PRETTY CORNER
Walking fast, head down, I have each step memorized as I turn the northwest corner of 23rd St. and 3rd Ave. A bellowing, raspy laugh jolts me out of the trance of my phone screen. I look up, and sure enough, there are the six best friends lining the sidewalk in front of the shelter. Sometimes they gossip, sometimes sell books, usually while listening to crackly music from a 1990’s boombox. But they’re there every single day. Every. Single. Day.
I can’t tell if they’re homeless or not, because they do not beg for money or food. Perhaps that’s why I’ve grown to enjoy their existence, rooted into the sidewalk right around the corner from my apartment. Even when I’m not there, I take comfort in knowing they are protecting my block. Not for safety, but protecting the character of it. By no means is their setup a “pretty” sight, but I can’t help but smile at the way they sit together every day, watching each pseudo-superior walk by.
A group of both men and women, all of color, I find their dynamic fascinating. As I passed by one day, one of the men shouted after me. I couldn’t make out what he said, although I was sure it was a comment which I could term a catcall. Right after, a woman among the group yelled, “Don’t pay him any mind, he’s mentally retarded!”
I was first gratefully amused by how she sort of defended me, a gesture representative of the way women can band together against misogyny. Then as my own social consciousness came into play, I was taken aback at how carelessly she chose to label him. In high school I volunteered at a school for the mentally challenged, so I tend to take personal offense to anything demeaning toward the disabled. But I understood her meaning and let it stand in my mind separate from any association of ignorance.
Days later, I was walking past the same group. Just as I’m halfway through their london-bridge style congregation, I hear a woman yell, “Boniiiittaaaa!”. I understood it meant “beautiful” in Spanish, but I was disturbed at how she yelled after me in the same disrespectful tone that an ignorant man might. I haven’t been able to forget this particular instance, and have mulled it over in my head countless times. I wondered how a woman could participate in a side of culture that her own gender falls victim to. I presume she believed she was simply complimenting me, a sentiment I truly appreciate, but it was the way she said it. Obnoxiously projecting for the whole street to hear, like the display of dominance that so many men believe they achieve as they call after women on the street.
As I continued walking, almost home, I imagined myself calmly turning back to her and telling her that is not the right way to speak to a person, let alone comment on another woman’s appearance. If she hadn’t been surrounded by men, I would have taken the comment almost with levity, like how one of my spirited tias would greet me at a family party with a big smile and open arms. Although it still disturbs me, I surrender to the sole fact that she constantly is surrounded by men, whose behavior, I’m sure, influences hers.
The members of the “clique” on 23rd & 3rd have adopted each other’s ways, just as they’ve adopted that corner as their own. I think they’ll always be there, interwoven into the complex culture among which we’re so paradoxically lucky to live.
