M11

"Was this bus stopped for a long time at 58th st?" asked the frail older man with one gold hoop earing and an incongruously perfect smile of fake teeth as he settled into the seat beside me after getting on at 55th St. "No, I was coming from Mt Sinai, so I got on at 58th, it was only there for a minute," I replied, gesturing vaguely toward the infusion center wristband on the my right arm, made out of plastic so indestructible that nothing short of getting to the office and grabbing the scissors can get it off. "I have doctors at Mt. Sinai, too," he beamed. "My cardiologist and my primary doctor." I decided to check out what my gaydar was telling me. "Mt Sinai has a lot of LGBT doctors," I said, and he agreed, confirming my instinct with his smile. "I was born there when it was still St Clare's," he said. So were my three older brothers. We were all born in five years. But my youngest brother was born eight years later, in Astoria." "wow, your mother had her hands full!" I said, thinking of my years of babysitting three boys. "My father was in the service. Every time he came home to visit he left her a present.". He was chuckling and I suddenly became aware of the people around us, smiling to themselves. They had obviously been following along. "But my grandmother lived on 48th, " - he gestured out the window and proceeded to point out where various aunts had lived. I remembered my Dad, a long-time resident of W 55th, and his stories about the old Hell's Kitchen. "Was your family Irish?" I asked and his smile got wider while his eyes looked puzzled that someone my age would know that. I told him that my Dad lived on 55th, and that I had been to the ER while it was still St Clare's. I was an accident-prone child until 5th grade when I switched to a school where they asked me to read a chart on the wall and I turned on the spot, trying to figure out which wall. Turns out you trip a lot less when you can see what's in front of you, an idea that never dawned on my intellectual parents who were too lost in their literary discussions to notice the material world around them. "I live here," he said, pointing to the assisted living building between 42nd and 43rd. "Have you ever tried the bagel place? I'm on my to get a bagel. They have the best asiago bagels. They're kind of pricey, $1.90, but they're huge!" and then he got off, on his way to get a bagel.