7:40 p.m. in the Bronx
7:40 p.m. in the Bronx is steak tacos on the stoop, a reprieve from August’s oppressive heat found in open hydrants and open beers, and the last of my things hidden under a blue tarp in the back seat of my car.
He’s gone inside to find us clean forks and hot sauce, and I’m left on the stoop to stare at the sky. The houses here are stitched together tightly, brick facades sutured to light concrete ones. The sky, however, is spacious and uninterrupted—something to do with city air rights and building permits. In it, I find lingering blues and evening oranges streaked with fuzzy white seams. I’m sure if I pulled at a loose one, the whole thing would unravel. I imagine he’d come back, drop the plates, and I would have to apologize: “I’m sorry. The sky has fallen, and I’ve ruined our last meal together.” Thankfully, the door behind me opens, interrupting my reverie and saving the neighborhood from one more day of disaster.
He’s balanced the plates up against his chest and down the length of his arm. Passing me one of them, he frees a hand to grab the forks jutting out of his shorts’ pocket. For his final act, he takes the bottle of Cholula weighing down the opposite pocket, tosses and catches it with one hand before placing it between us. An audience of one, I don’t applaud but I can’t help but smile with all my teeth when I thank him, my tell for being embarrassed with the foreign sense of my own uselessness. He settles in across from me but on the same step. We sit close enough to shrink the gap but not so close that our limbs could accidentally touch or intentionally press together. It’s a small form of infinity. Space in this city can be so hard to find.
Functionally separating us and our stoop from the rest of the world is a stretch of sidewalk leading to a few steps down. The short concrete tangent is lined with square pockets of dirt and a few lone flowers spaced (mostly) evenly—our landlord’s wife’s attempt to beautify the sidelined space. She once asked me for my opinion about the flowers; I had lied. She had also once asked me what I thought of him, just a few days after he’d moved in. Had she asked again, a few weeks later, my answer would have changed; if she had asked me tonight, I wouldn’t have wanted to say. I’m not one to ruin the peace—or a free meal.
A few bites in, I start to comment on how pretty the sky looks tonight but quickly fall silent, my breath going stale. Our mouths move mechanically over the toughened, cheap cut of meat—another form of infinity. In our endless chewing, we maintain the quiet, and the city rushes in to replace our dulled sounds with everything we cannot see: Our landlord (common enemy #1) declares his thousandth day of tribulations, trumpeting his displeasure through thin walls before finding final roost in his wife’s patient ear; the low tenor of tonight’s Yankees game ripples over the lesser known but all-the-more joyous cheers from the local beer league; our two favorite strays screech their domesticated delight upon discovering the steak that I know he’s cut and left for them behind the house.
Relief in this place may not have been common for me, but tonight is coated in reassurance for us all. Is exile always this peaceful? I imagine only those afflicted with the courage of tearing apart skies would know.
About the Author
Rachel Schonbaum is a Midwesterner (born and raised in Chicago, with a recent six year stint in Michigan) who currently lives in New York. She works at a dog food company and often thinks about stories, essays, and poetry while hiking.
Illustration by Jane Demarest.
Edited by Isabel Menon.
