The city is melting. Or I am. I don’t know which because
it’s so hot I can’t really think straight. The heat rises up out of the
pavement, and swallows my feet first before making its way up my entire body. When
it reaches my chest my heart seizes. I look at the people passing me on the sidewalk
like, holy shit you guys, is this for
real?
And they just wipe the beads of sweat from their foreheads
with the backs of their hands in an exhausted gesture of, yes, yes it is.
It’s hot here. Like Hades hot if you could venture a guess
of how hot Hades might actually be (and I hope I never find out). And it’s all
anyone can talk about, because for some reason, we just really can’t get enough
of talking about the weather. I guess because it’s the one common thing
that we have to unite us as New Yorkers - Park Ave. to Park Slope odds are you’re
feeling the heat, and you’re not at all happy about it.
For the most part, we all really love it here, but the heat
makes us hate it because it does crazy things to our minds. While there is no
universal definition of a heat wave, it is the result of a high pressure
system, which makes sense because that’s what we’re all under here, and it can
take something like a significant jump in temperature to simply make us snap. When the mercury stretches up past 95
degrees, it’s as though everyone and everything in the city gets thatmuchcloser.
People can be sitting next to me on the subway as they do any other day, but
when it’s 95 outside (and feels like 100) its like they’re right on top of me,
and I’m looking at them like: Would you
just get the hell off of me for Christ’s sake!?
I don’t say that of course, because that would be crazy. And
I don’t want to turn into that person who actually is crazy, who shouts crazy
things at people on the subway that I usually look away from while thinking wow,
that dude’s crazy. But when it’s this hot I’m like, thisclose to becoming that
guy. So I tell myself, don’t be that guy, and I close my eyes and count to ten,
and try to envision myself in the North Pole or someplace where it’s probably
pretty cold.
I did that this morning when I was standing on the
subway platform. I could feel a few beads of sweat make an appearance on my
brow, and then attempt to make their way down the side of my face. I felt like
I was sitting in a sauna wearing a dress and holding a handbag. I tried to
focus and remain calm. North Pole, Antarctica,
Iceland.
Wait, is Iceland
actually cold? In my attempt to muster Zen-like concentration to regulate
my core body temperature, I couldn’t help but notice that the woman standing
next to me was desperate. Her face was red and sweaty, she was fanning herself
with her AM New York, and moving from
side to side in frustration as we waited for the downtown 1 train.
I could see the dark rings already getting larger under her
arms. I wanted to tell her that today was not the best day to wear silk, but I figured she was already having a tough time of it that I
shouldn’t kick her while she’s down.
When the subway arrived, a near-empty car stopped before us.
Anyone who’s been here long enough knows that when it feels like 100 degrees
out (and 150 underground), and an empty subway car presents itself at rush hour,
it doesn’t mean it’s your lucky day. What it actually means is that the AC is
broken, and you need to start making your way towards the next car fast, because
there’s going to be a legitimate stampede in approximately three seconds.
The girl next to me did not know this. Maybe it was her
first day living here, or maybe she was so hot that her brain had actually stopped
functioning properly – either way she looked so relieved to see that she could,
in her anxious and overheated state actually sit down, that she bolted inside
as soon as the doors opened.
I would assume that she probably passed out when she realized
her gaffe, along with the handful of other people who didn’t know better. But I
was too far away at that point to know for sure. Later, when I was wedged in a
cool car like a sardine next to a guy who smelled like he definitely overdid it
that morning with the Axe, I thought that maybe I should have said or done
something to save her.
But this is a heat wave on a sweltering island with 8
million people. This is a battlefield. It’s every man and woman for themselves.
And it’s okay though, because according to Bill Evans and his
Accuweather forecast that is, like, 90 percent of the time inaccurate, we’ll
only have to endure this trauma for one more day. After that we’ll go back to
normal (by the weekend 85 high, chance of rain 30%), and resume our lives as
New Yorkers where our headaches are sourced from an unlimited list of
grievances that don’t pertain the weather at all.
Our perspective will resume, and that extra inch on the
subway will suddenly feel like a football field. We will go back to thinking
clearly, dressing accordingly, using body spray in appropriate amounts, and the
overall state of the atmosphere will adjust itself around us.
But I figure when that happens I should probably judge the
crazy people who actually are crazy a little bit less, because I’ll know at
that point just how narrow my own escape was from the same fate.
So try to stay cool and sane New York. You have 24 more hours to go.
