the smack factor

So I’m walking home last night, down Broadway, as the sun was just beginning to get low, a get low, a get low. Everyone looked pale lavendar and the sides of the buildings were warm tangerine. It was chilly, but I could have sat outside with a glass of wine all night. Instead, I walked home, twittering away on my BlackBerry, with one eye focused in front of me (I can do that, I was born lazy eyed, so one always wants to head in a different direction anyway). There was a tiny woman ahead of me, spanish speaking, blabbing away on her cellphone, occasionally grabbing the back of her son’s jacket to keep him at arm’s reach – but mostly not pay attention at all. In fact, she was all over the sidewalk – doing the I-don’t-see-anyone-else-because-I’m-on-the-celly swerve. A blond girl next to me was keeping pace with me and glancing at Celly Swerve.

We stop at 17th and Broadway because even though the cross walk indicator had just turned to white walking guy, two huge silver buses were making the left hand turn in front of the pedestrians anyway. Now, I know you all know this, but in case you don’t- in case you’re a distracted mother who is oblivious to her child’s safety, let me explain – a bus is LONG and STIFF. When it makes a turn and it’s face clears the intersection, the rest of its body will not clear at the same spot at the same time. IN FACT, it’s body sort of swings (without bending, people, stay with me) and sweeps diagonally to the left. Thus, if you’re an impatient New Yorker, you’re forced back onto the curb like everyone else, lest you become human tire gum.

Mom on the phone knew this and kept herself on the curb. But Dingledork, her son? Kept right out on the street. That bus came swinging and mom kept gabbing. I said “move.” in my head. The tire was about to make pancake batter out of the boy but mom was still blathering into her cellphone and not even LOOKING to see where her son was. At this point, the bus driver has a blind spot where there was about to be a light brown and red spot in the road. “Move.” I said outloud, almost like.. she must be thinking it, so I have to say it. She never looked. The tire was looming, and the kid was definitely going to go under. “MOVE!MOVE!MOVE!” I shrieked, like I was getting my platoon out of Nam – only less Sheen, more Alvin from the Chipmunks. Mom turned at my scream and yanked her kid out of the road – then TURNED and looked at me like I had just yelled over her phone conversation.

I looked over at the blond, embarrassed at my maternal outburst, and said “Sorry.. I just…” and shrugged. She smiled with approval and did a shoulder answer like “no shit!”

I stepped off the curb and continued home, past the notable increase of street people (not because weather is warming, because it isn’t — it’s because the low got lower in our lovely economy – and I have to ask, did mentally unstable people lose their homes? I ask because everyone is yelling at each other or no one), drug exchanges, skateboarders, dogs peeing in the Union Square Park dog run, and Twittered what just happened – with one eye always watching my surroundings.

Unlike Celly Swerve.