Читать книгу The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Peter Godwin - Страница 17
Friday, 15 May Peter
ОглавлениеI am determined not to allow the wait for my test results to paralyse me into a state of limbo. I must keep active. Physically active. Today I decide to go rollerblading along Riverside Walk. This stretch of sidewalk from Chelsea Piers down to Battery Park must be one of the most congenial rollerblading courses in the world. It is a safe, level, cement strip with views on one side across the Hudson River and on the other over to Greenwich Village then TriBeCa, City Hall and the World Trade Towers.
I am a reasonable blader, about intermediate level, I think. I very seldom fall, but I take no chances, strapping myself into my matte black safety gear: helmet, elbow pads, wrist protectors with Velcro fasteners and plastic reinforcers, mittens, and knee pads with black plastic cups over the joints themselves. Thus attired, I can blade for about fifteen minutes before I need to rest, or else I risk cramping up. I think there is something wrong with my blading posture. I have even been to blading school at Chelsea Piers, once. I went to the intermediate class, where I found myself surrounded by large middle-aged women and small children. I was the only adult male. Since then I have tried to self-tutor by watching other, more advanced bladers and attempting to ape them, straightening my back and assuming a more open, balletic posture. Invariably I soon revert to my clenched, bent stance.
There is one physical barrier that seriously blights my blading enjoyment. It is the West Side Highway, the eight-lane stream of traffic that I am forced to cross to get to the river walk. Although there is a pedestrian crossing, the flashing green man has been wrongly adjusted by the Traffic Department. For intermediate bladers like myself, he provides an inadequately fleeting window of opportunity in which to blade across, and the impatient traffic sits on the line revving up for their green, like racing cars waiting for a chequered starting-flag to fall. Nor is it unknown for them to jump the lights. I find that under the close scrutiny of eight rows of New York drivers, my blading deteriorates significantly. I wobble nervously and falter like a beginner. Once I reach the other side I feel triumphant, liberated. Until the time approaches to cross again, as it always does.
But today, today is my last crossing of the West Side Highway. Today I have almost reached the other side when, unaccountably, my left skate jams and I fall heavily – just as the lights turn in favour of a grid of trucks. The Mack truck nearest me releases its brakes with a menacing pneumatic wheeze, kicks into gear and advances. I look up desperately, but my perspective is too low to allow me to see the driver, too low to fix him with pleading eyes. The truck looms dangerously and then emits a vast, throaty, customized hoot. My whole body resonates, right to the fillings in my molars. I scuttle desperately to the kerb, a spidery, Gothic figure in my matte black safety outfit and the goat’s hooves of my black skates. I felt that I must look like one of those Calcutta pavement cripples, cosmetically enhanced by callous relatives for more proficient begging. I haul myself up over the concrete lip to safety, where I sit, feeling the laughter of the driver wash over me. Fast, proficient skaters, the ones I have been trying to emulate, blade gracefully past me.
‘Bad blades, man. You OK?’ yells one cheerily, as he whisks past shirtless, and without any safety gear, casually ramping some substantial obstacle. He is well out of earshot before I can reply.
I bend down to examine my recalcitrant skate, expecting to find a shard of gravel from the nearby roadworks, wedged in my axle. Instead I find a used condom has wrapped itself around a wheel with the aid of a puce blob of chewing gum. I gingerly peel off the condom and its attendant gluey tendrils of gum, remove my skates and hobble home in my socks.
I check for phone messages, but my test results still aren’t in.