on a wide open grass slope in a Brooklyn hilltop park, the ground falling away sharply below her toward a grey industrial harbor — cranes, a shipping channel, and a small Statue of Liberty barely separable from the machinery around it; the sky and water the same flat pewter, no horizon line between them — seated on grass, lychee bag open beside her, one lychee half-peeled in her hand, looking out at the harbor — not at the view but past it
The lychees were already sweating through the bag by the time I got to the park.
I'd come up from the N before eight, the overcast holding everything in that particular flat August light — no shadows, colors muted, the sky the same grey as the water below. I walked downhill toward the top of the hill, which sounds wrong and isn't. Sunset Park opens wide when you arrive at it, the slope dropping away and the harbor spreading out beyond — the cranes, the channel, the Statue of Liberty doing its thing in the distance, barely distinguishable from the industrial machinery around it at that angle. A man was moving through tai chi near the crest, slow and certain, someone's grandmother two blankets over arranging a spread of containers. I found a patch of grass and sat down.
the harbor panorama from the crest of Sunset Park — cranes, channel, and the Statue of Liberty small and grey in the industrial distance
I wasn't there for the view. I was there because the city has views like this in neighborhoods where nobody is coming specifically for them, which is the only condition under which I can look at a view without feeling like I've been told to.
I stayed until the lychees were getting warm.
a brown paper bag of lychees split open on a park bench, two loose ones beside it, skin flushed pink-red and already beading moisture
8th Avenue in the mid-morning. The produce overflow already stacked on folding tables — bitter melon going dark at the ridges, yard-long beans draped over the edge of a crate in a way that looked accidental. I could name them. I couldn't have, not confidently, two years ago. The lychee man gave me two extra without being asked and turned back to his arrangement before I'd finished saying anything.
on a mid-morning commercial sidewalk in a Brooklyn Chinatown, folding tables pushed to the edge of the pavement holding produce — yard-long beans draping over the lip of a wooden crate, bitter melon darkening at its ridges, stacked cardboard and crates pressing close; a hand-lettered price sign taped to the table edge — just turned away from the produce table, two extra lychees now in her bag, the vendor already facing back to his arrangement behind her
Industry City in the afternoon, and I made the mistake of going through the retail end first — coffee concepts, design studios, a cheese shop with a typeface. I corrected it. Went back toward the water side, through corridors that still have freight markings on the concrete floor, orange stencil, worn but legible. A loading dock, unlocked. I added the overshirt from my bag because the corridor ran genuinely cool and I wasn't ready to leave.
inside a wide industrial corridor of a converted Brooklyn waterfront complex, bare concrete walls marked with worn orange stencil freight numbers — large block type, still legible but soft at the edges from decades of foot traffic; the corridor running long and cool into a dim rectangle of open dock light at the far end — stopped mid-corridor, overshirt just pulled on and not yet fully settled on her shoulders, one sleeve still half-pushed-up, looking toward the open loading dock at the far end
A tugboat was moving something enormous and slow through the channel below. It had the time to do it properly.
What she wore
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I wore the black skirt because I knew I'd be sitting on grass and I didn't want to think about it.
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The trousers made sense by the time I got to 8th Avenue — somewhere between the bitter melon and the lychee man I had stopped thinking about what I was wearing.
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I added the overshirt at the loading dock — the warehouse corridor runs cool even in August and I wasn't ready to leave.