HOT AND COLD

I meet my mother at Penn Station on Friday afternoon on my zippy bike. I wait on the sunny corner of 31st and 8th for about 45 minutes as hassled New Yorkers wade their way through the anxious confusion of that seemingly lawless part of the city.

It's like a tragic MGM Gene Kelly musical. People get in and out of cabs in the same way but with various guises and bits. At one point, a woman jumps out of a cab screaming. She has cut her finger drastically on a metal part in the cab.

"Help! I need something! I cut my finger! I put my finger in that thing and it sliced right through!"
The woman runs toward Penn Station followed by her dwarf son. The cab pulls away and the next cab pulls up.

My mother texts, she is on 31st and 7th directly across from the Pennsylvania Hotel. I buzz around the corner and pass a block-long line of tourists waiting for cabs. My mother is not in this line. My mother is a half a block away.

I ring my bicycle bell. "Welcome to New York!" (ring, ring)

"Hello Son. Why are you ringing your bell?"

"I'm welcoming you to New York, Mother. Welcome to New York!" (ring, ring)

There is a thrill in the air of New York today. New York can take on multiple personalities. Today, the city is not a hassled work place, a crowded city of nasty overpriced rentals, today it is a big, exciting cultural, mecca on a tiny island full of hopeful possibilities.

"Mom, the line for the taxis is over there." I point to a crowd of over a hundred people.

"You mean I have to get in THAT line?"

I spot a lonely cab dropping off a passenger twenty feet ahead and grab it for my mother.

We skip the line.

Mom quickly stuffs herself in the back of the cab like she's making a (get away) and then she commands, "1 RIVER PLACE" - like she's saying 30 ROCK or TRUMP TOWER (Jeeves).

(I explain to the cabby that it's the last apartment building on 42nd Street before the river). We both speed away but I get home (on my electric bike) a full ten minutes before they do.

My apartment has been scrubbed clean for my mother.

She sits down and (at once) begins an adversarial relationship with the cat... and the cat gets it. The cat understands. The cat likes it. She scolds the cat for clawing the furniture (like an angry grandmother) and the cat responds with intense love.

I make a lunch of tuna, avocado, walnuts and apple slices. We go to the roof of my building which has an amazing view of the city. I stand by the door and order my mother (who has the legs and stamina of a forty year old - of a woman (literally) half her age) to stroll the entire roof. I take pictures of her taking pictures.

We grab a cab and go to the MOMA on 52nd and Seventh.

I convince my mother that we need people chi. The bike path or park would be lonely. We need to be with the masses. We need to feed off the excitement and expectations of Friday night. And (besides) I love the MOMA, but feel shame for not discovering NEW art. THIS art has been christened acceptable. Still I like going there.

As we cab to the MOMA, my mother says (staring out the cab window into the dusty gloom of midtown) that the city is filled with a rainbow of different people, a real mix of types. I take the opposite view. Manhattan is filled with all the same people. They all look the same (to me).

My mother points to tall black woman, "she's different."

But in fact, I contradict, everything about her is just like all the other women on the street except her skin. She walks the same New York strut, she wears the same black clothes, she's even straightened her hair to mesh with the rest of the population.

We near 52nd Street by Fifth Avenue.
The cab driver having noticed my disability makes sure to drop us off directly in front of the museum.

The MOMA is packed with sexy, young,  international types. We find our way to member services.

We try to get tickets to "Taxi Driver" but I have the wrong day,"Lord of the Rings" is playing instead.

My mother is excited, she wants to see New Zealand. I tell her we could go the other film, it's more of an art film, more MOMA-ish. (In truth, it looks confusing and opaque but it IS sanctioned by the MOMA). My mother says she's never been to an art film and she really goes to movies just to look at the background. All movies are visual travelogs for my mother, plot and character, secondary.

We get our free member tickets and are on to the galleries.

We take three escalators up to the Jackson Pollock rooms.

I might have rented a wheel chair but I lean on my mother instead and she is remarkably strong.

(When I was a kid, my mother used to take me to "go sees" in the city. We were about the same height. But during those years, I began to outgrow her, and as I got taller, I would lean on her shoulder which she didn't like. Thirty-six years later I find myself leaning on my mother (again). And I apologize to her but (this time) she says "don't worry about it.")

We stare at Gorky, Rothko. and Motherwell. We talk about what we see and and what we like. I like the sheer graphic beauty. My mother likes discovering the hidden details. "Look there's a duck! And another eye! They ALL like to paint eyes!"

I think about that, why they painted eyes. I think about how vision is a (really) a poor sense, the one sense we overuse, the one sense we use to judge, but really, it is the most deceptive. I've begun to let go of the physical, as it becomes less and less attainable for me.

Also (I think) one has a relationship with a painting.

You eye the painting and the the painting eyes you.

The huge Pollock seems more wonderful to me than ever. Like he stumbled on G-d. This painting represent the beginning, the end, eternity, and everything in the universe.

My mother spots some video art. "I love these! They sell them in the art museum in Naples."

"That's video art." I say to my mother with caustic condescension. "It's a big deal." I tell her "my friend CAR wrote her dissertation on Video Art."

"Really? ... well, I like it. It reminds me of the ocean. You know? Soothing... the way the clip keeps repeating over and over.

We find our way to the shop. My mother buys Frank Lloyd Wright playing cards for her bridge club.

It's time for our movie.
The MOMA movie theater is always filled with the very young and the very old, both groups looking for a cheap ticket.
My mother go to the ladies room while I find seats. I sit in the third row from the back on the aisle. I chat with some young girls. They tell me the movie is three hours long. (we'll never make it)

A little boy with missing teeth wanders up to me asks what movie I'm about to see. I flush and feel on the spot, like it's a trick question. For a moment, I can't remember the title. And the then it comes to me,

"Lord of the Rings?"

He nods and scampers back to his father sitting three rows down. The father gives me a "thank you" smile. It's clear they were afraid they had ended up in the wrong theater. They were afraid they might be in the "art film" theater.

I hear an unfamiliar voice calling out my name. "CHARLIE?... CHARLIE!!"

I turn around and see a MOMA usher with my mother by the entrance, twenty feet away.

I put up my hand up (half-mast). "Yes, I'm right here." If I whispered, they would have heard me, I was that close.

I see my mother make the silent words "There he is" and thank the usher.

She sits down. We sit in silence. My mother is hoping I'll quickly let it go. But I won't.

"Mom, I'm just curious, where did you think I went?"

"I couldn't see you."

"I was sitting right next to the door."

"I know but I couldn't see you. I looked twice, I couldn't see you."

I shake my head using the "I give up" expression. I'm Oliver Hardy to to my mother's Stan Laurel.

(Did she think I was kidnapped? Did she think I ran away?)

Lord of the Rings begins and it is beautiful and engaging. But it is obviously divided into three acts. We leave after the second act. It's nine o'clock. It's time for dinner.

We go to the Modern next door.
I've always wanted to eat there. The dark, chic dining-room and bar is bustling with the rich and the sleek. (My mother notices that everyone is skinny). The modern is filled with fitted suits and sexy shoes. You're plop in the middle of drinky, privileged Manhattan.

The restaurant is always booked but they do have (first come - first serve) tables by the bar.

I hold onto my mother's shoulders as we navigate our way through the bar to a low candlelit table.

We order wine. Or my mother does. I can't read the menu. My mother can. She had her eyes fixed. I found myself the entire weekend asking my mother, "What does this say? What does that say?"

Our waitress is friendly but all business. She tells us the chef, Gabreil Kreuther won best chef NYC this year.

We order Scottish Salmon with horseradish scallops, and Grilled Diver Scallops with corn, cherry tomatoes and morcilla sausage. The wine glasses arrive oversized (love the drama of the oversized wine glass). The food portions arrive absurdly small. This too is dramatic and would normally suit me except I am losing weight by the minute and need to keep weight on to prolong my life.

We talk about my dad. How one fall in a parking lot has changed their lives.
My mother is worried that HER life will never be the same again.
I mention to my mother that I may have my OWN problems.

So...

I compliment my mother's physical strength, her walk! She's so lucky. I describe for her a recent memory of walking with her, my father, and aunt and uncle, at the Ritz in Naples, Florida. My mother walked like she was two generations younger than the others. I couldn't get over it. My mother attributes this to her years as a dance major, from forming her core strength as a teenager.

After dinner, we walk past St. Thomas Chruch to find a cab. Fresh flowers have been left behind the locked gates for the weekend services. I take a picture of them. It makes New York seem so small and quaint. So "Our Town".

On the elevator ride up to my apartment we run into Karen.

She's an actor I've worked with in summer stock. She watches me struggle into the elevator and can't hide her pity.  She knows. How? I don't know. But instead of saying, " Hey! Wow! Are you okay? Did you hurt your leg?" She pretends nothing is wrong. This is how I know she knows.

I am hot and cold to her.

I'm not sure why.