Bay Ridge Saturday
I’m trying not to count down to the surgery. I don’t see how that could possibly be helpful, but my brain seems to do it automatically and every now and then when I notice the date or write it on something, my brain says 10 days. This is exacerbated by an app-like thing I have never seen before called “Care Plan” which sends you messages about what you are supposed to do to prepare for the surgery. So far I’ve only gotten one, a list of medications to discontinue - none of which I take anyway. I’m also starting to gather items I will need for the hospital, tossing them in my duffel bag as they occur to me. Like a mother about to have her third child, I have enough hospital experience to know what will and won’t be useful.
I had to do an errand that sent me into the 80s, the busy shopping area of Bay Ridge. On my way I passed the building that held the mental health clinic Kate S attended for all of her years in NYC and noticed that it’s gone. Ever since she left, whenever I went by that building I remembered meeting with her devastated therapist in the weeks after her death. After the second conversation, it dawned on me that I wasn’t sure which of us we were doing this for, and so I declined her next invitation.
I could certainly understand her distress. Over the years, I’ve had a couple of clients end their lives. One was a trans woman that both our social worker and I worked with very intensively, but was struggling physically in a way that she would not recover from. In fact, she came to New York City in search of last ditch medical options, which did not pan out. The other was a young man I had known for years, but had seen less of as he got older and became more independent, although I sometimes ran into him on the R train. His death felt impulsive and sudden, harder to get my mind around.
Arriving at the bank, I held the door for a woman with short brown hair, a tan winter coat and a shopping cart. She read my shirt out loud, “No person is illegal. I like that.” “Immigrants come here and they just work. I always say we wouldn’t eat if it weren’t for the Mexicans. They need to hear it,” and she gestured skyward although I think that the people who need to hear it are very much here on earth.
“I got arrested protesting about this,” I said. “We took the pictures of people in ICE detention and who had been killed by ICE on big posters into the lobby of Trump Tower .” She didn’t hear me that well, and said “I don’t think you should’ve been arrested for that.” “We were inside Trump Tower,” I clarified.
“I’m not an immigrant,” she said “but I’m married to one. My husband is from Peru and he’s stuck there now. I sponsored his immigration, but they mistook him for somebody with an open case. I sent $20,000 to pay for a lawyer for him, but Peru is very corrupt and the money disappeared.”
She continued “I’m a lawyer, but it was in California.” I nodded my understanding. “So you can’t practice here,” I said. “No but when my brother dated this Dominican woman who said he put a gun to her head even though he had had knee surgery and could not walk, he was arrested and held on Riker’s. They wanted $40,000 for the attorney fees so I did all the work myself and just paid for a local lawyer to sign off on it but now I have to go down to Peru.”
At the counter, the young Asian teller also said she liked my shirt. With all the things I’m trying not to think about colliding and bouncing off of each other in my mind, I absently thought of today’s date, the 9th and then filled in Kate’s birthday, 3/9 (yes, Freud, I know)– and had to cross it out. June will make ten years that she’s been gone, and all the publicity about the 10th anniversary of Gays Against Guns keeps reminding me of the night I sat in the packed room at the Center at their first meeting while in Cypress Hills, alone in her apartment, Kate was swallowing pill after pill.
I could have walked home, it’s only 13 blocks, but I have a lot of housework to do and figured I’d better save my energy and take the bus. I walked down to 3rd avenue past St Anselm’s with their purple tulips dilapidated by the morning’s rain. Right in front of the tulips a chubby squirrel paused for a snack. It was not bothered by me, and we shared a quiet moment while it kept eating, but when another person walked by it hid in the bushes.
When I got home I found the cats about ready to file a complaint with their union because it has been days since they knocked over their fountain and they have been forced to make do with prehistoric technology – a bowl. I gathered the parts, carefully washed each one, plugged in the base and set the filled tank on it. April and Sapphire couldn’t wait for me to install a new filter and replace the top so they began drinking right out of the tank. I put the pump in, fastened the top, and finally installed the spout, but nothing happened. It’s possible they ruined it since they managed to fill the indentation in the base with water when they tipped it, but it also might just need to charge for a while, so I leave it and hope it’s flowing when I go back downstairs tomorrow.
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