Houston and Second Ave

"Want a slice?"

The flat cardboard box with tomato sauce and oil stains was flipped open to present two Margarita pieces sliding around with the steps of the Latino man, who respectfully held his arms out and maintained a cautious distance. The not really a square but a big space of concrete between the three busy lanes of Houston Street that funneled pedestrians into the subway entrance had a sphere of emptiness around Jackson. The aura of his uniform - not really much of a uniform if you looked closely it was an old t-shirt with the NYPD logo printed on it and dark shorts - gave Jackson and his partner Allan a bubble around them. Whenever someone stepped into the bubble, Jackson had to pull himself out of his daydreams.

"Yeah, sure, why not!"

Jackson pulled himself a slice off the pizza box. The super thing slice was so flexible that it wanted to escape his big fingers, but like a real New York, he simply folded the slice and solved that problem. The Latino man grinned really big like he had caught a coup for feeding the police officer. The grin was a mixture of public service pride to support and a gangster grin for having been brave enough to go up to the cop.

"Hey, that game was something special, right? Those Yankee boys wouldn't give up. They kept swinging until they turned it around."

The little interactions with civilians always came with talk. Jackson had learned that he could keep staring straight ahead. That was a relief because paying attention to them was tiring. The civilians probably didn't really expect a cop to have time to talk or to be too above it all to respond at all. They seemed happy enough to simply stand next to him and yap.

"Who's your favorite player, buddy?"

"Oh, man! Mariano Rivera of course! He closes game after game. He's like me. Fucks up a lot, but always comes through in the end!"

That was the other thing about the civilians who approached him. They were usually living half on the street. They were somewhere keenly aware of their shortcomings but had an ironclad belief that was tied to some kind of idea about why they were the coolest cat that walked the NYC streets. The Latino man's clothes were plain, poorly fitted, and worn to the point of showing their age. He was one of the harmless ones who might pass a tip about a serious crime. It was good to keep them entertained and comfortable to hang out.

The Latino man wandered off into the crowd. A swarm of Asian college students migrated downtown from NYU to cheap housing in the Lower East Side. A couple dressed up with a sports jacket on him and knee-high leather boot stilettos sauntered to a social restaurant meeting in the East Village. A group of black kids on bikes careened out of Alphabet City, popping wheelies, hollering, screaming, and swerving across multiple lanes going the wrong way. An old man, his chin bowed forward to his knees, pushed a dilapidated wheelchair backwards and asked every passer in a tone that was so weak and poorly enunciated that one couldn't tell what he said but knew it to be: "Spare a dollar? Spare a dollar? Spare a dollar?"

Jackson ignored the petty things. A bright white flash indicated another car ran the red light. An unmistakable bang of metal crunching. Jackson didn't move. An irate driver ran up to him. "Is anybody hurt? No? Call the insurance! No, not our problem. Call the insurance!"

A sudden running right where the stairs spilled the subway riders onto the sidewalk followed by a chubby woman coming up to Jackson. "Sorry to hear that about your purse, ma'am. You can file a police report at the station. Go up to Fifth Street and make a right."

A sneaky, lanky guy mumbling "blow, blow, blow" in fast succession like he was putting out a deal shocked himself when he noticed Jackson standing there. He apologized profusely that it was all a misunderstanding and that he was only singing a song that was in his head. When Jackson didn't react, the guy started singing a song. The guy was really tall. His arms and legs kept moving and swaying constantly like someone really uncomfortable and really sketchy as well as very unpredictable. When Jackson still didn't react, the guy drew closer and whispered with subterfuge, "I give you a cop discount!" To that Jackson looked straight at him and barked, "If you show me that shit, I have to confiscate it! Move on!" The guy ran away until the other side of the street where he turned around and loved uncontrollably unable to believe his luck of having gotten away with dealing drugs in front of a cop.

People in the street were unbelievably filthy: drugged and drunk; unwashed and nasty; sick and infectious; torn rags and clothes found in the streets; stealing and cheating; unreasonable and quick to fight. Jackson always had his gloves at the ready to not have to touch them. He knew to grab for his nightstick to beat them back before they could stab him with a knife. However, for days on end, all of that stayed outside the bubble that Jackson and Allan had around themselves. Mostly, it was waiting, shining the presence of the police so that the tough guys would move a few blocks deeper into the rougher parts, and being okay with coming close to it all. If you tightened up, you only antagonized them. As much as they were animals and like rats constantly testing boundaries, they had a very keen sense of where real boundaries light. That's what allowed them to survive to teeter on the edge of society - half on the street and half in some temporary housing. NYC with its expenses is savage in how it pushes people to the edge and to fight to hang on.

Right at the edge of their bubble was a young woman, maybe twenty-five years old. She was small. Her curly hair was matted together. She wore cheap clothes from one of those guys that sells them spread out on the sidewalk - $5 a top, $3 a pair of shoes, and $1 a scarf. The way she stood was very much pulled into herself - a figure that stood motionless: no expression on the face, and no signs on her clothes to tell what kind of person she was. Jackson was trained to be cautious about the people that stood at the edge of the bubble. There usually was a reason. Either they were trying to work up the nerve to do something or they were seeking protection from somebody. These figures could sometimes be stationary for hours and in a split second burst into wild action. They could mean a car speeding down the street for a crazy shootout. As harmless and quiet as that little, young woman appeared, he knew he had to watch her and anyone coming towards her with the utmost care.

A loud, shrill voice cut from the distance: "Bitch! I fuck your man any time I please! His cock was in my ass. Yeah! My middle name is liberty! Fuck you! I love cock! I love cock white, black, brown, and yellow!" It sounded like a woman having a heated phone conversation. However, the way how the conversation never had a change in mood or tone, it appeared more and more like a crazy person talking to herself pretending to hold a phone to her ear. And then she came around the corner: Orange construction cone on her head, a black bra on her chest, a short skirt, and black stripper heels. She looked very sexy the way how her boob cleavage was round and yummy. She oozed sexuality out of ever pore. Her feet were succulent black feet. Her eyes were full of youth. However, she also had a dangerous crazy aura around her like she might stab you the next moment or turned a trick in a doorway without protection.

She passed the cops. The back of her skirt was stuck in the waistband. Her panties were deeply wedged between her butt cheeks. For all to see, it looked like her butt was completely bare and in the open. It was a really beautiful one, ripe, full, and round with skin that was chocolatey dark and smooth. The particular shape cried use and sexuality. After she had given the cops a chance to watch her backside, she stopped and turned around. "Frank! You like what you see?" She had decided a few months ago that Jackson's name was Frank.

Frank smirked. He couldn't help the sexual aura that she oozed, but he knew better. She sauntered up to Jackson. She came so close that it would have seemed that she'd caress his chest, but she was cautious about touching police. Too close for polite conversation, she let the deep eye contact linger. "You like me, Frank! I can see it in your eyes!" He did indeed feel the irresistible sexual attraction that she exuded, but he knew too much about where any response would lead. "You look so sad, Frank! Let me take away your sadness! I'll be real good to you!" She looked worried at him in such a convincing and deeply felt way that only a con artist could have perfected the pouting look with the big eyes and tenderly held emotions.

"Frank, I'll make you a deal. Twenty and you can put it in me!"

"No, ma'am," replied Jackson pretending to be annoyed to make her move on.

"You can ask Steve in precinct five. My pussy feels really good. And it's even wetter for you than for him." Jackson was glad that he could ignore that as smack talk, which saved him from having to file a report about his colleague. There was no Steve in precinct five.

"Why are you so mean? I've been nothing but kind to you!" she complained, trying a different angle. He ignored her.

"You are a racist! You are one of those killer cops! All you want is to shoot black people like me!" she worked herself up into anger.

"Ma'am, I support black people," he stated calmly.

"Proof it! I dare you to lick this black pussy!" she threatened him. She grabbed her crotch with both hands to present it to him. He ignored her.

She started laughing hysterically. Calm and happy again, she said, "I get it, Frank! You want to keep us a secret affair. You don't want your partner to see it. You, come see me on your next pee break. I'll be waiting in the restroom!" She smiled and walked on happily down the street, dragging the construction cone behind her by the tip.

Jackson remembered the figure on the edge of their bubble. He looked for her. She was still there right with her back to the fence that protected the little bit of green grass and a tree from the pedestrian hordes. Her posture and facial expression were as indescribed as before. However, tears were running down from her eyes, unencumbered all the way down her cheeks, and then dripped off her chin. There was something extra sad about tears that weren't even wiped or shook by shivering crying - just desolate loneliness.

Against his own habit, he started walking towards her. There was something different about her. She didn't seem like the other people who lived in the streets. She was very poor both in how she dressed and how her face seemed to lack education and richness of emotion. However, she seemed like she belonged into some social fabric of family and friends with a place to stay and productive work. Her face looked Venezuelan but without any of the joy that the warm coastal country espoused.

"Tough day?" he asked her calmly, carefully looking at her eyes for a reaction.

"It's alright," she said with the standard coy reaction of not wanting to draw attention.

"I've seen you stand here for an hour. Why are you here?" he asked.

"I don't know where else to go," she replied truthfully.

"Why don't you go home?" he asked her.

"My landlord wants me to pay rent today or move out. I don't have the money," she said, shaking a little bit because an authority figure was interrogating her.

"How much are you missing?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't want any money. It's my problem. I have to deal with it," she blushed with embarrassment, worrying that she had implied with her previous response that she wanted money from him. He scratched his chin. She definitely wasn't from the street. Nobody from the street reacted like that unless it was a con, but she didn't seem that sophisticated, the way that she was struggling with her emotions and getting the words out.

"Do you have a job?" he asked her.

"Yes, I'm a seamstress at a Soho boutique. I was supposed to be paid today, but they made a mistake and paid me my old rate. So I'm twenty dollars short. They said they'd fix it tomorrow. But the landlord already gave me two extensions. He said that today was the final day," she explained.

"You know that you have rights. A landlord has to file an eviction case in court first. And your employer will get fined for unpaid wages. I can help you with phone numbers to the right government agencies," Jackson offered.

"No! No! I have no rights. I'm from Venezuela. My landlord only gives me a room without a lease. My boss says that I have to keep it secret or she'll fire me," she begged Jackson like her life depended.

"I won't do anything unless your life is in danger," he assured her.

"Thank you, sir," she said with modesty.

They stood in silence next to each other. He was used to standing in the street for seven hours a day (and the other hour was paperwork at the police station). He let her stand. Sometimes that's all you can do to help people is to give your presence and support. But after a few minutes, there was something itching him in his heart. It simply didn't feel right. That young woman was so earnest and modest, like a really good person.

"Allan, fetch me a nice, hot chamomile tea from that fancy place on Second Street! Will ya!" Jackson handed Allan a folded-up dollar bill. Allan put his phone down for the first time. Allan had been talking with his girlfriend for the last couple of hours. She worked at a bodega. She was Indian and watched lots of Bollywood movies on her phone while taking the payment from customers. She narrated what she saw on screen for Allan. It was their strange little relationship. He'd listen to her talk. I guess it made the time pass for both of them. Allan took off and disappeared into the crowd of people.

When Allan returned, he had an artisan paper cup in his hand. Pretty stencils painted a scene like Alice in Wonderland. Jackson handed the young woman the cup. "My mother said that a hot cup of tea fixes nothing, but it changes how the world looks. Have something hot to calm down," he offered.

She took the cup and immediately sipped on it so gingerly and cautiously as if the tea was a very expensive gift. "It is very delicious," she said. "You are so kind!" Jackson smiled to himself for having done one good thing that day. Then she threw himself at him - arms wide around his torso and big belly. She pressed herself against him. Her body started sobbing and heaving. He cautiously put his hands on her back and let her find comfort while she wet his t-shirt. "It's alright! You can hug me for as long as you need to!"

The time passed on. The minutes rang by. A deep emotional transfer happened between the two in the silence and comforting human contact of the hug. She seemed to have had a hard time for a very long time, which she seemed to have bottled up inside of herself, trying to hold on without support. Then finally, she sniffed her nose and smiled at Jackson. "I'm so embarrassed!" she said, and the way her words sounded, she had received great relief. Then she walked on to face the music of her landlord.

When the sun started setting, the mood in the streets was of commuters rushing home - professional clothing, multiple bags over the shoulder, and all morning crispness worn off. The fading light called the closing to another busy day. The darkness started rising and the creatures of the night started coming out - or perhaps people's moods simply shifted, giving them permission to bring out a different side. The school kids and strollers were gone. The happy hour jackets and dresses came out as well as the brown bagged beers.

"Let's call it," Jackson told Allan. Allan nodded to agree and shook his finger to signal that he couldn't interrupt his girlfriend because she was re-telling the season finale. The two walked up Second Avenue, strolling, going with the flow, looking at the restaurant fronts to see if a new fast food place had opened that they could afford. Then they turned right on Fifth to enter their precinct.

They caught the end of a team meeting. A new guy fresh from the academy wouldn't stop complaining that he was only standing around and not hunting crime. The precinct lead with his parade hat on, politely explained that the youngin didn't understand crime prioritization and resource utilization levels. Then he assigned Jeff to give the youngin remedial training resource strategy and crime-fighting tactics with an emphasis of cutting-edge business school game theory tactics.

After Jackson had changed into his personal clothing, he walked past Jeff and the youngin having a heated conversation.

"If you make me miss the game, I'm going to make your life miserable! Listen one more time, I'll break it down for you, real simple: If you stand where the crybaby voters are, they feel safe. If they feel safe, the boss is happy. If you catch a crime, the crime statistics go up. That looks bad in the newspapers. So you stand where you don't catch crime!"

"But we must fight the crime! Why would we ignore crime on purpose!"

"You fuck nuts! Listen real closely! Don't ever say that we are ignoring crime! We are really hard on crime! But if we aren't where the crime happens, we can't ignore it because we never saw it in the first place!"

Jackson sighed. He had struggled with that in the beginning as well. However, after he had learned to go with the flow and not expect more, things became easier. He had learned to be okay standing around all day. He had learned that the bigwigs would come in with roaring speeches about how times would change. If you ignored them, they complained a little. By Christmas, it would be forgotten and the bonuses would come in.

As he went on the subway and sat down, he felt a little pang in his belly. He saw men in rich suits. He saw women with elegant dresses and smooth legs. He saw a little Asian toddler standing on her mom's thighs, pointing at a puppy looking out of a shopping bag. Those were all reminders of all the things he wouldn't have. He was getting too old. In school, they had told him that he could be anything. With the diploma in hand, he had felt like it was the start of something amazing. Now, he was thirty-five. He was alone. Nothing was going to change anymore.

He looked at the bike messenger with his e-bike. He was playing games on the phone. Maybe, those phone games could distract him from his life, but he got bored of them. He looked at the old man in retirement age. He was wearing a too-large suit with security symbols stitched onto them. His front teeth were busted. He looked like a foreigner who spoke barely English. His face was motionless but carried the expression of happiness about having made it this far in life. The contrast of how poor he was, visible by the lack of dental care, and how eager he was to believe that he had it well was strong. The working poor: Nowhere to go. Cheap distractions to blind oneself.

The next morning, he was again fresh in the street, holding a warm coffee cup in his hands. An old man with white hair slowly walked towards him. The old man was wearing knee-high rainboots, big, blue rubbery things that made his legs look skinny. To that, he was wearing boxer shorts and a white ribbed tank top. The really old people who grew up in this neighborhood had a habit of wearing whatever was comfortable to them. They had learned that NYC didn't care about anything.

With a shaky voice, the old man explained, "It would have been Frankie's birthday today." The old man looked down the street like there was profound meaning to what he had said. Jackson had learned that he didn't need to participate in these conversations for the conversation to continue. "He was the first cop who went into Alphabet City. The other cops were too scared back in the day. He started arresting the drug dealers and hookers. The police union didn't like it. I saw the block captain shoot him in the back. That over there was the sewer where the block captain dumped the gun. I never reported it. I'm too smart. But I miss Frankie. He was really good to me."