A City, Largely Civil

People say that New York is a rude city. A recent survey of major metropolitan areas, however, indicated that New York is among the most polite cities. It's without a clear answer--this question of rudeness in NYC--but I have to try to define New York's manners once and for me.

The other day, I said 'bless you' to a chubby guy on the train after he sneezed. He didn't say thank you. He sniffed, though, which may be the hard-hearted New Yorker's show of appreciation. Or perhaps he was being uppity.... maybe it was a haughty sniff. Or maybe he's a coke fiend. In any event, I thought the lack of response was poor form.

There's a guy that sits on a stoop outside of my apt. building on some days, the apt. building next to me on others. He looks to me like a pre-stapled John Popper. He's always wearing a sharp shiny suit, a fancy fedora with a multi-colored feather--a kool kat throwback to the days of doo-wop. He's big and also very heavy. When I walk by him, I often nod, and try to smile, but his big-ness and jazzy-ness make me tentative. I feel like if I said hi, he might respond with a raspy "beebopskeedididlydoo” and suppress the ensuing cough with a white monogrammed jazz hanky he keeps in his breast pocket.

Several months ago, I saw an exchange between two city-dwellers on a sidewalk. One was a man, the other a woman. The discourse between them was heated, and involved two kittens. The man was leading the kittens around on leashes, which was not something the kittens were used to: they were walking erratically, their paws splaying wildly, puzzled by the invisible force that kept pulling them back to the straight and narrow. A woman stopped, and began to scream at the man: “Why are you doing that?” she said. “Because I can,” he countered. “You make me sick,” she said. The man (in so many words) grumbled that the woman should go somewhere and love herself, and continued his odd feline Iditarod though the Upper East Side.

A woman on the street in Brooklyn last week asked me to pick her motorcycle up off of the pavement. Actually, I don't think it was hers, because she didn't look like the hog-riding type – she was probably in her late fifties, squat with a spasmodic, dusty-blonde hair and an Eastern European accent. “Eckkss-cooz me, can you help me leeeft at motorcycle?” she said to me, pointing at it – as if she meant to direct my attention to the appropriate supine vehicle amongst all the phantom impostors. Naturally, I obliged. With my business casual-appropriate leather shoes and a hearty grunt I lifted it upright, and found myself standing in a pool of gasoline. I thought as I crossed the street that I may have just been an accessory to some sort of grand theft--at the hands of a Baltic Bonnie, whose Clyde may have been off enjoying his AARP discount at IHOP.

It occurs to me that there is no clear answer to whether New Yorkers are rude. Sometimes, clearly, they are rude. Other times people assume they will be rude, or are intimidated by them, perpetuating a prophecy self-fulfilled. Sometimes it’s righteous indignation, or just plain New York eccentriCity. About the only thing that seems clear is that there are a number of dangerously overweight people in Manhattan, and that kittens don’t like to be leashed.

Shortly after my experience with the motorcycle, I sat back down in my cubicle at work. Almost immediately, a sharp smell arose in the space, which I recognized immediately as petroleum. My shoes still held the odor from my brief Samaritan cameo in the streets of Brooklyn. As familiar as the smell was, it held a new meaning for me – I had the smell of kindness on my shoes, my small contribution to fueling the engine of urban amity.