Kew Gardens III
Coffee in hand, I continued my odyssey to Maple Grove Cemetery. It’s just a short jaunt, fifteen minutes. Walk down to Metropolitan Avenue, hang a right onto Lefferts, follow it down to Kew Gardens Road, make another right, and amble on to the entrance. As I walked towards the intersection I barely see the Q54 bus in the distance, slowly lumbering its way down Metropolitan through unusually hazy air. Damn city buses take forever ’cause they have to stop at streetlights, but if you’re not careful they roar past you in a flash. I imagine them evilly snickering under their breath like freakin’ Muttley from Wacky Racers. Now during the pandemic the buses roar past with ominous COVID-related messages flickering in front.
I walked past Alba’s Grocery a couple of stores down, and stopped in front of the entrance, feeling the lure of a candy bar or bag of salty goodness. Alba’s is my bodega jam, I use it as a stopgap when I need some aguacate, green peppers, or tomatoes for cooking; when jonesing for a classic NYC BEC (bacon, egg, and cheese) on a Kaiser; for ham and cheese to make a quick Puerto Rican-style bocadillo (using hotdog buns, and pressed and heated for the perfect hot sandwich), but also for my secret junk food fix — a Doritos, Golden Oreos, and Snickers trifecta. Salt, cheese, lemon-flavored shortening, milk chocolate, peanut crunch, gooey caramel…oh yeah, God’s in heaven, and all’s right with the world!
I decided to go in on a whim, wondering if they had something on the menu that I had been thinking about. A., the owner’s son behind the counter, looked at me with an impassive expression.
“Hey A. — do you know what a chopped cheese is?”
(For those not in the know, it’s a culinary classic from the ‘hood. Legend puts its birthplace in El Barrio, 110th and First Avenue, at a place informally called Hajji’s. Sautéed ground beef and chopped onions on a griddle, with American cheese gently melted throughout. Our answer to the Philly Cheese Steak — but better. Naaah, I ain’t biased.)
I was half expecting him to say, “Chopped cheese? Whazzat?” or “Naaaah, we don’t make that here, how ‘bout a hero?” Or even, “Whaddaya think this is, the Boogie Down?”
But he gave me a side-eye with a half-smile, and said, “Sometimes…depends…If you ask maybe I’ll make it for you…one of these days.” His smile broadened.
I smiled back and said, “Okay. I’ll take you up on that…one of these days.”
I left the store to continue down Metropolitan.
Metropolitan Avenue. Yeah. One of those journeyman NYC streets, like Northern Boulevard, Atlantic, Flatbush, Grand Concourse. All grind, no glory. A zillion stoplights, one after another, right? But you can take your Park Avenue, your Fifth Avenue, your Central Park West. Whatever. Metropolitan cuts through Kew Gardens like a switchblade and slashes to the ends of Brooklyn. Pre-pandemic I remember hopping on the bus going west and starting a strange voyage: through Middle Village and Fresh Pond, white, old-school New York which time has seemingly forgotten; innumerable cemeteries, and a light industrial area, home to Western Beef, with its acrid smell of frozen muscle, and mural impresario Colossal Media, whose headquarters is, as Crazy Eddie used to say back in the day, insaaaane: the entire building one big multi-colored and debauched R. Crumb-inspired canvas.
Then you cross Newtown Creek — one of the most polluted waterways according to the EPA, thanks, modern industrialists! and the route veers into Grand Avenue, where it then unexpectedly winds up in Williamsburg, Bklyn — Hipsterville, U.S.A. — and its hidden Boricua vibe, with colorful murals on neighborhood nonprofits showing the community’s history of struggle, humble vendors selling syrupy-sweet limbers out of first-floor apartments, the occasional black Nationalista flag fluttering in the afternoon breeze.
I continued walking towards Lefferts Boulevard. There was still something about the light that bothered me — like it was a bit hazy or foggy. Turning my head to the sky, I’m shocked to realize that I can actually look at the sun. It seems a diminished solitary orb, surrounded by a pale orange halo. And then I remember the news from California, and realize the haze is actually smoke. Smoke wafting from thousands of miles away, from the burning wildfires choking the conflagrant, dying west.
Note: My work “is neither fiction nor nonfiction, but a flickering between them.” (Ben Lerner)
