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James was on foot, heading down Madison Avenue. Months
of commuting into Manhattan might have killed his enthusiasm
but he still found the city thrilling. He'd spent the
first 30 years of his life in cold, drab England, where
the idea of working in New York City never seemed even
a remote possibility. He was a Londoner. He paid outrageous
rent for a small flat surrounded by thoughtless neighbors.
He took buses and underground trains to work, though
it would sometimes have been quicker to walk. He drove
to France each summer.
He lived in Islington, not the chic, trendy part of
Islington that people think of when you mention Islington,
not the part where politicians live before they go on
to become Prime Minister, but the cheaper and dirtier
end. Or rather, the expensive and dirty end, rather
than the ruinously expensive but quite clean end.
He'd never even imagined a new life in a place like
Manhattan where almost everywhere he looked there was
an icon: the splendor of the Empire State Building,
the art deco jazz age styling of the Chrysler Building,
the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the bridges, the
museums, steam coming from inspection covers in the
street, cops on horseback, Central Park. It had been
a disappointment to find that the old, heavy Checker
Cabs were gone, replaced mainly by dull Crown Victoria
sedans made by Ford, but the very color of them was
redolent of every photograph of New York he'd ever seen.
How could a shade of yellow say so much?
Back in London he'd felt compelled to conform. He knew
the place so well that he almost knew what people would
think if he did something out of character like dying
his hair green, or marrying an Italian, or buying a
BMW. He'd never dyed his hair green because he'd never
especially wanted to. He'd never married an Italian
because he'd never had the opportunity, though he was
open to the concept. And he'd never bought a BMW because
they were too expensive and his friends would have laughed.
Which just about proves the point if you don't examine
the argument too closely.
In America he was gloriously free from all the old
pressures, free to try new things and let the world
like it or choose not to. In the US, as far as he could
tell, you didn't need to care too much what people thought.
He could just be himself. Right now he was on foot but
he was hardly walking. The nine blocks from Grand Central
station to his office didn't merit a subway ride but
they were just a little too long to be considered a
pleasant morning stroll. He'd hiked to work for the
first two months, through those freezing snowstorm days
of December and January. He briefly tried cabs, thought
of getting one of those aluminum folding scooters, and
finally hit on the answer by accident when he went to
a sports shop to buy a new pair of gloves for sailing.
That was yet another new experience. Sailing, that is,
not buying gloves. Even in England no one gets judgmental
just because you buy gloves.
By the main door of the sports shop there had been
a display of inline skates. As a child James had owned
roller skates. A friend offered to teach him to skate
and, for one afternoon, he tried. The bruises he collected
took weeks to fade, and his skating career ended the
day it began. He'd tried to learn to ski but that was
hopeless too. The year he went to the Alps the snow
stayed away, and the nursery slopes were peppered with
rocks. Skiing into a rock, even a small rock, hurts
like hell. Ice skating was even more painful. James
just had no balance and fell so many times the instructor
advised him to quit.
Nevertheless, the inline skates looked interesting,
and you could buy wrist protectors with palm pads, elbow
pads, knee pads, helmets, shatterproof sunglasses and
indestructible sports watches. Someone had finally thought
this thing through.
James had persuaded Debbie to take a look, and she
joined him, trying pairs of skates for size, reluctantly
at first, but then with a little enthusiasm, and then
the whole shiny, colorful, seductive marketing machine
rolled into operation and relieved them of $300. They
were almost free and clear when Fate decided that Marketing
had missed an opportunity and stepped in to help. As
they headed towards the checkout a teenager wobbled
by and grabbed the shelving for support. Debbie turned
to look and then tapped James on the shoulder. "Will
you look at that!"
The girl wore sneakers much like regular Nikes or Reeboks.
She smiled at them and raised one foot to reveal small
retractable wheels mounted into the rubber sole. If
you flipped them out you could skate. If you folded
them back into the sole you could walk. "Kinda
cool," she said.
So now James rolled from the railroad station to the
office every day and he never fell. He skated in the
park at weekends. He'd even learned to skate on ice,
not just at the rink but on the ponds when they froze.
The trick was to wait until the fishermen went out on
the ice and drilled through. Then you could see how
thick it was. He fell sometimes at first, but he'd caught
on quickly. It was as if the move to a new country had
uncovered a new seam of confidence that he'd never mined
before. He passed his US drivers test easily, getting
every one of the theory questions right. Then he passed
the motorcycle test. One day, not right now but one
day, he would own a Harley. He'd even toyed with the
notion of calling the local airport to inquire after
flying lessons.
Careful not to fail the drivers test on a technicality
he visited an optometrist who gave him a marginally
stronger prescription and, for the first time in his
life, contact lenses. Suddenly James could see more
clearly than ever before. It was like being 15 years
old again. In many ways his whole life felt as if it
had worked out the way he wanted it to when he was 15.
He was successful and hopeful and powerful. He earned
almost twice as much as he had in London. He had beautiful,
clever Debbie. And Ben would be three years old soon.
They lived in a small apartment in a coastal town that
nestled in the southern tip of Connecticut just beyond
the New York state border. In the grander houses, rock
stars, millionaires, and movie directors were his neighbors.
He saw them sometimes in Burger King. A friend once
took the most famous actress in the world on his gorgeous
31-foot sloop that she considered buying. James had
sailed on the same boat many times last summer, helping
to reef the mainsail when the winds were high, photographing
a fellow passenger when he climbed the hoops of the
mast all the way to the top, pulled down his Speedo
trunks and mooned the crew.
In the summer, early on Sunday mornings, half a dozen
of them would meet at the dock and sail out to one of
the islands on Long Island Sound to cook breakfast together
on the beach. In the evenings they stayed out on the
water until the sun set and got hopelessly drunk, then
sailed back to the mooring and drank more, using a cell
phone to call the local grill for pizza, and sending
sober Debbie to collect.
As mid-summer approached there were free concerts in
the park. Ben danced in his mother's arms to a Beatles
tribute band dressed like Sergeant Pepper. When the
power failed halfway through the set they might have
quit. Instead they played on, with the headlights of
a truck lighting up the stage, John Lennon playing his
heart out with no amplifier. When the engineers finally
got the power back the applause was tumultuous.
Life felt disturbingly like success but it didn't even
disturb him, it just felt right. Life was fun. Dammit,
he was skating to work down Fifth Avenue in a pair of
magic sneakers. Each day he wove elegantly between the
pedestrians on the sidewalk, then between the cars on
the road. And he no longer fell. He never, ever fell.
He'd finally found some balance.
This train of thought brought him to a crossing at
36th Street where he stopped. Something hit him hard
in the back, he fell sharply forward and broke his left
arm.
"Fu...," he said. His head hit the paving
and a gash opened on his forehead, spilling blood into
his eyes. He rolled over to see a young man lying next
to him, dazed but still conscious. All of a sudden James
realized that a young woman was on top of the man. His
eyes must have been playing tricks. He hadn't noticed
her at first. She seemed unhurt, not even winded, and
she climbed immediately to her feet.
"Give that to me," she said and pulled a
purse from the young man's hand. She turned to James.
"Don't move." Then she vanished into thin
air.
"What did you...." James began to ask. He
pushed himself up using his broken arm and a blinding
pain shot through him. "UNNnghhk," he added,
and passed out.
"I told you not to move," said a voice, apparently
from nowhere, but nobody paid any attention.
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