of watching the scenery we watch the tourists jostling each other for photos and the non-tourists shouting at them to close the doors—it’s freezing in here!

On the other side it isn’t hard to find the Staten Island Railway, which is just one line from St. George to Tottenville. Inside, the “subway” (no part of the route actually goes underground) car looks like a 1970s bus station in a depressed company town after the company leaves town. The walls are lined with light panels, but few businesses have bought ads, and the panels glow dully white. The ride lasts over 40 minutes, during which I gaze out the windows while Damaso reads me Staten Island trivia from his smart phone (Android users today are like Apple users in 1990). 

With just under a half-million people, Staten Island is the least populous borough, but its area is bigger than that of Manhattan or the Bronx. More surprisingly, the Staten Island Railway is older than the NYC subway system. Operated by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority, its western portion includes freight lines that connect to the national railway system while its main route is included on MTA maps and generally considered a part of the NYC subway system.

I can’t see anyone out the windows, only houses and yards. At one stop, three shopping carts dangle from trees, apparently pushed off the overpass above. Although I’ve spent gorgeous afternoons at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and have several friends who’ve moved to St. George and swear by the beauty, convenience, and low cost of living in Staten Island, I still associate it with two pop culture homages: Working Girl and Papa Don’t Preach, which means my mental Staten Island averages from 1987 and is only populated by working-class Italian Americans. Few of the train’s riders confirm my preconception.

When we finally exit at Tottenville, everyone else walks to the “uptown” exit, but we continue down the platform to the end. On our right, water. In front of us, water. The Outerbridge Crossing, which I hadn’t previously realized is not just the name of the route but the full name of the bridge, is behind us, and we can see New Jersey to our right. This is as far south and as far west as New York City goes. It’s beautiful actually, but Damaso is too hungry to stop to shoot, so we decide to find food first and come back after. It doesn’t look promising. We’re in what looks like a lovely suburb. Nobody else came out our platform exit, we see no businesses, and the streets are empty, so we start walking in the only direction we can, and it’s uphill. We don’t have hills where I live.

After walking for a block or two, we run into a man out smoking on the street and ask him where we can eat. In what I would have identified as a thick Boston accent, he directs us to a deli a few blocks away. “Deli” in New York can mean anything from a 7-11 convenience store with microwaveable pre-wrapped sandwiches to the Carnegie’s full-service pastrami, so we have no idea what lies ahead, but we don’t see signs of a business district anywhere else, so we continue in that direction.

One house has a purple hula-hoop balanced horizontally on top of a bush in the front yard. A telephone pole has a yellow sign advertising a yard sale, so we memorize the address to check it out later. It’s on the same street we’re on, and we both love yard sales.

A few blocks later, we run into two police officers. Damaso always thinks cops know the best places to eat. A lot of people think that. I don’t have any data on the subject.

The cops recommend the same deli the smoker had, only with a twist: “You should go to the deli,” they say, “but we’re not allowed to eat there.”

Huh?

“There’ve been a bunch of 911 calls originating from that place.”

How is this supposed to be an explanation? If the place is dangerous, shouldn’t cops be encouraged to hang out there? And if it is dangerous but police aren't allowed in it, should we be going there? Of course we are now. We make sure we have cell phone service to call them in case of emergency, and we continue our uphill trek. Staten Island feels like that—a place where we might not have cell phone service. But we do.

Eventually we reach the Towne Deli and Pizzeria, established 1971, which turns out to be a perfectly nice looking restaurant with a take-out counter in the small lobby and about four tables and four booths. None of the patrons look like Mafioso, although clearly they all are, because why else would the police chiefs be worried about their patrol officers mingling there. I should have checked the toilet tank for a gun, but that just occurred to me now. That’s probably the only way to know for sure, right Mikey?

It’s bustling late on a Saturday afternoon. We sit directly under a giant “Welcome to Tottenville” sign, open our gondolier-decorated menus, and try to decide. One of the weekend specials is a hot roast beef sandwich with melted “Monetary Jack” on toasted ciabatta with fried onions and horseradish spread. It comes with cole slaw and pickles and a soda or beer. Even if it hadn’t promised lucre instead of cheese, I was interested, but I when I point it out, Damaso decides to get it, and I decide not to. So there.

Back to the old drawing board, or in this case, back to the giant laminated menu. Except for knowing I was not going to order another burger, I can’t even narrow my selection down to a category, so I ask the waitress for advice. She says to get a panini, most of which, like the pizzas are named for various relatives and other characters: Famous Fouch’s, Aunt Cathy’s Uncle Charlie’s Titsi Gina’s. I ask for the Super Townini—ham, salami, pepperoni, provolone, and American cheese. We’ve been eating so many French fries, and I’d happily eat more, but I’m beginning to get nervous about my waistline, so I take the half-sandwich option and get a side of spinach with garlic.

Both meals come with drinks, but they don’t have unsweetened iced tea. The waitress offers me my pick from the coolers, but it’s mostly soda, so I say I’ll try the sweetened iced tea. As always with our afternoon meals, I encourage Damaso to get a beer, and he asks the waitress what they have. As usual, she goes through a long list, and then he orders a Coke.

After way too long a wait, our sandwiches arrive, and some time later, but only after I ask the waitress who then admits she had forgotten all about it, my spinach comes. The panini is okay, but the spinach is an overcooked watery, oily mess. Apparently oil and water do mix. It’s also giant, but I drown it in lemon and eat the whole thing, convinced that each bite cancels out one of the week’s earlier French fries. 

We’re already finished eating by the time we remember to ask the waitress about one line on the menu that had caught our eye: “Home of The Mess.” What’s The Mess? She almost slaps her head like an old V-8 commercial and says she should have recommended I get that. It’s a sandwich with “all the meats” on it, or, as she clarifies, “all the Italian meat.” The young couple at the next table, who haven’t been served yet, can’t stand her straightforward definition and interrupt to gush about The Mess: “If Jesus made a sandwich,” says the woman and just ends the sentence there with a sigh. They offer to let us try theirs, but who knows how long it'll be till their food arrives, and we’re ready to roll or, as my father would say, rolly to read, so we head out into the cold.

The yard sale is on the same street we're on, but we can't find enough addresses to figure out which way to go. We sure didn’t see it on the way to the deli, so we walk a few blocks in the opposite direction. We get far enough to find another SIR stop and are tempted to return home, but despite the cold, we decide to walk back so Damaso can photograph the Tottenville station. Maybe I misremembered the yard sale address. 

We walk all the way back to the yard sale sign and confirm that A. I had gotten the address wrong, B. we have apparently now passed it twice without noticing anything, and C. according to the posted times, the sale has just ended, but just then a slew of pre-teenage boys ride up, throw their bicycles on a nearby lawn, and pound on a doorway. We're standing right in front of the yard sale home!

We follow them into a living room whose floor is covered with absolute junk sorted into piles each less appealing than the last. Most of the mounds are loose toys of the small, plastic variety, but there is also a mound of random furnishings (pillows, candlesticks) and a large collection of small shoes, including a pair of turquoise and lime low-top Chuck Taylors. I take off one shoe to show the hosts my turquoise and lime socks. The shoe is a Cinderella-perfect match but in color only; I can barely squeeze a few toes in. We leave empty handed.

To get the best pictures, we walk around the stationhouse the long way and startle a pair of necking teenagers. She’s a knockout. He’s dating up. 

The subway back to St. George station is crowded, mostly with groups of women talking loudly either among themselves or into cell phones. I fall asleep with my head on Damaso’s shoulder, and he falls asleep with his head leaning on mine. I don’t want the ride to end.

But it does. The waiting room at St. George Terminal has two giant fish tanks and outlines of the harbor islands in mosaics on the floor. I stand on the Liberty Island and watch a little girl jumping from one floor decoration to the next as though they she were a frog on a lily pad. There are benches on both sides of the long room but none in the middle. Everyone on one side of the room seems to be waiting for the next ferry. Everyone on the other side seems to live in the station. The women’s room is past the gauntlet of station dwellers, one of whom is talking to himself loudly. A woman in metal stilettos and a jacket whose back looks like a tiger slashed the leather buys a frozen yogurt. I still feel a little ripped off by the bad spinach, so I’m tempted to get one too, but I resist. This station is the near end of the SIR, so maybe I'll buy desert when we return to St. George for the other end of that line.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes 

2: Wakefield/241st Street, The Bronx

Thursday, March 24, 2011

We pull a last-minute switcheroo on our own plans to visit Harlem on the 3 train, and we make the long trek to what may be the MTA's northernmost point. At least it looks the highest on The Map, but The Map is completely out of proportion and oriented to the city instead of to north, so who knows. Luckily, the train decides to skip a few stations on the way up, but we still have plenty of time to point out spots of interest from the elevated tracks, admire the muted cloud smudges in the bright sky, and have a little heart-to-heart about our relationship, about which I'd been stewing in confusion. Damaso makes everything easy though: "Are we sliding into being friends?" he asks, "because it's okay if that's the way you feel."

He's moving to Europe in less than two weeks, so this is more a mental adjustment than a physical or practical one. I'm happy that he doesn't say "just friends." In fact, maybe this is a promotion instead of a demotion. He's inspired me so much. For example, I'd wanted to write this series for years, but I might never have started if he hadn't offered to collaborate.







We finally reach Wakefield/241st Street. The elevated tracks stop after the station, and the city stops soon after. On The Map it looks like we could walk to Westchester—if we wanted to go to Westchester, that is, which we don't. Why leave the city? This place has everything. At first glance it looks like we’ll have a ton of culinary options up here. The train ends on a busy commercial street. One of the first stores I see is a West Indian grocery. Seeing so many West Indian stores at the ends of so many subway lines in different boroughs is beginning to make me think that instead of having their own neighborhood like a lot of the city’s other ethnic groups, the West Indians have taken over the outskirts. Maybe they have the city surrounded. The rest of us are behind an ackee barricade.

Several restaurants are right at the exit, but we want to explore, so we walk a block in one direction where we are lured by the beautiful sign on Dante’s Pastry Shop, but the restaurant has closed. A lurid poster for “GhettOut: Another hilarious Jamaica play/musical” features a screaming man with bleached hair and about ten other characters all with exaggerated facial expressions and comic poses.





We continue back past the subway exit to Island Taste Cuisine Restaurant. We stare through the glass for a while, wondering what kind of porridge is called “Bob Marley,” but the grandly named restaurant only has about twenty square feet of space for customers to approach a counter and maybe four stools, and both the standing room and stools are packed. Damaso is sad that once again he’ll be deprived of his curried goat, but his spirits revive when he spots a neon fish sign in the next window. The fish grins, although it is surrounded by the words “Fried Fish” and “Steam,” which imply that its fate may not be so cheerful. Even better is the next store, which advertises “Aqua Massage: Just like in the mall!” Maybe we weren’t the only people who realized we were within a stone’s throw of the suburbs. We walk back to the subway entrance and choose 241 Street Café/Restaurant.







A man lingering in the restaurant’s doorway asks Damaso where he’s from.

“Brooklyn!” says Damaso, “Bed-Stuy.”

“You ain’t from Brooklyn,” the man shouts after us as we walk in, “You’re from West Africa!”





Although the owners carefully included the acute diacritical mark accenting the E in café, they failed to put the “st” after the numbered street name so the place is called "241 Street Café/Restaurant." Actually it isn’t really a café or a restaurant; it’s a diner. A counter runs along the length of the interior, with brightly lit pictures of the food above the cooks behind it. We sit at a booth against the other wall. The interior is bare without the Christmas lights, Jesus shrine, video games, or jukebox I’ve come to expect. The menu is also bare, and guess what? We’re having cheeseburgers. Damaso orders the Mexican burger, I ask for a bacon-cheeseburger, and we get a side of onion rings and a side of fries to share. The waitress asks whether we want small or large sides (small please; they’re huge) and whether I want lettuce and tomato (lettuce yes, tomato no), but she doesn’t ask how we want our burgers cooked or what kind of cheese to put on mine.

Damaso orders a Coke, and he and the waitress go through our now familiar ritual: “No Coke, Pepsi.”

“Then can I get a Sprite?”

“No Sprite, Sierra Mist.”

He asks for a Snapple.

Then it’s my turn: “Do you have iced tea?”

“No.”

“I’ll have a large cup of hot tea.”

While we’re waiting for our food, a middle aged black man approaches Damaso tentatively and asks permission to talk to him. He introduces himself apologetically, saying he’s not a professional photographer “or anything like that,” but he likes taking pictures as a hobby. Damaso knows what he’s getting at way before I realize what’s going on. He wants to know about the camera. The stranger forms his question and Damaso anticipates and answers it at the same time using the same metaphor: Yes, shooting pictures with a Leica as opposed to any other camera really is like driving a Porsche as opposed to any other car. This is the second time someone’s recognized Damaso’s Leica. I had no idea Leicas were so distinctive or so prestigious.

As Damaso explains the camera’s benefits, he hands it to the stranger. The man pulls his hands away, afraid to hold something so valuable, but Damaso insists. The man explains that he’s just come into some money because his father died, and he’s trying to decide whether to spend it on a Leica although he’s just an amateur. Damaso offers that he “knows a guy” (who can hook him up with a cheaper Leica) and that he gives photography lessons. The stranger is so excited he exclaims that God must have sent Damaso to him. They introduce each other, and Mike takes Damaso’s card and promises to contact him soon.



Our burgers arrive grey, lonely, and flat on their oversized plates. Mine is missing its lettuce, and when Damaso asks for it for me, instead of bringing me a few pieces of lettuce, the waitress whisks my plate away and returns it with long strings of shredded lettuce overhanging the circumference of the bun. My tea comes in a take-out cup with a bas relief of a teddy bear on the lid. The burgers are the worst yet, dry and bland, but the onion rings are good. The fries are battered, which Damaso likes. I do too, but I’m embarrassed to admit it. That seems like cheating somehow. Real fries are just cut potatoes.

We settle up, but I’m jealous that shy Damaso’s having so many conversations with locals, so I decide to start up a chat and meet someone. A handsome MTA employee with large rhinestone ear studs is leaning against the counter chatting with the waitress. Two giant rings of keys hang from his belt, one with about 20 normal keys and one with maybe six large, oddly shaped ones. I ask the obvious question: “Can you tell all your keys apart, or do you have to try six or seven before you can open a door?”

“Believe it or not,” he starts his response, “I know what every single one of these keys is for. It takes a long time for them to give you this many keys, and you have to keep up with them because they replace them all the time.”

This is even more impressive. I figured half of those keys were probably defunct, but he says he only carries the ones he uses regularly. While we’re chatting he pulls out the larger ring of smaller, mostly yellow metal keys and starts separating and fondling the keys.

Damaso challenges him at a random key: “Okay then, what’s that one for?”

“Bathroom at the Flatbush stop on the 2 train,” he answers, without hesitation.

I realize the implications of the key ring: “You can pee anywhere in the city,” I exclaim jealously, “I have to find a Starbucks!”

He defends the MTA immediately saying plenty of stations have public bathrooms.

“Yeah,” I say grumpily, “Coney Island.”

“Union Square,” he retorts.

“What?!” I’m in that station all the time. “I thought I needed Whole Foods.”

He finds this hilarious and proceeds to use Whole Foods as the landmark from which he gives careful directions to the underground toilets. I’ll never go there.

The other key ring might be more impressive. The train keys are oversized white metal. Instead of a series of notches, they’re mostly smooth, but each ends in a different dogleg. They appear steampunk Victorian, but he assures me they’re state-of-the art. He should know. He’s been driving the 2 train for 18 years. He tells us about lots of great restaurants at the other end in Flatbush, which is where he lives. If I weren’t stuffed with greasy food, I’d be tempted to head there now.



The return trip lasts forever. The food might have been the worst yet, but the two conversations have raised both of our spirits and bonded us together. We cuddle on the long ride home, and it doesn’t feel like we’re just friends anymore.





Photographs by Damaso Reyes

R: Bay Ridge/95th Street, Brooklyn

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Ooph. No beautiful glowing glass art at this station. The first thing I saw was a homeless person, possibly sleeping or possibly dead, lying on the platform. I looked again, and it was just a dirty, green, puffy coat. Large patches of subway tiles were missing, and the water-stained concrete showed through. The station had some old charm though; an elegant but faded mosaic made a design border around the tops of the walls, and square subway tiles interspersed with rectangular ones in pleasing patterns.



I jogged up the stairs, nervous about lingering too long under whatever was producing all the white blotches on the ground. The bird poop-covered stairs reminded me of the 6-train exit at Pelham Park. The brick wall on one side of the exit still bore the faded paint of a shoe shine business. On the other side, Snoop Dogggg advertised a 4G phone. Four Gs, get it? Yeah, I didn’t. Damaso, not understanding which part I didn’t get, tried to explain 4G to me, which of course made me feel patronized and irritated, before he realized I hadn’t noticed how Dogggg was spelled. With four Gs. Now I get it.

Next door to the subway exit was a Japanese restaurant, and across the street we could see a 24-hour diner, a bar and grill, and another diner—so many options! I didn’t particularly want to go to another diner, and I definitely didn’t want another bleu cheese burger, but the Japanese place seemed too easy after all the times we’d needed to search to find any restaurant at all. It was perfect; besides adjoining the subway station directly, it boasted an A on its most recent health department inspection, and I had even been craving sushi. I asked Damaso whether I was just being snobbish to suspect we might have better luck in the diner. He confirmed that I was, in fact, just being snobbish and said there was no reason to think we couldn’t get good sushi in Bay Ridge. Plus, it had a chalkboard sandwich board out front advertising Monday’s specials. Had they left the board out for six days, or did they place it outside on a Sunday? We checked the back, but it listed Tuesday’s specials.

Upon arrival, we asked whether there was a Sunday special. The waitress giggled and said “Maybe next time.” Shobu Sushi and Grill didn’t appear to need a daily special to lure in customers tonight. It wasn’t even 6 pm, and one couple sat in the front alcove, and a multiple-generation group of eight Russian speakers filled the small restaurant with sound. After a giant extended brunch with friends, I wasn’t even hungry, in fact, my throat itched, and I felt cranky and tired, but I’m hollow, and a card on the table advertises an Amazing Roll of yellowtail, tuna, white tuna, avocado, caviar, and “chef special sauce.” Just yesterday I was in a conversation about white tuna, which isn’t a tuna at all but a butterfish.

Damaso focused on a different ingredient; he’s allergic to shrimp, lobster, and crab, so he asked what was in the special sauce, and the waitress just shruged. I suspected it was mayonnaise, but why risk anaphylactic shock? Damaso explained his allergies, and I suggested she ask the chef what ingredients were in his special sauce. The chef was behind the counter directly behind her and probably heard the whole conversation. She turned to him, and if words were exchanged I missed them, but she seemed to think we had an answer although we were both looking at her blankly and expectantly. She announced, “The sauce is sweet. And maybe sour.”

We continued staring at her until she added, “He says it doesn’t have any of those ingredients you don’t want.”

We asked for the Amazing Roll, the Naughty Girl roll, (spicy salmon with roast onion crunch), and an order of edamame. I pretended to need to wash up so I could check out the place. Chelsea Thai at the end of the L-train line had a shrine, and several of the restaurants had Jesuses, but what I thought was another shrine here was a knick-knack rack filled with yellow jade (plastic?) frogs and waterfalls. The Christmas lights and plastic flowers reminded me of half the places we’d been, but I actually liked the male/female bathroom signs, which were vases with real Gerber daisies where the figures heads would be. A girl in sequin-covered light-up sneakers was assembling a wooden puzzle on a back table, and a woman was planting in the garden out back. I love the smell of public bathroom cherry-almond soap, which still reminds me of rest stops on childhood road trips even though Jergen’s now actively markets it for retail sale.





Returning to our table, I perused the certifications and licenses posted on the wall. Three men had passed the “Food Protection Certificate” course. I didn’t write down their names, but I think they were something like Zimei Wong, Hong Wong, and Wong Li Xi—in any case distinctly non-Japanese.

Our food arrived fairly rapidly. Nothing was great; even the edamame were cold and bland. The toasted onion flakes gave the Naughty Girl a nice crunch, but the Amazing Roll was coated in what looks and tastes like mayonnaise. I don’t like mayonnaise as much as I think Japanese people do. I have heard rumors of donuts there that are filled with mayonnaise instead of jelly or cream.









Growing up, my family had two ways of describing a meal: “good what there was of it” or “enough of it such as it was.” Neither description fit this meal. Bad as it was, we ordered more. We skipped the specials and split a tuna-avocado and a spicy yellowtail. Both were serviceable, about what you’d get in a plastic package at the corner deli. The waitress offered us fried ice cream, mochi, fried banana, or fried cheesecake, which almost sounded weird enough to tempt me, but instead we dipped into the bowl of free guava hard candies, which turned out to be the best part of the meal.

As we walked out, we were both looking forward to a stroll around the neighborhood. It was still light out, the first stripes of sunset were visible behind the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge about three blocks to our left, and fascinating stores beckoned with signs saying “Organic Candy” and “International Food.” But it was cold! While we were eating the temperature had dropped significantly, and it was too cold to linger. We ducked across a car service dispatcher’s “Hyper-Active Driveway” and into International Food. From the outside I’d surmised “international” meant Russian, but they offered a fair assortment of Polish canned pork patties, Israeli matzo, Norwegian smoked fish, and Chinese tea. I loaded up on heavy multi-grain bread, fish roe spread, lingonberry jam, herring, pelmeni, Russian salad, salami, and various other goodies. The exotic groceries compensated for the bland meal. I bought so much the counterwoman asked whether I preferred milk or dark chocolate (dark, duh!) and then threw in a large bar as a gift.







Four grocery bags slid around on the plastic subway seats next to me, but I resisted snacking from them on the ride home. On the way there, I’d gotten on the R at Jay Street-MetroTech, a transfer that wasn’t even possible six months ago. I’ve started putting red stars on my home subway map at each terminal we complete, but my map still says Jay Street-Borough Hall. If I’d started this project last year, the V would still be running, and I could eat on the lower east side. Since I’ve lived in Brooklyn, at least the V, W, and 9 trains have disappeared. I wonder how much the map, oops, The Map, will change while I’m still working on this project, and which train lines won’t be here in a year. If I run out of stops, maybe I will travel to the termini of the ghost lines that no longer traverse the city. More likely, the MTA will keep moving lines, and I'll never be done chasing the restaurant at the end of the line.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes