Day 11: Tuesday, October 10th 2017.
Last day in New York and the sun is up so I went out to the park early to take more photos. It’s Central Park as I imagined it; joggers of all shapes, sizes and abilities running around the 1.5 mile perimeter of the reservoir that fills the heart of the park. The chain link fence that Dustin Hoffman clung to as his lungs were bursting in ‘Marathon Man’ is now long gone but the views of the downtown skyline in morning sunlight are stunning. It appears that the accepted route is anti-clockwise and I feel somewhat in the way as I try to capture a few shots, although most joggers are seemingly so short on oxygen they have little energy to tell me to get out of the way.
On the road that runs though the park more organised groups of runners flash by, all intent on going nowhere fast. I wonder if these people have jobs. Probably taking conference meetings on their smart-phones as they run? Elsewhere, dog-walkers, families, thinkers, and just people, go about their New York business. I’m surprised how little commercialisation there is in the park; hardly any cafes or stalls pedalling ice cream or fridge magnets. Quite refreshing.
Jane joins me and no-one challenges us as we stroll into the Central Park Tennis Club grounds hoping to get a coffee. It’s surprisingly low-key and the range of coffee is thankfully limited so I don’t have to decide on whether to have a double-de-latte-de-caff-manoka with extra avocado shavings on top or whatever the latest way of punishing what is already a perfectly flavourful coffee bean is. Regular will suffice.
We sit and watch the tennis players whose range of skill level is pretty much as you’d find in any recreational club anywhere in the world, that is to say some have all the gear but only possess the coordination of a deck chair, others (mainly men) whose self-delusion out-strips their ability, and ‘senior’ players fighting a war of attrition, waiting for one of them to either put a lob over the base line, or to die, whichever is the sooner. Neither Jane or I belong to any of the aforementioned groups of course.
We walk back to collect our things and only then realise why there were so many police cars near our apartment block. NYPD Precinct 24 is just around the corner, so we decide to call in on the off-chance that Jane’s phone has been recovered during the intense search operation. We enter yet another strange nether world where fact, fiction, reality and surreality fuse.The desk officer seems somewhat ambivalent about finding the phone and asks us to sit and wait. One officer (no doubt called Dibble or Kowalski) leans casually in a cell doorway, the inmate’s feet just visible inside. Another (Gruber or Krupke?) pushes a large, metal cage on wheels across the floor in front of us. Another female officer asks him where he’s going. He replies that he’s on his way to collect a raccoon that has made its way into a child’s bedroom on the 8th floor of an apartment block. Of course he his. I can see now why so few resources have been allocated to finding the phone. The two officers engage in comical banter theorising about the racoon’s modus operandi; a pleasant diversion from the daily grind of shakin’ down gangsters and hoodlums.
We eventually just slink back out to the real-ish world outside, much to the relief of all at Precinct 24 I guess, who will now be taking down the movie set and getting out of costume ready to go home. As we make our way back to pick up our things I take a quick ‘dingbat’ photo to send to my Hendrix-mad nephew, I’m sure he’ll get it straightaway.
And after the bus goes by, a crocodile of tiny New Yorkers crosses the road, looking like a chain-gang of extremely young offenders on their way to the park to pick up trash as part of their community service.
It’s time to leave the city and head Way Out West(ish).
With so many places on our agenda it’s a little difficult to stay completely in the moment. The whales of Cape Cod now seem like a distant memory, yet it was only 6 days ago. Experiences, ‘future memories’, anticipation and the here and now all blend into a marvellous feeling of excitement, which for me feels very much like it’s right here, right now. The best bits? These bits.
In the back of my mind – which has just about enough space – I’ve always had the Appalachian Trail, the Blueridge Mountains and West Virginia calling me. Wonderful though New York has been, I’m not really a big-city person and I’m really excited (again) to be heading west, into the wild blue yonder. Maybe not quite so wild now but no matter. I wonder if the lure of heading west, like so many folk before us, is in our DNA? Probably more in the male of the species; hard-wired to search out new stamping grounds with the promise of whatever’s just over the next mountain? Anyway, I can feel a sense of escape, or maybe of arrival, at the prospect of saddling up and setting off for the wilderness. It feels like a new stage of our odyssey; trading big city lights for banjos, pine trees and stars.
Our next pre-booked stay is in Roanoke, Virginia, which is a bit of a hike for one afternoon so we look for a midway point. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania looks a good bet so we book another AirBnB on-line.
We follow the Hudson River again and head towards New Jersey, New York’s poorer cousin, and for me, another land of mythology. As we leave one state and enter another the contrast is obvious; the properties are down at heel, the whole neighbourhood less affluent, and we’ve only travelled about 3 miles. This working-class, blue-collar area is where ‘The Boss’ grew up; where he learned his musical chops and wrote so many songs about cars, the road, girls and getting out, so it holds plenty of excitement for us. Patti Smith, Jon Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny and lots more besides all mined the rich seam of hopelessness, despair and working class ennui that lives deep in the heart of many grim, industrialised ghettos and which fuels the drive to just get the hell outta there; to not do, ‘..just what my Daddy did.’
We cross the Hackensack River and head towards the New Jersey Turnpike, which cannot be approached with anything other than reverence, and I can’t help humming a bit of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘America’, one of the most evocative road-trip songs ever written and which would surely have been a shoe-in for the soundtrack to ‘Midnight Cowboy’ if John Barry had never been born. I forgot to count the cars though.
Wikipedia tells me that New Jersey has no state song. Probably too difficult to find one that actually celebrates anything other than leaving it?
Two hundred miles of cruise-control later we arrive at the cute town of Harrisburg PA and in a strange echo of Midnight Cowboy we come across a short, rather nervous, furtive-looking man who is changing the lock on the front door of his house, our accommodation for the night. He apologises for his lack of readiness for our arrival but the girl who stayed here last night didn’t return and she is now in jail (probably as a result of a wild night out in Harrisburg he thinks.) He shows us into the house and we follow him upstairs, squeezing past another man who’s on his way down. I ask how he’s doing and he smiles and shrugs. We have no idea who he is and our host Stephen doesn’t offer any information so we carry on. Our room is decorated in a dark red, very ‘arty’, decorative style with some slightly gruesome metal face sculptures hung on the walls. But it’s cosy and warm nevertheless and after settling in we go downstairs and get to know Stephen, his cat Boo and his dog Lola. AirBnB v Travelodge again? No contest.
More swapping of life stories and advice about where to eat in Harrisburg without further troubling the cops. We dine out (lost track of the food budget) at The Millworks, a great restaurant with artists’ studios attached and a lovely roof terrace with wooden benches where we relax in the warmth of the evening, drink beer, eat pizza and play Connect-4. I let Jane win. Before turning in we stop off at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, a book-lover’s dream with wood-pannelled walls, coffee on tap, an amazing marquetry mural across one wall and a huge bronze bell (don’t know) hanging in the rafters. Salman Rushdie had done a book signing here the previous week.
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Day 12: Wednesday, October 11th 2017.
The next morning we have breakfast at a small, ‘artisan’ cafe, ‘The Yellow Bird’. Breakfast out while on holiday is surely one of the best experiences ever; the world is just going to work and having to grab a bite, we can take our time over muffins, bacon, avocado and coffee. Two men resembling Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets are engaged in conversation at a table opposite. They are wearing braces and tweeds and appear to be attorneys.
Their conversation is somehow very ‘East Coast’: dry, sardonic, low-key and world-weary. From what I could hear they were discussing what was to them the irritating notion of why everyone should appear positive and upbeat all the time; they praised the idea of pessimism and realism. In sharp contrast to ‘West Coast’ chatter, and more to my liking to be honest. They sit opposite each other as if engaged in a stand-off, or sit-off, which forms a great composition, so I ask if they would mind if I took a photo of them. Waldorf replied quick as flash that no, he wouldn’t mind, as long as he could take a picture of us. He was obviously used to making quick responses to questions whilst simultaneously forming some kind of a deal. He must be an attorney.
I got another shot of a friendly looking cop sitting across the room, just finishing breakfast before leaving for the next Cohen brothers’ movie auditions.
We called in at the book store again before setting off for Roanoke, Virginia, another 250 miles away. Six states ticked off so far.
Jane Conner
Cheley
Peter Conner