‘A Well-Dressed Man Sitting Across From Me Was Drawing With a Pencil’
Drawn Together
Dear Diary:
I was on the southbound 6 train in the Bronx. A well-dressed man sitting across from me was drawing with a pencil in a large, spiral-bound sketchbook.
A young boy carrying a box of candy approached him, hoping for a sale or donation. After looking at his drawing, the boy said something to him.
The man handed the sketchbook to the boy, who set his box of candy in the man’s lap and began to draw, leaning the sketchbook against the subway car door.
By the time we reached the next stop, the boy had drawn a figure with one raised arm that was holding a round object.
When the door slid open, the sketchbook fell out. The boy managed to hold onto the page with his drawing. He turned to the artist, traded the pencil for his box and headed toward the next car with his unfinished sketch.
The artist grinned and pulled a fresh book from the bag at his feet.
— Joel Minsky
Nocturnal Ritual
Dear Diary:
A few times a week, I open my living room window before going to bed and lean out onto the fire escape to breathe in the night air and try to catch a glimpse of the moon.
Most people on my Chelsea block have drawn their curtains and switched off the lights, but some apartments glow like little lanterns.
Across the street, one of my neighbors has the same idea as me. I often see him leaning out his window, resting on his elbows as he smokes a cigarette.
We can’t quite make out each other’s faces in the dark, but we exchange a smile as the city buzzes below us.
— Millie Thwaites
Off to Macy’s
Dear Diary:
In fall 1956, I traveled to New York City from California for a six-week stint at my employer’s Manhattan headquarters.
The most memorable character in the office was a charming Irish woman named Mai McCarthy.
One Friday evening, as we rode the elevator down to the building’s Madison Avenue entrance together, she had a question for me.
“Have you ever been to Macy’s, lad?”
I had not.
“C’mon, then.”
Her delightful brogue kept me entertained as we walked down Madison Avenue. We turned right at 34th Street.
The signal was against us at Fifth Avenue, still a long block from Herald Square, and she fell silent as we waited at the curb.
When the light turned green, she hesitated a moment. Then she looked up at me anxiously.
“Y’know,” she said with a tremor in her voice, “I have not been on the West Side in years.”
I took her arm, we crossed the intersection to the safety of the opposite curb and continued on to Macy’s.
— Laurence McGilvery
14th Street Bus
Dear Diary:
He was sitting on the 14th Street bus looking out. When it stopped, he saw a woman outside Lot-Less sorting a mound of purchases on top of a shopping cart.
The woman looked up, noticed the bus and started to run while pushing the cart and motioning for the driver to wait.
She made it onto the bus and pushed her cart up aisle toward the man who had been looking out the window in her direction. She sat down across the aisle from him in a two-seater.
She put the package at the top of the cart on the seat near the window and repacked the rest of her stuff so that it fit into the cart more snugly.
At that point, the cart began to roll away down the aisle. She reached to grab it, but the man had already stopped it by extending a long leg out.
“I’ve got this,” he said.
She mouthed a “thank you” and continued to reposition her packages in the cart.
When she finished, she moved to the closest single seat facing the aisle, which allowed her to hold the cart close while leaving room for other riders to pass.
She and the man began to chat. Their conversation meandered from bus routes to the bargains available at Lot-Less.
He said his stop was Abingdon Square.
“Me too,” she said.
As he helped her off with the cart, they talked about local places to drink Guinness, half-price sushi day and a diner on Gansevoort that she thought had closed.
He invited her to join him there for lunch the next day, and she agreed.
Just one thing, he said as she pushed away. Please don’t bring the cart.
— Noreen Ash Mackay
Good Sign
Dear Diary:
My son had just turned 16 and was eager to get his learner’s permit. So after school one day, we headed to the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Coney Island.
My son filled out and submitted the paperwork just before the last exam of the day was announced.
A clerk called his name.
“But I haven’t looked at the manual yet,” my son said.
The clerk looked at him and then at his paperwork.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re a Capricorn. You know everything.”
— Susan Hulkower
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
