New York.

My wife, Robyn, sat on the end of the bed and complained that our son, Jack, would have trouble getting to sleep. We were in New York with my parents. A friend from college was getting married. We had eaten bowls of fettuccine and marinara. It was Paul Newman’s marinara. His face on the jar was rugged and his hair was gray. He looked good.
“Jack’s going to have trouble getting to sleep,” said Robyn. She was sitting on the bed reading a People Magazine. Jack had made his way under the hide-a-bed.
“Maybe we should put him in the bathroom,” I said.
“Really?” asked Robyn sardonically. “You really think it would be a good idea to put him in the one place people are going to be going in and out of through out the night?”
“Or we could put him in the elevator with a do not disturb sign on the crib,” I said covering some from the bathroom suggestion I’d thought made sense. Robyn shook her head some. My jokes weren’t amusing her.
“What time do you want to leave for Brent’s?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve got to call him.”
“Maybe you should do that now,” she said.
“I’ll call in a little bit,” I said.
“You guys should take a cab,” said my mom from the kitchen. She was washing dishes.
“The subways are safe, mom,” I said.
“We don’t want you getting mugged,” said my mom.
“Where’s it at?” asked my dad. He was looking at a plastic tourist map we’d bought from a drugstore earlier in the day.
“They live on Riverside Drive,” I said. My dad squinted at the map. He had trouble seeing in the dim light. Jack pulled at something on the floor and put it in his mouth. I think it was a string of carpet. “You guys get to go right through Harlem,” said my dad.
“Really?” asked my mom. I think she was hoping he was pulling her leg. “Yeah,” he said.
“We love Jackson, but we don’t want to raise him,” she said half-joking.
“I’d love to raise Jackson,” said my dad.
“Jeez mom,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said.
“Gosh, Debby,” said my dad. We all laughed.
“You know what I meant,” she said.
“Do you have money in your wallet?” asked Robyn.
“I’ve that money we took out earlier.”
“That’s right,” she said.

I fixed my dark gray beanie in the elevator mirror on the way down. The floor ticked away electronic and red. The song Seal sang for one of the Batman movies played soft. It was quiet and intense. Very melodramatic. It sounded like it could’ve been in a high school production of Phantom. That’s how you talked about musical theater. Les Mis, Phantom… one word was all you really needed. It was a New York thing. New York tourist vernacular. Like Urkle or Tim the Tool Man.
“Which way do we go?” asked Robyn as we stepped into the cold night. It reminded me of walking into the produce section at Costco.
“59th street,” I said. “The Columbus Circle.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
* * *