The city at midnight is hardly
different than the city at noon. There are people on every corner. Every fourth business lining the streets- the 24 hour
bodegas, the strip joints, the bars, clubs and late night coffee shops- stay staffed well into the night, their bright lights and
dingy open signs mingling with the street lamps, traffic lights, and the wandering headlights from passing cars to light up the dirty streets to
almost-daylight levels. The weak shadows creep across alleyways and under cars, always just one light away from disappearing. The sky is the sick
navy-orange of pre-dawn, even though sunrise is hours away. Of the billions of stars stretching their glow across the great expanse of the universe like hungry fingers... none of their light reaches these gray streets.
While school teachers in Kansas sleep... while little boys in Michigan dream, and lovers in Texas spoon.... As the insomniac in Georgia closes his eyes and the drunk in Ohio passes out on his couch... The city lives. Like the squirming pulse of an anthill, the city moves as one entity of many parts, always alive and kickin. It's heartbeat is heard in the rumble of the subway, in the slap of wet sneakers on concrete. Its in the squeak of tires in traffic, and the incoherent conversations of people passing each other like a radio set between stations. The city breathes. Its breaths are deep and full and rich at times when its most busy, sunny Fridays in June and after a good day in sports. Its breath is scared and shallow sometimes, too- during thunderstorms and news bulletins about child kidnappers.
This night, an extra touch of waiting in the air makes the exhalations of the city come irregularly and hesitantly. The city doesn't know what it waits for, but it feels the rats scurry in abnormal patterns like drunk figure skaters, and feels the rumble like an upset stomach in it's pipes.
Then it happens.
A manhole on the corner of the great crossroad of the city- the heart you could say- rumbles and shakes. Reminiscent of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rerun, the manhole rises to reveal the lifter underneath. But instead of a smiling surfer reptile, from the depths of the sewage system, a giant yellow cone emerges. The cone splits down the middle, revealing it to be a gasping, hungry beak.
