The Clay Urn by Paul Rabinowitz

Author:Paul Rabinowitz [Rabinowitz, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby

Ilana found a small apartment in the East Village and shared one bedroom with a girl from Ohio. Her roommate helped her land a job at a restaurant, and by the end of her first month she had enough money saved to pay rent and purchase canvases and paint. Every time Ilana pushed open the metal doors of her apartment building and walked down the cement steps to the streets, she felt the rush of the city’s energy pulsating from the streets. She loved drawing the people that hung out in Tompkins Square Park. She was intrigued with the punk scene and the youth that came to New York City, like her, to escape the boredom of routine and the intensity of familiarity. One evening after sunset, when the park became overrun with rats and drug addicts, she packed up her sketchpad and pencils and walked through the grittier parts of the East Village across Houston Street to the Lower East Side. There was a long line of punks waiting to get into CBGB’s. She exhaled and pushed her way through the crowd.

“You gotta ticket?” one of the punks asked.

“No. No, I don’t have a ticket.”

“You wanna ticket?”

“No, I don’t want a ticket.”

His blue eyes flashed at her face and stayed for a moment longer than she was used to.

“You sure?”

She watched his jaw flex as he spoke. Thick veins criss-crossed his muscular arms. “Who is playing?”

“The fuck it matters.”

His head and arms twitched with the rhythm of his speech.

“Well, yes it does,” Ilana said.

“I’ll tell you this, you’ll never forget ‘em. How’s that for five dollars.”

Grinning, she stared into his eyes and pushed her hair off of her face.

“I’ll think about it.”

She crossed over Houston Street and found an open stool at a cavernous bar called Artists Only. A woman with silver spiked hair wrapped her arms tightly around another woman. Her partner peered out from beyond the spikes and looked at Ilana. A middle-aged man in a three-piece suit scolded his partner, who watched another man with a cut off t-shirt fly through the entrance door and move towards Ilana. The swirling air sucked the oxygen out of the crowded space and made the windows shake. Ilana’s ears popped.

“You know where Tommy-O is?” said the man with the cut off t-shirt.

“What, no. I don’t know. Who is this Tommy-O?”

He bounced onto the empty barstool next to Ilana. “Where you from?” he said.

He wore green military pants tucked into black boots. His straight black hair was piled high and slicked back. Ilana stared at the greasy lines left behind by a wide tooth comb and at his pockmarked face and green eyes. She wondered if the news was true of an Israeli clamp down in the territories. Did Eyal ever apologize to the Palestinian father he pushed. She dropped her hand to her hip and remembered the cold steel of her machine gun.

“Mexico.”

“I thought so.”

He swirled off the barstool and disappeared into the crowd.

“You want another one?” the bartender asked.

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