Brothers

When we get lost in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I call his brother.  A sign just told trucks to get off the road and we obeyed. With his brother’s directions, we creep the moving truck through the cramped double-parked streets of Brooklyn, New York and eventually we find our new address in Astoria, Queens. John arrives soon after with his sleeves pushed up. He has done numerous New York City moves. On the corner of the block is a stand with a red and white umbrella, a silver cart and the smoky steam of grilled meat. The day is a hot June 2nd. For hours, we walk up and down the three flights. I am soaked with sweat. This makes for awkward introductions in the curved narrow stairwell of our new apartment building. 

We carry duct taped boxes, crates of hammy down pots and pans, clothes in trash bags and suitcases, textbooks, pillows, toothbrushes, and a couch standing on its pleather end, piles of fragmented, unpacked lives on the third floor, just twenty feet from the above ground N/W train tracks.

By 11 p.m. that night, we are weak with hunger. We haven’t eaten since breakfast. Sticky with dry sweat, we find food in an Asian restaurant where pictures of the specials are on the walls and a two hundred inch television plays Chinese soap operas with Japanese subtitles.

Back at our new home, afraid to separate, we shower together. I pluck out my contact lenses, squeezing solution into the case, but then suddenly, these unfamiliar surroundings become blurry unfamiliar surroundings and I start to suffocate. I cannot find my glasses anywhere and now I cannot find my breath. Scott removes our dinner leftovers of chicken and rice and hands me the warm paper bag. And after several crinkling inflates and deflates, I find a calm. Then a train roars by.

The next morning we are up at 6a.m. We dress and hurry to move the moving truck before the street sweepers order a tow truck to. When I walk around the truck to the passenger’s side, spray painted squiggles cover the side of the truck’s wall. We laugh when we remember the insurance we purchased. ”Oh no! Did it say, get out of New York?” Mom asks later that night. Maybe in the language of illiterate gangsters.

We return the truck and walk to a bagel shop. We sit on the curb in the sun. Our knees up by our chins. Peanut butter drips onto my fingers from my toasted sandwich, while Scott licks melted cream cheese from the wax paper of his.

Bagels, job applications, stolen cable and twenty four hour trains. These are our signs of freedom. When the trains stop outside our apartment, waiting for the lights to change, we wave and sometimes even moon our pale dimpled cabuses against the windows. The conductors never notice. Nor do the commuters.

One year later, my brother helps us move to Boston. This move is not nearly as hot nor as difficult as our move to New York. They give us the wrong truck, one much smaller than the one we ordered with only has two seats. I sit in the middle on a folding chair and slouch when we pass tolls and police officers. Again, no one notices.

Scott drives over the Yellowstone Bridge and when he recognizes the Massachusetts Turnpike beneath us, his shoulders ease for the first time in months. He knows where he is.

[From breakfast to breakfast], every day, every night, the N and the W trains pass by our windows. When they stop outside waiting for the lights to change, we wave. The conductors never notice. The commuters never notice. Never see.


One year later, my brother helps us move back to Massachusetts. This move is not so hot and not so hard. They give us the wrong truck. This truck is smaller and only has two seats. It’s ok, though. I sit in the middle on a folding chair and slouch when we pass tolls and police. No one notices.


Scott drives over the Yellowstone Bridge. When he recognizes the Mass Pike beneath us, his shoulders ease. He knows where he is.