Wednesday, 8:20 AM, the stairs out of the 86th Street station on Lexington. The escalator was out of service, which at that station is less news than weather. The man ahead of me was about sixty-nine. Gray tweed cap, a canvas bag over one shoulder, phone pressed to
Tuesday, 11:40 AM, the pharmacy counter of a drugstore on Amsterdam Avenue. The line was four deep and moving at the speed of insurance. The woman third in line was about sixty-seven. She wore a camel coat and had a folded tote over one wrist. Her reading glasses
Monday, 2:55 PM, the reading room of a West Village library. The radiators had come on for the first cool week of autumn, which is how libraries make their case for silence. The man at the long oak table was about seventy-four. He wore a corduroy jacket, had
Friday, 3:40 PM, a bank branch lobby on Lexington Avenue near East 86th Street. Four chairs, one easel advertising a savings rate, and a line that was not moving. The woman in the second chair was about sixty-six. She wore a camel coat, had reading glasses pushed up
Sunday, 10:40 AM, a bagel shop on Amsterdam Avenue near West 81st Street. The line ran to the door, and the espresso machine was winning every conversation. The man at the front was about seventy-two. Tweed cap, a Sunday paper folded under one arm. The cashier asked him
Thursday, 7:50 AM, a deli on Lexington Avenue near 68th Street. The woman ahead of me was about sixty-six. Grey trench coat, a canvas tote with a paperback sticking out of it, and the settled patience of someone who has stood in this line for years. She paid
Wednesday, 4:15 PM, a pharmacy counter on Amsterdam Avenue. Three people ahead of him in the pickup line, and a man of about sixty-eight had decided to use the wait productively. Navy windbreaker, reading glasses pushed up into his hair, a thick envelope from his drug plan already
Thursday, 8:40 AM, Broadway at West 96th Street. I had a bench near the median, a cooling coffee, and a pigeon who clearly believed he held the lease. A woman of about seventy stepped off the curb as the white walking figure lit up. Camel coat, canvas tote on