Coney Island, off-season.
I had a free afternoon in the middle of the week, so it was sort of a spontaneous decision to travel south with a Brooklyn friend and see Coney Island and the ocean. I’d never been south of Prospect Park before. Brooklyn is huge and I’ve never seen most of it. Riding down, I’m surprised to see the residential areas clustered around the southernmost part of Brooklyn look more like South Minneapolis than like other parts of Brooklyn.
Everything on the boardwalk is closed, and the beaches are empty. The relatively temperate weather in the middle of January makes the whole scene even more surreal. On the beach, we meet a lone reporter from the New York Post, who asks us our opinion one building casinos on Coney Island. I tell him I’m just visiting, and he loses interest in speaking to me. He interviews my friend, and seems to be trying to coach her into saying something pro-casino. He’s every bit as obnoxious as you’d imagine a New York Post reporter to be. I realize I should have given him a fake name like “Randy Slurdevant” and told him I lived in some obscure neighborhood like Ozone Park and said, “I think they should tear the whole boardwalk down and build nineteen huge casinos, each one bigger than the last! Maybe they can get Donald Trump to do it! That guy is a winner!”
The only people out at all, besides New York Post reporters, are people on the pier fishing. There’s a few dozen of them bundled up in winter clothing and sitting on plastic buckets and bobbing fishing poles over the edges. It’s fascinating. The pier is littered with shimmering, iridescent fish scales and drops of bright red fish blood.
I walk past one guy fishing, and go into my usual Studs Terkel routine: “What sort of fish do you usually catch here?” I don’t know anything about saltwater fishing. I’d like to learn.
The guy frowns and silently makes a circular motion with this hand. The meaning is unclear to me. It seems to mean one of three things:
1.) “Oh, you know, we catch all kinds.”
2.) “Sorry, I don’t speak English.”
3.) “Please fuck off.”
The third seems the most likely. Walking away, I express surprise to my friend. She is a native Manhattanite, born and raised near Union Square. “This isn’t the Midwest,” she says. “You can’t just walk up to anyone and expect have a conversation.”
I am even more surprised by this. “Exactly!” I say. “This isn’t the Midwest! People don’t mind talking to strangers here!” I realize my friend and I have wildly divergent views on the social habits of New Yorkers vs. Midwesterners.
I always thought New Yorkers were pathologically opinionated loudmouths that were willing to get into noisy conversations with anyone. I always thought Midwesterners were stand-offish and tight-lipped and would do anything to avoid talking to a stranger.
She always thought New Yorkers were privacy-obsessed jerks that didn’t have the slightest bit of interest in making any sort of engagement with the teeming masses of humanity surrounding them. She always thought Midwesterners were warm, genuinely friendly people happy to make small talk with anyone.
I’m still not sure, though if the circular hand motion was a “fuck off” sign, my friend may have a point. This winter, I’ll have to go find some people ice-fishing out on one of the city lakes around Minneapolis and ask them about what they’re doing. Then we’ll know for sure.
