3: 148th Street/Harlem, Manhattan

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I read a bit of that Quran, but I didn’t get far. First of all, I hated the defensive translation, which kept inserting parenthetical notes explaining how the text didn’t really mean to kill all infidels, only those who tried to kill you first. Uh, it didn’t say that. Secondly, it was boring. I mean the Bible was boring, and I read that, but I had more incentive. Maybe I’ll try the Quran again another time.

Anyway in the time that I wasn’t reading the Quran, Damaso went on an extended “Beer, Baseball, and Barbecue” road trip around the country and went (for the second time) to Cuba for five weeks. Jealous! He’s moving back to Barcelona next month, so I was impatient to squeeze in as many end-of-the-line rides as we could manage, but my busy schedule was not cooperating. Finally, we managed to find a Tuesday afternoon we were both free, and we agreed to meet at the top of the 3 line in Harlem at 1pm.

I had a ton of work to do, but I’ve been on a big exercise kick, so I forced my lazy ass to the gym for a hard workout before lunch. I figured I’d be home around 3, and I’d be able to work all afternoon. I woke up early, traveled into Manhattan, and raced to finish a decent workout and sauna. At noon, I left the gym weak, hungry, and with plenty of time to make it to Harlem. I didn’t want to be late, as I’d made Damaso wait for me a few times in the past, but when I turned my phone back on, I discovered he’d left a message saying he was running late, and he’d meet me at 2.

Suddenly I had an hour to kill in Manhattan, and my mood immediately changed from positive and productive to stressed about the lost work time. I ran a few errands that had been hanging over my head, including buying over $80 of ink for a crappy printer I got free (and stupidly gave away a really good printer) and still had plenty of time, so I texted my friend Matt to find out whether he was in the country and could talk. He works on cruise ships, and it turned out he was in the Caribbean somewhere but on his way to a Starbuck’s whence he’d be able to Skype. Sounded like a good idea, so I found myself a Starbuck’s and spent probably 20 minutes trying to figure out how to set up the Skype application I already had on my phone. Eventually it worked, and I drank a large iced tea and a free large iced tea refill, while Matt gave me advice about my romantic life. The only way I justify paying Starbuck’s prices for something I make at home in bulk is to get the free refills (free with a registered card, which I now use through my phone), and I emerged 20 minutes later freezing, over caffeinated, and late. Late?!? I was the one killing time! Somebody didn’t manage my extra hour very well! I texted Damaso that now I was running a little late but on my way, and I hopped on the 3 train from 14^th Street.

On the long ride up, I finished the only magazine I’d brought and played a little Scrabble, but my phone battery indicator wasn’t so green after all the Skype time, and the 48 ounces of unsweetened iced green tea were swelling my bladder. I got off the train at 2:05, and raced out of the station hoping Damaso wasn’t irritated to be kept waiting. Au contraire, mon frere, he’d gotten my text and responded, fine, then he’d be there at 2:30. D’oh!

I didn’t see any place to eat, but two cops were chatting in front of the public school at the train exit, and we always trust cops and transit officials to guide our selections. I interrupted them but immediately got distracted trying to figure out whether they were wearing matching eyeglasses. They claimed their pairs were different. They were both strikingly good-looking women. After we chatted about their glasses for a while, I asked them whether they could recommend a place to eat, and they suggested I get back on the train and head to a neighborhood with better options. I assured them I’d be okay eating someplace local, and they asked me what kind of food I wanted. I said anything that was open for lunch and wasn’t fast food. They looked at each other, looked back at me, and repeated the suggestion that I get back on the train, insisting there was nothing nearby. Finally they came up with two suggestions, the closer or which was over five blocks away. I didn’t mind walking five blocks to eat, but I wasn’t going to walk five blocks to pee before Damaso showed up, so I sat down on the curb and turned my phone-Scrabble back on to distract myself from my full bladder.

Eventually Damaso turned up, feeling generous for letting me have longer to get in from Brooklyn. Of course he couldn’t have known where I was coming from or what my schedule was, and I felt simultaneously irritated at his presumption and guilty for being irritated while he was trying to be nice. My full bladder didn’t allow me to stall around though, and I hustled Damaso down Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard to look for food.

The police were right. The first place they suggested was supposed to be between 144^th and 143^rd Street, but we got all the way to 143^rd without finding anything. We backtracked to 144^th to look for the second place, and found Grini’s Tapas Bar between Adam Clayton Powell and Lenox, exactly where the cops said it would be. We walked in, and I got paralyzed by chafing dish options until Damaso reminded me to go use the bathroom. That solved half of my bad mood, but I was still starving after the work-out, hour stall downtown, half hour wait uptown, and six-block walk. The place looked fine to me (albeit completely devoid of tapas), and we hadn't passed any other restaurants on our walk, so I was surprised when Damaso suggested going out to check out our options.

On the corner of Lenox and 144^th, we were delighted by A Touch of Dee, which was not, as the name might suggest a nail salon or gift store, but rather a bar. The windows were covered with printed pages inviting passers by to Mary’s birthday and “Chyna Grown and Sexy.” Damaso stopped to take photos of the signs, and a very curious woman walked out to ask why we were photographing her window. Before Damaso can answer, I say, “Because it’s awesome!” which holds her long enough for him to get his shots, and we walk on.


Next door, Lenox Fast Food promised the “best breakfast uptown,” but the counter was tiny. We walked another block or so, and I had to stop to check out a gorgeous geometric-block print coat with multiple diagonal zippers (too rich for my blood), but we didn’t find anywhere else to eat, so we backtracked to Grini’s.

As usual in that kind of place, none of the chafing dish options seemed to match any of the menu offerings posted on the wall, so I pointed to a bunch of stuff, asked what it was, and asked the counterwoman what was best. She wouldn’t commit to a recommendation, but she did tell me what was what, and I pointed to the best-looking pork and asked for some okra with it, and she offered me my choice of plain white rice or yellow rice with peas (with peas, duh). I asked how to say “okra” in Spanish, and the counterwoman stared at me blankly, but the man with her said, “boletrones,” which I figured had something to do with the little balls inside. I repeated it to myself over and over and wrote it down as soon as I got to the table, but when I look it up now, Google translator gives ten different Spanish words for okra, and none of them is even close to boletrones. My phone gives yet a tenth word, so maybe okra names are micro-regional in Latin America. After taking my order, everyone I’ve been talking to disappears, along with my food, and someone else takes Damaso’s order for a grilled chicken salad. After a while, my counterwoman comes back and asks whether she can help me. I say she already made my food and that I’m waiting to get it, pay, and eat. We finally get all our food, take over a table, and sit down to eat.

My tin foil dish is loaded and heavy. Besides the rice with peas, okra, and pork, she’s thrown in a few plantains. I careful separate my paper bag and keep the plastic lid to my tin foil plate, thinking that I’ll be taking home the majority of my massive plate, but once I start, I don’t stop eating till every grain of rice is gone. The pork is fantastic, blackened until it falls softly off the bones, which by the way are so soft, I don’t just suck out the marrow, I eat the entire bone ends.



While I hoover down my food, Damaso tells me about his travels. I can’t believe he got a salad, but of course he’s had his fill of rice and beans after a month in Cuba. He laughs and takes photos of my gluttonous bone chewing. Behind us, one man is sound asleep over his empty dishes. Restaurant is fairly bare, but a few early Christmas lights glitter on a table, and a poster with two large drinks, one green and one orange, advertises “SLUSH.”


I get buzzed back into the bathroom to wash my pork-covered hands, and this time I notice a single business card stuck to the wall. It says (punctuation, capitalization, and spacing faithfully copied), “If your Lips not Popp’in ,He’s not stopp’in!!!” After gazing at it for a while I realize the card owner sells make-up. I’m tempted to take the card, but I figure if I leave it there, I’ll be saving my potential for popp’in lips until we come back for A Taste of Dee.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

S: Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn

Thursday, August 11, 2011

 
Boy if I thought Damaso changing his order was “cheating” on the purity of this project, how do I justify our actions this week? Neither of us even took the train! We didn’t have a lot of time and wanted to squeak in one more restaurant before Damaso leaves for a month’s road trip Monday, so we met on the platform of the Shuttle terminus at Franklin Avenue. Only we both took the C train to get there. Hey, at least I didn’t drive. We both arrived early, and we debated riding the shuttle to the other end and back, but then we remembered the whole time-constraint thing. I’ll ride it when we visit the other end of the line.

 
The day is beautiful, and the streets are full and fascinating. We walk along Fulton Street, and I’m shocked to realize how close I am to my home. Somehow looking at everything through my End-of-the-Line eyes changes my perspective even on what should be familiar. Damaso spots a Halal Chinese restaurant, and I wonder whether it’s actually run by Uyghurs. More likely it just caters to the clientele, a la Kosher Chinese, but in any case, it’s closed, perhaps permanently, so we keep looking.

We didn’t look long before coming across a small restaurant surrounded by large banners proclaiming “No More Junk,” “Eat Healthy,” and “Halal is the Answer.” The storefront and buffet wouldn’t have enticed me into the unimaginatively named Halal Restaurant (1168 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), but I want to eat healthier! Plus, two other signs in the window clinched the decision. One read “We use alkaline kangen water,” which even a few Google and Wikipedia searches later I can’t interpret. The other was a list of fresh fruit drinks, and it included fruit sea moss, sorrel, and maeby. I’d only had one glass of iced tea before heading out the door, and I’m averaging over 50 ounces a day, but I immediately decided I would risk a caffeine-withdrawal headache and lost afternoon to get myself a fruit sea moss drink. Needless to say, we entered.

 







After our freezing lunch at the Last Stop Café in Astoria, I’d brought a sweater in my bag, proud not to make the same mistake twice in one week, but the inside of Halal Restaurant was steamy and stale. Along the left side of the narrow room, one cooler offered Jamaican and regular soft drinks, and the other was stocked with home-filled plastic cups labeled only with letters: “M,” “S, and “GT” for example. We asked what they were, but the answer was unclear enough that Damaso took an MP without knowing whether it was mango-pear or mango-peach. It was mango-peach, sweet and delicious. I took the FSM, fruit sea moss, and it was thick and glutinous but only had a mild, sweet flavor.

 

The buffet offered a startling mix of food from Muslims around the world. I mostly chose what I’d guess were dishes from the Caribbean and India, including four different types of greens—I think kale, collards, and two different preparations of stewed okra. They were all slimy and satisfyingly bitter. We shared two of the three bread offerings, and both were outstanding. I chose a large, flat rectangle of fried white dough that was chewier than paratha and deliciously greasy; Damaso picked the puffed golden-brown circle that turned out to be fluffy and sweet inside. The “bread” we didn’t try came in fat rectangles, about the size of most pieces of corn bred, but it looked starchier, like a fufu maybe. Aside from the bread, Damaso filled his plastic plate with vegetables and salad, but I tried a piece of fried fish (bland), several types of beans, and a lovely mild pattie that turned out also to be fish. Good eating.

 





We sat under a giant poster of pilgrims praying in Mecca. Above the counter was a sunrise/sunset Ramadan schedule, and we realized the counterman, who I think said he was the owner’s brother, wasn’t eating, only presiding over an empty restaurant for the occasional infidel. He said he didn’t mind watching us eat while he couldn’t. I donated a dollar to buy a Quran from a stack on the counter. I don’t expect to find all the truths the restaurant promised, but I’d been meaning to read it anyway, and this volume looked manageably small. The man wouldn’t let Damaso take a picture of the 3D mosque-image clock on the wall, but he laughed and wasn’t upset to be asked.







I wanted to try another drink, either the mysterious maeby, which the counterman described as a bitter bark, or a green tea to get some caffeine in my blood stream, but I was overfull from the buffet, so we walked out into the sunlit day to explore the neighborhood. While traveling earlier this summer, I was filled with love in each city I visited, first convinced that I wanted to move to Berkeley, then to Bemidji, then to Baraboo. Now I was filled with love for Brooklyn. What wonders were so close to home! I leaned into the Slave Theater, where the Rastafarian “artiste” who greeted me was civil and sweet but told me he couldn’t answer all my questions because the government had recently been trying to pit the races against each other and oppress the Black man. I said I thought that had been going on for about 400 years, and he nodded sagely.

Back on the street, we admired posters of evangelists, wig stores, and murals before stopping in front of a striking church to wonder whether the sword, crescent, and star over the door meant it had been a mosque or a masonic lodge. We both had places to be, but it was too sunny to descend into a dark subway station, so we stalled in a dollar store, sure we would remember what we needed as soon as we saw it. Damaso did (baby wipes for the road trip), and when I couldn’t think of anything to buy, he reminded me that President Obama would be disappointed that I wasn’t helping the economy. I took some pictures of fabulously bright ghetto candy (“Kiddie Kandy: All Items Contain Candy”), and we moved on. Now I can't find the photos to post.

At the beginning of the day it seemed silly to pursue an “end” so close to the beginning on a line I hadn’t even ridden. But by the time I ran for a bus to leave the neighborhood without having to leave the sunshine, it didn’t feel awkward anymore. Especially when the line ends so close to home, it takes a mission and an intention to remind myself to eat at the pan-Halal restaurant, explore the dollar stores, read the candy labels, and talk to the local political artistes. Damaso’s heading out again to explore America. When he gets back, I’ll be ready to explore some more of the world, right here in New York.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

NQ: Astoria/Ditmars Boulevard, Queens

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 It’s been almost five months since our last trip, during which time Damaso has been living in Barcelona. I was sure that by the time he got back I’d have viveca.net up and have started publishing these stories. I’m a little sheepish to see him again without any progress to report. My only defense is that I have been riding my web programmer to help me get started, and I haven’t given up. In any case, I hate quitting in the middle of something, and equally relevantly, even if nobody else were ever going to read any of this, I want to see the rest of the city! We meet in Astor Place and ride the N uptown into Queens. The ride isn’t long. When we get off the elevated tracks at Astoria/Ditmars Boulevard, it’s raining and hot. The tracks run over a busy thoroughfare with plenty of culinary options. Damaso spies a transit worker and asks him for a recommendation, but the MTA employee says he brings his own lunch. Like us, he lives in Brooklyn. When pressed, he says the other guys eat at the diner, and he gestures vaguely across the street at Mike’s Diner. We stay on our side and walk to the end of the block, peering into a Southwest-style place and weighing options. Nothing is appealing. We cross and walk back towards Mike’s Diner, but right before we reach it, we notice the Last Stop Restaurant, which fits our theme too well to bypass. Inside, our thought process is rewarded. The entire café is decorated with a subway and train theme—the name is posted in tiles, toy trains line the counters, train art hangs over the tables, and two walls are painted as a subway car exterior (N train) with passengers peering out through the windows. Facing us are a conductor, a wary mother, and a smiling daughter peering out of the end of the train mural. Damaso asks me to make a face as though I’m running away from the train barreling towards me. He takes a few pictures of my attempts to act, but I only look crazier in each one. I know these would be better if I were willing to include pictures of myself in them, but my vanity rebels. This photo goes beyond unflattering to ridiculous though, so maybe I’ll let it slip through. The air conditioning is freezing against our wet clothes, and the man behind the counter graciously turns it down for us. I had just given Damaso a bunch of t-shirts, and he hands me one back to use as a shawl while we peruse the menus. Nothing appeals, and I particularly don’t want any of the Last Stop Specials. Damaso wants to order a burger but doesn’t want me to mock him for it. He often hears judgment when I think I’m stating facts, and I’m slightly sad that my commenting on him liking to order the same things made him feel insulted as unadventurous. Worse, I worry that we’re experiencing some sort of social Heisenbergism, which of course doesn’t exist. But just as social Darwinism falsely extends evolutionary theory to behavior activity, I apply the uncertainty principle to this project: measuring (or documenting) an activity changes it in ways that prevent it from being measured accurately. It’s ridiculous. There is no “real” End of the Line experience, and Damaso changing his order doesn’t hurt anyone. In any case, he decides to get a turkey burger, “to mix it up,” and I eventually order a chicken parmigiana sub, because the waitress says it’s her favorite, and a side of broccoli because I gained a ton of weight traveling recently, and I’m convinced that eating extra vegetables, even if smothered in oil, will magically make me thin. While we sit, a man follows a wandering toddler around the restaurant. They seem to belong here. Maybe he works in the restaurant, or maybe they’ve finished eating and just don’t want to face the rain. Damaso keeps trying to say hello to the child. He or she, I can’t tell, stares back for a while but is blissfully unresponsive. When our food arrives, “thin” leaves the building. My “sandwich” is served open faced, with chicken, sauce, and cheese oozing over the sides of a giant toasted hero roll. Damaso’s large burger comes with a heaping helping of battered French fries, and my broccoli could feed a dozen schoolchildren if children ate vegetables soaked in fresh garlic and olive oil. The broccoli is still green, not too mushy, and delicious. The rest of the food is, well, adequate. I eat the toppings and leave the bread on the platter. The waitress won’t give me a refill on my iced tea, and I’m sulky and spoiled after six weeks out of NYC. Iced tea runs freely in the rest of the country, but it’s a precious commodity here. Outside we cross to a bakery whose interior is much less appealing than its appearance but which smells fantastic. Somehow convincing myself that buying food here will help me avoid eating restaurant food and therefore that this will actually help me lose weight, I buy a loaf of olive bread and two almond cookies, one plain and one dipped in chocolate. I promise myself that I won’t eat the cookies until I finish an overdue article draft and write this up. That was four days ago. I threw out most of the bread today, but I finished the other project a few hours ago, and when I finish the next sentence I’ll go retrieve the cookies from the fridge. I hope they’re not too stale.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

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