At first it was Brad Pitt: his placid, not-quite-smiling face exuding a contagious confidence that simply said, “Trust me, this is it.” For some reason, though, we didn’t, at least not every time, and as a result we were burned. I’m not trying to make excuses but it certainly didn’t help that Jamie Foxx was there, too, a mere fifteen feet away, beaming exuberantly day after day after day. Truly, his pull was magnetic. How could we not want to stand next to the man?
Two weeks later it was Elvis Costello: a dreary, rainy Monday. We were confused by his sudden appearance. What happened to Pitt and Foxx? Where could they have gone? Their abrupt, unexpected departure––this sudden changing of the guard––was both disorienting and disheartening. We were alone. Abandoned.
Our debate intensified quickly, becoming a full-blown argument in a matter of minutes, our voices raised against each other and the din of the onrushing A-train. Several passersby raised eyebrows, staring in disbelief, wondering what all the fuss was about. No doubt they knew long before we did that there would come a day when Pitt and Fox would go. How foolish to think it would last! They couldn’t be there forever. It was someone else’s turn.
By Saturday afternoon we still hadn’t settled the issue. Will and Anna said it was Elvis, but I didn’t buy that for a minute. “That’s way too far forward,” I said, “we’ll over shoot it by a mile.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Will.
Secretly I was convinced it was the My Bloody Valentine guy, but I kept that thought to myself. The gas mask creeped me out, but there’s no way it was Elvis Costello. It didn’t make any sense. I mean, the guy has a talk show now? What is that all about? It couldn’t possibly be him.
“Yes it is,” Anna countered, barely looking up from her book.
I bet her a buck that it wasn’t.
Seventeen minutes later we go off the train. “You owe me a dollar,” she said with such utter matter-of-factness it was worse than if she had gloated. She was right though, of course, it was Elvis all along.
I should have known not to doubt her. She may only be six, but what she lacks in experience she more than makes up for with perception. Her intense attention to detail, her powers of observation, are truly astounding. She didn’t let on at the time, but she’d quickly figured out that if you followed the line created by the rakish angle of Elvis’ porkpie hat, it pointed to an I-beam with a red sign that simply says “Sprinkler.” It’s an unremarkable sign, but the only one like it around and it never, ever moves so once you find it you’re set. You automatically know where you are.
I was too caught up in unabashed celebrity worship, the flashiness of it all, always looking for Brad Pitt or Jamie Foxx or Elvis Costello––even the My Bloody Valentine guy––while Anna had figured it out: Don’t believe the hype. Ignore all the glitz and glamour. Focus on the mundane. Celebrities come and go, but some things never change. Benches, garbage cans, cracks, rusty yellow I-beams, unremarkable red signs. All of these things are steadfast. Unchanging. Perennial. Constant.
The next day I followed her lead. She took a right out of the turnstile, walked past the first set of benches, the garbage can, the next set of benches, finally stopping across from the infamous red “Sprinkler” sign on the rusty yellow I-beam to the right of Elvis Costello and his rakish porkpie hat. Then, glancing down at her feet, she shuffled two steps back to the left, ultimately coming to rest with a yellow paint splotch that looks––to Anna anyway––exactly like a maple leaf, in line with her belly button. “Here,” she said opening her book.
I was only mildly surprised when a few minutes later the E-train arrived and the first door of the third car opened precisely where she was standing. She quickly boarded the train, sat down across the aisle and buried herself in “Uncle Elephant,” not glancing up from the page for the next seventeen minutes. Six stops later, at our stop on 53rd and 3rd, the door to the left of her opened a mere thirty-six inches beyond the up escalator. She got off the train, walked six steps across the platform, turned left, took two steps onto the escalator, looked back at me and said, “Nailed it.” A woman behind us laughed.
“Lie to me,” said the man, “it’s written all over your face.” I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him, vaguely, as some guy I’d seen in a movie, though I couldn’t say which one. His plea fell on deaf ears. Elvis had left the building, having served his term, but the yellow paint splotch remained. It did look just like a leaf. I stood next to Anna and waited.
Two Mondays after that it was Despereaux, the mouse, his sword pointing to the left, back the way we’d come, insisting we’d gone too far. I completely ignored him. Benches, garbage can, benches, sprinkler sign, yellow paint splotch––nailed it again. It all seemed so easy now, so obvious and uncomplicated, even a child could do it. (Make that an unobservant adult with no sense of direction.)
The bottom line is this: if you get on the uptown E-train at 23rd and 8th and you’re planning to get off at 53rd and 3rd and you don’t want to walk at all when the train arrives at your station, look for the third advertisement after the second set of benches just past the black garbage can, find the rusty yellow I-beam, the red sprinkler sign and the paint splotch.
Or else just follow Anna.
