My Small Town Life in New York:

A Memoir

Most people would think of it as another gray street to trudge down, a line in a grid of thousands. This isn’t any ordinary street, if there ever was one. If you looked a little closer you ‘d see thousands of stories hidden beneath the facades of the buildings. This block is a small town to me.

Alan, who lives in the building next door, is a friend to all. He walks dogs late

at night. One time it was Puppy, the dog with no hair which belongs to the lady down stairs, and then Otis, a portly little basset hound who waddles along and has the biggest saddest eyes in lower Manhattan. Unfortunately that dog has a temper.

No person on the block is a stranger to Alan. Just ask him. Alan is a handsome, almost middle-aged man who doesn’t seem to age. He has a pleasant, light southern drawl and has one gold earring that glints in the sunlight. He always greets you with a warm smile and open arms. Then he goes back to his wife, who doesn’t emerge often from their two-room basement apartment. His warm smile doesn’t come from around these parts. His heart is still in Florida where he grew up.

You can’t surf on a desk. One thing Alan brought with him from Florida is his love of surfing. He has an energetic soul, but he has to lug himself to a real estate office in Long Island, because his dream of a rental beach chair business along the Hudson didn’t pan out. Maybe someday.

Even when Alan is not out on the street, his garden reminds you that he is near. In a little dirt patch in front of the converted brownstone where he lives, flowers bloom. It’s the only garden on the block. It’s a lighthouse in a sea of asphalt. It’s Alan’s soul blooming on the sidewalk. Alan toils hours upon hours to make it what it is. He still has a smile left after all that work to ask me how I’m doing on my way home from a baseball game.

Once day I brought a ladybug home from school. When I let it go it fluttered down into Alan’s garden.

Alan loves baseball. He played a lot growing up, but he has never seen where I play. It’s a short walk from my house, next to a hulk of a brick building wrapped in huge pipes. It has soaring smoke stacks shooting up from it, like pillars holding up the sky. Some people think it is ugly but I think it is lonely, like a monster sitting alone in a forest. It should have warehouses by its side. Instead it has a field that we use for baseball and soccer. By the East River looms this building and under its shadow is the place I play every Saturday in the spring and fall. The building isn’t so lonely then.

The field is always muddy and the grass is in a constant struggle with trampling feet and dirt. But during a practice you can collapse into it, rolling, laughing, panting while it envelops you like a blanket and the fading sky swirls above you. You don’t care that the grass is wet and mushy or that you will have to practically empty a bottle of Shout on your pants. It’s good grass.

Baseball is probably how I got to know the doormen on my block. They’re not my doormen. I don’t have any. They’re my friends. I’m not really sure how I became their friend. It might have been a warm day when they were standing outside.

I might have had a baseball game that weekend and they might have asked how I did.

There are five doormen: the one who looks like an elf, the regal one, Melinda, Domingo and Aaron.

Melinda has long red hair and a quick bright smile. One Christmas we gave her a snow globe, and she was delighted. She smokes when off duty and hides the cigarette behind her back when I come near.

I never knew the elf’s real name. He has ears that point like a just-sharpened pencil and a slightly ovular face. His hair is in a neat crew cut. When he walks he bobs a little and he walks on the tips of his toes. His smile shows only a little of his teeth and the corners of his mouth turn up. The smile’s small, but it is as happy as presents under a Christmas tree. His eyes sparkle a little but not too much. I skipped all the way home the first time I heard him talk. He even sounded like an elf.

I don’t know much about the regal one; I am always in too much of a hurry to talk with him when I pass by because he’s there in the morning when I’m off to school. He waves with a little cupped hand and that is my start to every school day. He doesn’t smile but he raises his chin a little while waving. I think inside he’s smiling.

Then there’s Domingo. He’s like a good coat, warm and protecting you from the world. Domingo is a big guy. He has a big smile that fills up the place. He smiles like he knows something you don’t and I’m fine with that. One day as I came home from a baseball game I learned he played in the Minors!

Last is Aaron. He was a quiet guy and really sweet, a small man. His smile was the one most filled with care. He was a soft guy urging me on to my best. I didn’t know much about him. He always wanted to show us the garden behind the building but he wasn’t allowed to let us in. A few years ago in December he died. My Mom went to his funeral with Melinda and Domingo and Alan. In the Bronx they drove past some boarded up houses to a small church. There the funeral was held accompanied by a moving gospel choir. I never gave him his Christmas present.

Isaiah Milbauer
Age 12, Grade 7,
Hunter College High School
Silver Key