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2005-08-06 - 12:30 a.m. Summer in the City Driving home to New York City the other night, traffic was backed up for a half a mile, and I guessed right as to why...street performer Black Cherokee was stretched out on a couch by the side of the highway, holding a chunk of watermelon, a table lamp by his side, and a sign reading, "People Should Love People". He was waving to all us drivers. He makes strangers slow down and smile. Good Days Off: Not being one to Kiss and Tell, only will say, I'm by myself at a local cafe with my favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world just set before me - a humungous stuffed artichoke. There's a woman and man sitting at the table beside me. She's talking about - If only I had documented what went on at my job - he'd put his hand on my crotch, and say, "you could do so much better!". The song playing is "This Magic Moment." The woman switched her dialog just now to: This pizza ia so very good! The lone glass of Pinot Grigio I'm drinking actually has a turpentine finish to it...something I just read in a vintage book, The Alchemy of Melancholy, written in the 1600's, mentions turpentine as one remedy for depression. The song "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is now playing. The people beside me are talking about winning the lottery. The man is boasting about having lost 13 pounds and finally leaving his job at FedEx. She congratulates him. I've finished attacking my artichoke. They've removed the plate. "I'm starting to feel a bit drunk," says the woman. "I'm not a good drinker. One is OK for me. Usually, for everyone else, one is not enough." Actually, she's badly slurring her words. She is an up-tight looking white woman, her hair tightly twisted into a bun. He's kind of a flabby red-faced Good Old Boy. I wonder how they know each other...they seem so different, and their strings of words do not connect. He talks about his ex-wife letting him see his kids. He says how difficult it is getting old. She says how her mom, an educated person, is very complicated, someone who knows how to talk, and who has sadly turned everyone against her. Something's going on this hot night: I step outside my door, and the place is crawling with police. "Did you see some guy running like a maniac this way, with a gun?" one cop asks. They have flashlights and are walking on top of and searching through all the greenery and plantings of the big high-rise nextdoor. I come back outside to throw out my Saturday pick-up garbage, and four of them confront me asking where I live and how to get into a fenced-off lot nextdoor. My neighbor Joan from upstairs, I realize, is standing beside me. "I think you have to go through that red building back there," she says. "I've seen them roll back the fencing before to give people access to this property." "Red building?" the cop says, "Can't you give me an address or something? Doesn't anyone have a contact or phone number?" Seems to me this is their job. "What are we looking for?" says one officer. "A bag with a gun in it, tossed away somewhere," says another. Joan and I go inside. "Well, it's a good time for us to be throwing out our garbage. What can happen to us? There's like enough of these guys around to protect us!" I have the back yard access window open for air. I admit I did consider locking it, in case the Maniac Gunman ran through the back yards, but then I thought, I've got my good dog. It's mighty hot in the city.