tales from the city part two: new york- "lessons in stoop sitting"

as many of you know, i'll be leaving the lovely town of athens in approximately 1.5 months for the jungle known as new york city. having lived in both dublin and chicago, i am familiar with the ways of city life. even so, new york is a different beast entirely. or so i'm told.

luckily, the city already comes equipped with a number of my jaded, new york-wizened friends in varying stages of familiarity (and, consequently, degrees of love/hate) with the fair metropolis. these friends from my past have, in turn, introduced me to new friends who have their own unique histories and perspectives on functioning in the city. one of these new friends is a guy named fletcher. now, as i really like fletcher, and he insists that i mention his name as often as possible as it is his mission to build fame and notoriety for himself, i will do what i can to comply.

in any case, i met fletcher back in february when he came to visit athens and had the pleasure of hanging out with fletcher again on a recent trip to new york. i can't say that i know him (fletcher that is) well yet, especially as he seems to be constantly reinventing and cultivating his fletcher persona, but i am thus far intrigued. to give you a little background on the man behind the name, fletcher is in a few bands (and listens exclusively to music written by himself) and he works at a trendy clothing store (and has a policy on fashion summarized by this idea: find one thing that you really like and wear it until it falls off. then replace it with something else that you like and repeat the process ad infinitum. in his own words- "i only care about first impressions. if i meet a chick and she doesn't want to make out with me the first time, she probably isn't going to change her mind later on."). he is also a writer (nothing to add here as of yet except that fletcher and i are planning to start a new writing revolution in brooklyn sans coffee and whiskey as he doesn't drink either. i'm sure i, however, can manage to drink enough of both for the both of us). despite having his finger in so many pies, fletcher frequently (perhaps daily?) makes time for his true occupation: stoop sitting.

i'll admit, when i first met fletcher i was a little leery of this "stoop sitting" business. i pictured a fancy sex in the city manhattan stoop with wide stairs and a cold, austere feel to it. here fletcher would sit, lonely and ignored by the busy new yorkers on their way to wherever it is that new yorkers go. alternatively, i imagined a dirty, littered stoop where passersby glanced into the shadows to see a motionless figure huddled in the corner. not really knowing what to think about his dedication to stoop sitting, i asked fletcher if people ever thought he was homeless and tried to give him money or food. fletcher though about it and admitted that once someone threw a quarter into his cup of coffee and he was irritated because he wasn't done drinking it yet. "that's too bad", i replied, still confused by the situation.

in reality, fletcher's stoop isn't like either one of my imagined scenarios. it's a normal stoop- small, with broken concrete stairs, situated in a busy, trendy brooklyn neighborhood in front of an insurance company or something. i know because i have now been there. i've seen it and done a little stoop sitting of my own...

after meeting up with fletcher for lunch one afternoon, we headed to his usual spot- "fletcher's stoop". i had seen it earlier that day when a friend pointed it out to me, but this was to be my inaugural stoop sitting experience. fletcher settled into his groove, back up against the railing at what he claimed was the most comfortable angle. an angle that i was unfortunately unable to duplicate as the railing kept digging uncomfortably into my back the entire time. stoop sitting apparently takes some practice and dedication to master. more on that later.

so we sat in our varying degrees of comfort and watched people. and judged them. according to fletcher, that's part of the stoop sitting process- judging passerby. i'm still confused on what exactly fletcher was judging because i know what i was judging, and it was people's fashion sense (or lack thereof). as we've already discussed fletcher's fashion policy, i believe that it's safe to conclude that fashion wasn't what he was judging. well, whatever his judgments entailed, we sat and watched and judged and discussed the art of stoop sitting, among other things of course (like fashion and writing).

looking to my right, i saw another stoop that looked cleaner, more comfortable, and all around more inviting than fletcher's stoop. when i asked him why he chose the particular stoop we were on instead of the one right next to us he replied that the stoop to our right was traditionally occupied by "hush hush", a homeless man who stoop sits and begs for money in a voice so low that no one ever hears him. a quiet voice is an unfortunate handicap if one's occupation is panhandling and, according to fletcher, hush hush's enterprise doesn't usually seem to be a very lucrative one.

it was at about this time that i was truly initiated into stoop sitting. i mean, if stoop sitters had a fraternity, their hazing rituals would most definitely involve this: getting shat on by a pigeon. yes sir. there we were- minding our own business, enjoying the day and stoop sitting to our hearts' content when the magic of the experience was interrupted by a warm splash on the back of my neck. one. then another.

i froze, knowing instantly what it was. moving very slowly so as to avoid any further soiling caused by the mess running down my shirt, i eased my gaze upwards to see a pigeon butt slyly peeking over the edge of the roof about 40 feet above my head. yup. pigeon shit.

eyes wide, i told fletcher the sad news. he shook his head in denial and suggested hopefully that it was just rain or condensation from an air conditioner. no dice. i gestured towards the offending pigeon butt still visible roosting on the roof's edge and he accepted the truth of the situation. i had pigeon shit on me. here is where our new friendship was put to the test. i needed a paper towel, and quick. i, however, was loath to move lest the shit create an even bigger mess. the closest place to get help was at thai thai, a thai restaurant across the street where, according to fletcher, all of the employees hate him because of his habit of getting take-out from them and then proceeding to eat it across the street on his stoop. the judger has been judged in this situation in that they all believe that fletcher would really prefer to eat the food in the restaurant but is just too cheap to tip. obviously unaware of fletcher's stoop sitting duty, they judge him in error. nonetheless, fletcher clearly isn't keen on the idea of running across the street and asking the waiters at thai thai for some paper towels. even so, he senses the urgency in my wide-eyed stare and after a moment's hesitation, dashes to thai thai to return momentarily with the goods.

good guy that fletcher.

that pretty much ended my first stoop sitting experience. i actually found it all to be pretty appropriate and hilarious. lesson one in stoop sitting (not to be taken lightly): do not, repeat, DO NOT stoop sit under any sort of overhang or you will end up with shit on you. lesson learned the hard way thank you very much. i think fletcher may have felt a little bad about it, but the way i see it, my stoop sitting experiences can only go up from there. i hope. afterwards, i did notice that fletcher's chosen side of the stoop was free of any overhanging objects that might be attractive to pigeons. so there is more to choosing your stoop position than mere happenstance.
smart guy that fletcher.

later on in the week, i decided to give it another go. i was by myself and it was nighttime so i figured i would be safe from pigeons and humiliation, if it came in another form, would be witnessed by none besides myself. leaning against the railing on fletcher's side of the stoop (better to be safe in some cases...), i imagined myself in this same spot in less than two months, a legitimate resident of this strange city. homeless still, maybe. poor, definitely. but ready for this anonymity and solitude. for this change. for this. all of it.