Erik's Swearing In

Today was Erik Bottcher’s swearing in as State Senator. There’s a cold wind blowing and it’s a little hard to be enthusiastic about another one of these events in a single weekend, but Erik has volunteered in the kitchen at New Alt, and watched the clients perform at Craft Your Truth, and we have a thing where I text him upcoming demos and he shows up when he can. I put on another dress, my ankles freezing with every wintery gust, and head to the Museum of Natural History. For this event we were let in through the staff entrance on 77th St. and walked through an exhibit about American Indians to get to the auditorium. Looking at the displays as I passed, I thought about the controversy that is raging about the provenance of these and so many other artifacts, and whether they should be returned to the societies they were taken from. The program hadn’t started yet, so Erik and I shared a quick laugh about how he was chatting so much during Brad’s event he missed himself being introduced. I told him about the upcoming ACT UP anniversary action, and he told me to send him the details. The space is filling up fast, so I grabbed a seat. From the beginning it was a much less serious event than Brad’s, lots of performances and joking. The first performance is a group of dancing senior citizens and partway through Erik, who clearly knows the choreography, jumped up and joined them, waving his long arms in the air. Later Chuck Schumer joked that Erik can do that because he’s in a safe district. Miss Peppermint performed her drag routine, a chorus composed of the unlikely combo of high school students, police officers and Tony Danza sang, and one of the actresses who played Elphaba in Wicked did a song from the show. Then Erik’s white-haired Dad got up there, joking about being told he looks like Bill Clinton. His whole speech was peppered with jokes, someone of which I imagine made Erik want to cringe. I couldn’t see him that well because I am having trouble with double vision that splits people in half so two are standing side by side. But then he got serious, talking about what Erik went through as a gay kid in a small town way upstate. “Every morning ,” he said “when his mom and I waved goodbye to Erik, we had no idea about the pain that was waiting for him on the bus or at school. He had 13 bullies. Now they follow his career in the local paper. They stop me on the street and apologize for what they put Erik through and they ask me to pass the apologies on to my son. You won, Erik, you won.” After being sworn in, Erik started with a joke, “Some of the fossils in this building are 70 million years old - in Albany they call it mid-career.” But then he got deeper, talking about his struggles as a young gay person. “I didn’t know if I was going to survive,” he said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to survive. When the world feels small, you can shrink yourself to fit or you can build a bigger world . For me the bigger world is New York City.” He then continued on to talk about making choices out of courage rather than fear, and about his approach to politics. “Government at its best is simply about caring about other people, about giving a damn,” he saids. At the end, as we waited for the aisles to clear so we could get out, the elderly woman with dyed auburn hair who has been sitting next to me says, “I missed the election, I didn’t even know he was running for State Senator. I’ve never missed an election, but my husband has dementia. I applied for Medicaid for him. We haven’t lived together for 45 years. We’re still legally married, but we have lived separate lives. All the lawyers said I would not get it, but I did and then they cut him off and I had to fight them over that.” “I’m trying to get back into things,” she says. “I can barely watch the news.” “I protest a lot,” I tell her. “I’m in Rise and Resist.” “I should check them out,” she says. “The meetings are on zoom,” I tell her, handing her a flyer from the stash in my shoulder bag. “I was a social worker for 30 years,” she continued, “but now I am a pet nanny. I make way more as a pet nanny than I did as a social worker. I used to take care of Corey Johnson’s cat in Williamsburg. I texted him today, I hope he’s doing OK. I donate to a lot of things. I give the most to Doctors Without Borders. But I donate to others too, like Best Friends, it’s an animal sanctuary. Do you know them?” “Yes,” I say, “I have six rescue cats.” “I had five at most but I don’t have any right now. I have one I am going to adopt.” “I work with homeless youth and they find cats,” I say. “They need to be spayed/neutered and released,” she says, thinking I mean feral cats. “No, they’re friendly,” I tell her. “I have one I kept after a client died. He’s a Russian blue.” “I used to give to Covenant House,” she said, “but I stopped.” “They’re not that great with LGBTQ youth,” I replied. “They have a lot of gang involved youth. I used to work with teen felons, and they need the services, but gang involved youth and LGBTQ youth are not a good combination.” She nodded her agreement. We made our way to the back doors, she was struggling a little with her cane. “This leg will never be the same,” she said “I had a knee replacement and it didn’t work.” She was looking for the bathroom, so I said, “there’s one down here,” and led her towards the main lobby. “I haven’t been here in years,” she said, looking around. “My husband was really into astronomy, we came here a lot, but now it’s all gone.” “My dad was the same way,” I said, thinking of the huge amount of history, archeology, literature and languages that disappeared from Dad’s mind, leaving just fragments that would occasionally surface, surprising us all. “My husband’s caregiver takes him to these free concerts at Lincoln Center,” she says. “They’re at 11am on Fridays. But you’re probably working then. Sometimes they have some in the evenings.” “I’m often working in the evenings, too,” I tell her. “In fact, I am working until 8pm tonight because we serve dinner.” She asked me a few questions, how old the clients are, etc and then asked for the name of the agency. I wished I had a card to give her, but I have used up the ones in my wallet. Maybe I will ask Erik if he knows who she is so I can follow up. We parted ways at the bathroom, and I dashed down to the office, arriving just in time to check clients in for Sunday dinner.