the pigeon is not okay

Elevated, passing the avenues that teach city kids their letters, the tower always within sight, he gazes out the window and never stops chatting with himself. Avenue U, Bay Parkway, Avenue X, a sleeping man with a Yankees hat, a fighting couple too young and too uninterested to have three young children, all of them looking exhausted. The ride to Coney Island is always exhilarating to him, and it takes a big chunk of time (this is good, this is good planning).

We hop out, down, and then over a Black Sea-sized puddle separating the sidewalk from long since dead and buried Surf Avenue. Surf Avenue gives new definition to the word 'depressed' - yes, for a while now, nothing new - but its hard to imagine this street or neighborhood playing a role in the Victorian era transforming into the Modern age, the red carpet to the richest men in the world. Ever been to Gary, Indiana? Stand on the corner of Surf and West 24th Street...an argument for new development if ever there was one.

We step into an arcade to introduce him to some germs he hasn't met yet.


I wanted the place to be decrepit-chic but charming, a blast from the past. I wanted the place to be something that it was not. It was empty, except for a local kid who was haggling with the counterman in Russian. Cigarette smoke hung low in the air and the games all had a grease-smudged sheen to every bit of surface, handle, seat, joystick, coin slot. Zach was amazed, but didn't beg for money to play the games, he just enjoyed the wander, the beeps and chirps and flashing lights and centipede-filled screens. It was a room from some other world, not necessarily the bright and shining world I think he expected when I mentioned the word video within the word combination video games. This room was not an iphone, and so, after a bit, we exited without him requesting to stay.

We passed a few entrances to the Midway, booming with a Euro thump thump thump and repeat, endlessly, a beat familiar to those who, say, dance shirtless in open-air Turkish nightclubs on our way to the Boardwalk for some fresh ocean air, maybe a Polar Bear Club sighting, this being Coney Island, one never knows. Instead, we had to curve our walk to avoid a dead pigeon, lying headless in the parking lot. stiff, bristled feathers and a former foot plastered to the pavement. I kept our curved walk brisk, hoping it hadn't registered with him.

Dad?

Yeah bug?

Why isn't that pigeon flying?

We talked about how sometimes animals and people get hurt so badly that they don't live anymore. The conversation went on for a little while, and I think I did okay, this being the first dead animal he had ever really seen - really looked at - but it stuck with him. He talked about it later that night. He mentioned it the next day. But, at that hour, the boardwalk helped him put it out of his mind. So did the donut I bought him without him even asking for it. And, most of all, so did the train ride home.

It should be illegal to be that happy on an F train.