Nasty

Nick Delisi
Jul 27, 2017 · 7 min read

1:00 pm

I put the Brita back in the fridge and check my phone. Trevor is playing PS4 on the couch. He pauses the game. He looks up.

“Have you heard about this march? It’s all over my Facebook.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a couple friends who were trying to get me to go.”

“Yeah. I thought about it.”

“Yeah. I did too.”

“Yeah.”

He unpauses and repauses the game. I glance back at the fridge for no reason.

2:15 pm:

The platform is packed from edge to edge. We’d just taken the L to the 6 and figured we could follow the masses from here to Grand Central where the march was supposed to start. It wouldn’t be hard. Everyone seemed to be moving like cattle through the station.

Next to me a group of friends with blue spray-painted hair are putting glitter on their faces. One of them has a poster of an anatomical vagina with angry eyebrows.

Next to them a pair of friends hold hands, one of them has a peace sign taped to her back.

Next to them is a dad with his kids. The dad’s sign says “Stronger Together,” the little girl’s is emblazoned with a purple heart, and her brother’s has a hand-painted string of 1’s and 0’s. I really hope it says “love is non-binary” in binary.

The train comes and it’s crowded like rush hour. Everyone seems pleased to be standing on top of each other.

2:30 pm:

We step off the train and jokes slap us in the face. Trevor and I try to point out the better ones but struggle to hear over the chanting. East 42nd is a can of sardines and I am shocked that this many people really came.

I see poster-sized prints of Meryl Streep. I see a cut-out dick with Trump hair.

2:44 pm:

We’ve moved half a block in fifteen minutes, taking photos as everyone passes in mass, Trevor much faster than me. We find a piece of metal fence marooned in the crowd and use it like a ladder. If we lean against it the right way, we can get some height and see more of the scene. People look up at us. I look around. I notice how many photographers with real equipment have climbed street signs. They look like squirrels.

Some people pose under our cameras but most of them are focused up above on the Grand Central bridge where a guy in a beanie is chanting down to thousands below.

“This is what democracy looks like,” he yells.

“This is what democracy looks like,” they reply.

They go back to other chants: “Racist, Facist, Anti-Gay, Not Trump, No way” “Her body, her choice” “Grab this!” etc.

A woman above me looks down and I ask (shout) if I can take her photo. She seems poised and quiet against a light pole. Her signs says “Lead With Love.”

I leave Trevor on his makeshift island and move closer to the bridge. I get a better look at the different people looking down on the march. I notice a guy I follow on Instagram — most famous for his work for the Natural History Museum. He shoots online videos about dinosaurs, featuring skeletons and a lot of cute smiling. This explains his Jurassic Park sign.

3:30 pm:

Dinosaur man disappears and I go back to Trevor’s island, then we finally make our way to the bridge above the crowd. We find a hole along the edge of the bridge as taxis and tourists pass by with their windows down. To my left is a man in all black with four cameras around his neck and hip. He’s firing shots off and I’m worried I’ll get in his way. He laughs and makes room for me. He asks who I’m shooting for and I turn the question back on him — he says The Times.

To my right a couple — a man and women — are both chanting and dancing in bright pink pantsuits. I realize half of the march is topped with pink beanies with little ears, like little speckles I couldn’t see up-close. Trevor says they’re supposed to be cat ears — pussies, got it. Great.

4:10 pm:

The sun’s setting and the temperature’s falling fast. What was a yellow sky is now a dark, gray-blue.

We snake our way through the crowds near the bridge and get a glimpse of more signs. There are too many funny puns to remember. I find my favorite, a simple “UGH.” I look at Trevor and we nod that it’s time to head out.

As we turn to go, we nearly run into an older woman. She’s disgruntled. With us, with all the noise, or with the establishment, we’re unsure, but the sign in her hand — “I don’t think so” — was too perfect for words. I asked if I could take her photo. She nodded but she definitely wasn’t going to smile about it.

Trevor and I find a hole at the end of bridge and make our way to a less crowded 5th Avenue. From two blocks away, we walk uptown, parallel to the march. Every time we cross a street we can hear the chants echo back toward us like a cross breeze.

We stop in a Pret to pee. We laugh at how many tourists are here getting coffee and tiny sandwiches, seemingly unaware of what’s going on two avenues away. I open my phone for the first time in hours. Two tiny service bars tell me that I’m further from a few thousand people in pink beanies.

4:45 pm:

Trevor and I stop in the Nintendo store. We head upstairs and look at the vintage cases with old games and Yoshi figurines. We talk about games we played as kids. Trevor explains the plot of an old Zelda story. I’m listening, but I’m also in a haze. The chants of the march are still ringing in my head. We leave the store and head toward the train.

Near Bryant Park we run into the march again. It’s curving around the north side, toward Trump Tower. On a corner of the street we see piles of signs splayed across sidewalk. It’s funny to see them left behind.

Across the street, six teens hold up their own jokes. They scream in high fearless pitches over the park, sometimes giggling at their age-inappropriate chants. One of them holds a sign that says “Why are men in charge when they can’t even find the clit.” We laugh. We’re pretty sure this girl has never had sex. I hope these kids are friends for life.

5:15 pm:

We make it to the train, downtown bound. A group of girls in their early-twenties is standing in front of us. They’ve just left the march too. After two stops, Trevor and I are headed in different directions so we hurry to recap and say goodbye.

“We almost stayed in,” I say.

“My friend said two hundred thousand marched in D.C.”

“Yeah, I’m seeing posts from all over the world.”

He shows me a photo of a Women’s march in Sydney. Then we find a list of other march locations: Paris, Tokyo, Dublin, Austin, etc.

I feel nasty.

“I wonder if something will change.”

The girls in front of us suddenly shuffle away to another side of the car. When they do, we see a man just beyond them. He’d been harassing them them until they had to move. The guy looks at us, grins, and shrugs like we should understand his struggle. I feel nasty.

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