After much planning, L1 and I decided not to trek out to the beaches today. It was very hot and the drive promised to take longer than the stay at the beach.
But I still felt a great need to be by the sea.
So I took the B train to Coney Island. The B train is wonderful. First, it's air conditioned. It was also pretty empty. I stretched out, read Felice Picano's Eyes, and watched the scenery. The B train crosses the spectacularly old, decrepit Manhattan Bridge, from which you can see all of Manhattan's skyline, and the other bridges. Once you get past 36th Street, it's all elevated. You see the Bari salumeria (pork store) in Bensonhurst. You see the obverse and the reverse of the Mercury dime on the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn around 25th Avenue. It was built in 1929, when my great-grandparents still lived in that area, and were still alive. It's hard to imagine them, Chaim and Yenta Bookey, born in dreary Wyszograd, Poland in the middle of the last century, and crossing the Atlantic to live the rest of their lives in this archipelago, this little archipelago with it's cold winters and hot summers. It's hard to imagine that 70 years later, after they died, I am roaming the same streets they did, and even flying above them sometimes. It's a hard concept, to imagine that when I go to Coney Island and walk the boardwalk or get a hot dog at Nathan's, I am doing a lot of the same things my ancestors did. Such insignificant little things, carried out thoughtlessly generation after generation.
Well, I had my hot dog, and I also had cheese fries and corn on the cob. The corn was horrible. It was waterlogged. It was two bites only and then tossed out. Hardly worth a fight with the counter girl for 99 cents on a hot day. I walked around the boardwalk for exactly 30 minutes and then headed home. It was just too hot to be there. The beach was underpopulated.
The ride back home was nice, though. Air conditioned the whole way.
Why is the sea air so exhausting? Maybe it's purer because we're not there to muck it up with exhaust and smoke and gossip and bitterness.
I slept well that night.
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