Space Cadet

I go to Union Square Park. I expect activity. Weather like this—choking, sultry—teases people out of the cracks. No one person could honestly account for this phenomenon. Desert wraith weather systems are socially understood on a cumulative scale. I go to Union Square to take measurements.

I see a female mime without makeup. She climbs ropes, idles on swings, apes pedestrians, makes sharp, anonymous gestures in the air. She wears a red hat and sash with a black pants suit. Passersby ignore her as if she were homeless or insane. If she were anywhere else, mincing across a bridge or inside the nearby Whole Foods, they could be right. The weather and the park work together to insulate madness, performative and otherwise.

The she-mime commands space. She remains inside a five yard radius of her “center.” Her ability to endure the rich, deliberate oblivion of New York pedestrians gives her antics a sad, desperate quality. She has no makeup. What does that mean? She climbs ropes without a mask, unmasked, as though, “that’s what you do,” she thinks across her pointed rictus.

A homeless man stands behind me. It takes me a minute to realize he’s homeless. He commands space. He stands there, a meaty middle aged black man dressed in grey sweats, swaying almost imperceptibly to sounds issuing from earbuds, which, followed, are connected to a handheld radio. Homeless men listen to the radio. They listen to the radio as though taking instructions. The instructions are part of a magnificent plan. The magnificent plan stacks onto itself, detail upon detail, until, like a fever dream, the plan disintegrates, becomes incomprehensible, can only be recalled in fragments. Plastic bags stuffed with remains collect around his legs. His eyes appear to sweat—shiny, faraway, “but I see you. don’t think I don’t.”

I lean against a lamp post. I command space. I realize that if I lean against this lamp post long enough I will become a sex worker. The mime without makeup was a normal person until she stood still. She could become homeless person, a sex worker, or a street performer. If she were none of these things, she would have known to play with her phone. Normal people standing still play with their phones. Phones mean normal people can’t be bought. I play with my phone, but the effect is less as a sex worker. It’s my shorts, I think. It’s my hat. If I stand still long enough an officer will ask me just what I think I’m doing. If I stand still, watching, waiting, taking my measurements, someone will want to light my cigarette. But I don’t smoke. By then it would be too late.

I cross 14th street onto Broadway. I see a man leaning against a wall. He commands space. He has olive skin and sleepy, saturnine eyes. He is wearing a long white dress shirt and black slacks. He is smoking a cigarette in long, exaggerated drags. I realize he’s a sex worker before I pass him. He makes kissing noises at me. I smile at the horror of my developed intuition. Two blocks later, I turn around. I can squeeze his image between my thumb and index finger. He doesn’t look like the hustlers I’ve seen around the Port Authority. His outfit looks like pieces of a groom’s man. I remember the weather. I think of LA. Prostitutes come out in the heat. That’s why they love LA.

I walk to Thompkins Square Park then back to wear I saw the groom’s man. I want to speak with him, but I doubt myself. He would tell me anything so long as I paid him. But I would decide what was true, I would tell him. I would know something just by the sound of your voice. I can read voices, I would tell him.

He was gone. I turn onto 14th street. I’m looking at every face that passes me by. I’m looking at every face and notice a woman with a full face of makeup standing near the entrance to Whole Foods. She commands space. She is holding her purse with her arms crossed. Her outfit passes for discreet, but the rest of her does not. She is not dialing a phone. She is standing there with a sad, expectant look resting just beneath the heavy layers of makeup. I watch her closely as I continue down 14th. I don’t see her see me. She might have already seen me today. “Watching you,” she thinks about anyone. Day and night. Watching you.