Shlomith circles the film crew on the other side of the road and ends up on Henry Street, which cuts through Carroll Street in a grid-like fashion and marks the end of the repulsive, winding, first leg of the jog. (Also, one more thing about Carroll Street. In point of fact, there are several places where it ends but then continues somewhere else, and you have to know those junctions if you want to stay on the same street. The city planners could have turned it into a joke and made cheeky little variations: Carol Street, Carrot Street, Carob Street . . . there’s nothing so amusing as getting lost in Brooklyn, in its deceptive small-town feel—how cozy!—and shabbiness, which make you feel like you’re almost where you’re going, that there isn’t any danger, even though in reality everything might actually be staged. Bill Cosby’s house isn’t really on Stigwood Avenue since no such street exists . . .)
On the corner of Henry Street and Carroll Street, Shlomith gives herself her first reward. She walks into the corner store, CARROLL DELI & GROCERY—OPEN 7 DAYS, with its blue-and-white-and-red-striped awning that brings to mind baguettes and cheap red wine (perhaps the owner is a Francophile?) COLD-CUTS • BEER • SODA • FREE DELIVERY • 522–3257. Shlomith doesn’t buy cold-cuts or chocolate or lotto tickets; instead she pulls a few dollars out of the zippered pocket sewn into the back of her running tights and buys a bottle of Granini mango juice. She drinks it with relish and then continues running, now along Henry Street.
The endorphins have begun cautiously flowing. The asphalt is no longer a sticky, black magnet that clings to her feet. The ground bounces her up as the linden-lined lane cheers her on, the wind rustling the green leaves in an encouraging cha-cha-cha! (At this stage of exertion, our starving runner’s hearing is extremely sensitive, but that passes. The sensitivity is followed by a feeling of blockage, as if her auditory canals are full of water. This is not a pleasant feeling, but fortunately her endorphin reserves are still pumping plentiful, nay increasing, amounts of the constituent elements of joy into her blood, helping her to endure the roar and even make that roaring sound like meditation music.)
Shlomith quickens her pace. She’s in a hurry to turn toward the climax of her run, which she can reach in ten minutes of steady jogging. When Henry Street meets stubby Remsen Street, Shlomith turns left and dashes toward the seascape visible at the end of the road: the East River, where she could throw herself in and, theoretically, swim to the ends of the earth (Cuba, for instance). Shlomith passes a crooked yellow DEAD END sign, which is not meant for her but those with tires instead of feet, an engine instead of a heart, an exhaust pipe, carburetor, or radiator instead of a soul (who’s to know—a deep knowledge of the metaphysics of the automobile would require further study). Shlomith makes a brief spring and arrives at her intermediate destination: the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
“She can barely stay upright!” What a monstrous lie. Shlomith floats along behind the rows of people sitting on benches squinting through sunglasses at the skyscrapers. Little girls run around squealing, playing tag; Shlomith lightly weaves past them without falling. The hexagonal blocks of the pavement look like gray honeycomb, the edges of some squeezing out a darker construction adhesive made pliable by the sun. The rows of cells are broken by arrangements of rectangular, partially broken paving slabs, and then the more evocative hexagonal shapes return with their honeycomb-sweet rhythm.
This fresh-smelling, carless strip of land is something Shlomith wants to experience with every fiber of her being. She slows her pace, despite the endorphin joy urging her on. She breathes deep and fills with air. But she can already see the end of the promenade. She will have to turn right, back into the world of automobiles, smoke, and pollution.
Prohibitions and commandments are all too familiar to Shlomith. When she leaves the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a grass-green sign decorated with maple leaves tells her all the things she shouldn’t have done during her honeycomb dash. NO RIDING BICYCLES, ROLLER SKATES, SCOOTERS, SKATEBOARDS. But can you fly here . . . ? NO BALLPLAYING OR FRISBEE. If she floats above the surface of the earth, she could hardly be a danger to anyone . . . NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. What about punch-drunk love? Or deteriorating madness? NO LITTERING. Future trash, paper tissues intended for wiping snot and sweat, are also stuffed in the same zippered back pocket as Shlomith’s money. The pocket bulges with a crumpled tissue that has been used once but is still good and now lies under the roll of bills. If you look closely, buttock-free Shlomith has a pitch-black bunny tail on her rear end because of the wad of paper. NO DOGS OFF LEASH. Shlomith lopes away, forward, every surge consuming calories. With each bound she diminishes, becoming lighter than air.
Shlomith charges down Columbia Heights, where the WATCHTOWER waits below, a strange, colossal beige building complex, the headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which resembles a two-star hotel in Mallorca. The building complex extends on both sides of the street, and those two blocks are connected by a tiny skyway with ten windows, which you have to go under if you want to continue down the street.
But what joy! Beyond the skyway Shlomith can already see a glimpse of her next destination, the handsome neogothic Brooklyn Bridge. From this vantage point, the structures of the suspension bridge appear as if they form a part of the hodgepodge architecture of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ headquarters, like some sort of cobweb rigged up for decorative purposes. The bridge itself is handsome. It’s like an outdoor church erected to holy optimism, and no one who ascends the bridge can help but have her pessimistic thoughts dispelled. (Determined suicides are an exception.) Odes have been written
