Hot In The City Tonight

Two small NY vignettes.

1. I am running in Prospect Park on Sunday. It is 7:45ish p.m. but it is still blazing hot. It is Puerto Rican Day, and the park is CROWD-ed and festive. I look to my left, see a guy lying face down in the grass in a very chalk outline-esque way. All around him, people partying, wandering, sitting, and this dude, face planted in the dirt. I ponder what to do. A half mile or so ahead there's an African drumming group that's always there on Sundays, and there's usually cops there to quell the drummers, should they, I dunno, start throwing drumsticks viciously. So I run along and find me a slightly pudgy cop, stop, and say, "there's a guy lying face down in the grass back there." He looks at me and goes: "drunk." I stare at him. "Maybe," I say. "Or, he could be dead..." Says he: "How far back is he?" I explain. He looks sad, and hot, and makes general noises about how he's going to check it out. I sure hope he did...

2. I am exiting the PATH train at the WTC station. There are two people at the turnstile next to mine, an unruly-looking guy coming in and a fierce-looking woman going out, who have reached an impasse. He has put his money in. She is halfway through the turnstile. Finally, she backs down and out, but he has already lost his money. "I lost my money!" he says, and as she breezes through the turnstile next to him, he slaps her in the back of the head. She hauls off and punches him. A flurry of half-hearted slapping ensues, as I stand frozen in the turnstile next to them, with my jaw on the floor. Two PATH employees are nearby, and they're like, "WTF?" And the guy is like, "I lost my money!" And they're like, "Dude, you just hit a woman because you lost your money???"

In the summer, in the city.