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hear that a lot about dentists. Too much nitrous oxide.’ Three hours later and Clarion was still at it. She was whispering in my ear, so as not to be overheard by Roland as we sorted prepurchased tickets (‘will call,’ as we say in the trade) at the small, speakered window where at window customers would later pick them up. I was pondering physics. With a perfectly executed jerk to the right, I figured I could knock out both of Shell’s front teeth, caps and all. Sal could fix them. Maybe throw in a root canal.

    Hermyn was answering phones in the subscription office. I could hear her voice, friendly and musical, saying ‘Thank you so much for calling the Space.’

    Shell wondered aloud how much money Sal ‘socks away’ every year after taxes and began quoting huge dollar amounts, her whisper disappearing and her vocal pitch rising alarmingly.

    ‘Unless that’s the price for your silence, we’re not interested!’ Yale’s voice resounded from the subscription room.

    Shell shrieked, ‘Eat me!’

    ‘All right. That’s enough!’ said Roland.

    ‘I’d rather eat arsenic,’ Yale said.

    ‘I heard that, you twat!’

    ‘I said that’s enough!’

    I looked at Shell.

    ‘What.’

    At times like this, I found myself wishing I were back at Sunny Side with the grown-ups. I grabbed my shoulder bag and coat, walked out of the ticketing office, into the subscription room. ‘I’m done with the tickets. I’m going to take a little walk before the window opens.’

    Roland nodded as he checked off spaces on the seating chart and stopped briefly to turn down his hearing aid. I looked at Yale on my way out. ‘Breath of Clarion-free air?’ he asked.

    I nodded.

    ‘Well, lucky you.’

    Hermyn, sitting at the desk across from Yale’s, was smiling with her eyes closed. I wondered what she was thinking about, and felt a stab of envy as I walked out the door.
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3

    Worked Up

    I was born in Venice Beach and raised in Santa Monica. And, while there were a lot of things about southern California that I didn’t like - the lazy way that people talked, earthquake drills, strip malls, pastels, stage three smog alerts, Eagles reunions - I always loved the ocean. The thick, salt-laced scent and the continuous whoosh of the waves always worked like a tranquilizer on me.

    The Hudson River wasn’t the Pacific Ocean, but the Pacific Ocean wasn’t walking distance from the Space, so I was willing to compromise.

    On stressful days, even blisteringly cold ones, I would walk to the piers, cl

    I couldn’t get to the river fast enough that day. My hands balled into fists, I clutched my bag as though it were a poorly designed life preserver and slammed my feet into the sidewalk.

    Before I expected it, I saw the thick gate that shrouded the few remaining piers, the intermittent signs that read Area Peligrosa. Area Unsafe .

    When Yale had first moved to New York as a seventeen-year-old, gay men used to sunbathe on the Peligrosa Piers, as he called them. You’d know it was spring when those tiny basket shorts cropped up on the Peligrosa Piers. They were more reliable than crocuses . . . Prettier, too . During the sticky, fragrant summer nights, the men would return, making Area Unsafe a well-known double entendre.

    Not anymore. Some of the piers had been dismantled to make room for the big gym complex with its bowling alleys and family restaurants. Others, like these, crumbled into the river like old corpses. Only the signs remained, with some of the fence corners cut and folded back, historical evidence. Unsafe . I shivered a little. So many ghosts. So much bad luck.

     
    I’d been walking along the river for about fifteen minutes before I saw the construction site. There was an Area Peligrosa sign on the fence in front of it. And, even though the fence corner had been cut and folded back, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to crawl under it.

    Three tall stacks of concrete blocks bounded the area, the farthest edge