Part One
There are many different Manhattans. Which one you happen to live in depends partly on geography and partly on perception. I live on the Upper West Side, in the midst of an eccentric animal kingdom.
In my Manhattan, people like their animals big: aristocratic hunting dogs with wide, soft mouths, overfed guard dogs and pit bull mixes, sled dogs that have kept the look of a wolf about them. These are large animals for large apartments: six- room prewars, with a couple of children and possibly a weekend home in the Hamptons. Nobody has time to go jogging with the dog anymore, and the nanny refuses to pick up feces from the sidewalk, so a walker is hired.
Elsewhere, on the East Side, are toy breeds with their adorably hydrocephalic heads. The own ers are older; the children have grown up and been replaced by skittish canine midgets with the appeal of perpetual infancy.
Downtown are the elaborately designed fashion victims, entrancingly ugly breeds with faces wreathed in wrinkles, their noses squashed up between their eyes. They are dragged behind their fit and fabulous own ers, panting from their deformed jaws.
And then there are the exotics: lizards, parrots, rabbits, the odd squirrel monkey or de- glanded skunk. I don’t usually see these outside of work, but then, they’re not my specialty: They belong to someone else’s Manhattan. So I suppose I was a little startled to see the man with the baby barn owl on his shoulder, although not as surprised as the other subway riders.
The man had a quality of alertness about him that didn’t quite seem to match his appearance. He had that look you get from sleeping rough: T-shirt not quite clean, the worn cotton molded to his wiry chest. I noticed that the man’s eyes were a pale hazel, almost yellow, as he kept moving his gaze around the subway car, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. I wondered where he had found the little gray bird, which had sunk into itself, but stopped myself from asking him. Most people think they’re rescuing owlets when all they’re really doing is stealing the baby on its first day out of the nest. My friend Lilliana can explain this to people and they’ll frown and say they had no idea, but when I open my mouth, people tend to get red in the face and become defensive.
The little owl huddled closer to the man’s neck and he reached back and patted it, shifting his other hand from strap to pole. A blond businesswoman sidled away and I saw the man notice.
Then, for a moment, the man met my eyes, a halfsmile on his lips, as if he had something amusing to impart. I turned away from him, because I don’t approve of people wearing animals as accessories. Particularly wild creatures, which are far more delicate than you might think.
I knew this because we get the odd raptor at the Animal Medical Institute. We’re the only veterinary ser vice in the New York area that caters to exotics, so we’re pretty much the only game in town if your anaconda loses its appetite or your parrot breaks its foot. We’re also the only place in the tristate area that can do dialysis on cats and the best place to give your dog chemo.
But somehow I didn’t think the raggedy man was taking his little pal in for a checkup. I was wondering if I owed it to the owl to intervene when the subway screeched to a stop and the doors opened. There was a reshuffling of bodies and I realized that the person pressing against my back had gotten off, giving me room to breathe again. Reflexively, I lifted my hand to adjust my pocketbook strap, only to find that there was no pocketbook there.
I felt a moment of disorientation. Was it possible that I’d left home without it? Had it fallen to the floor? And then, on the heels of these thoughts, the realization: Someone had stolen my bag. I said it out loud, half in disbelief, just as the subway gave a hiss and a jolt, the doors closed, and the train began to move again.
I looked around, wildly, as if I expected the thief to still be there. But of course, whoever it was would have gotten off the train. Around me, people were watching with various degrees of sympathy, alarm, and disinterest. I met the raggedy man’s eyes and he gave a little shrug as if to say, Sorry, but it wasn’t me.
A heavyset woman with a vast ledge of a bosom patted my shoulder, and there were murmurs from the other women and some of the men. “What happened?” “Somebody stole her bag.” “Didn’t you feel anything?” I shook my head. “I didn’t feel a thing.” I felt a rising panic as my fellow passengers checked their own bags and briefcases and wallets. But they were fine, while I was suddenly stranded without money, credit cards, cell phone, and keys. I tried to remember how much cash I’d been carry ing. Crap. I’d just gone to the bank yesterday after work.
“They carry knives,” said a thin teenage boy, his oversized jeans hanging off his hips and revealing white boxers. “They just cut right through the strap, and bam–emergency surgery on your finances.” He looked at me with mock concern, aglow with his own cleverness. For a moment, I suspected the cocky boy of being the pickpocket, and then I turned, feeling the owl man regarding me with heavily lidded eyes and a cynical halfsmile. He knew what I was thinking, and I could hear his judgment of me as if he’d said it out loud: racist. As if the color of the boy’s skin had anything to do with my momentary suspicion.
Flushed and embarrassed, I turned away. I realized with a clench of anger that the man had been observing me for a while–he might even have witnessed my being robbed without bothering to warn me. My heart pounding, I felt a wild urge to accuse him. He met my eyes as if he could read this thought as well, and then the subway lurched to a stop. Without actually making a decision, I found myself pushing through the crowd to get off.
On the subway platform, I tried to think things through. I was already going to be late for rounds, but I couldn’t wait till lunchtime to cancel all my credit cards. And whoever had taken my bag had my house keys along with my address. I had to tell my husband to change our locks.
Reflexively, I reached for my cell phone before remembering that of course, I’d lost that, too. I made my way back to the station agent, who was hiding behind the Plexiglas, pretending to be deaf.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep the note of hysteria out of my voice, “but my purse was just stolen. Do you think I could borrow your phone to make a local call?”
“I’ll make the call for you,” said the woman, apparently thinking this was some elaborate ruse to bilk the MTA. Maybe I should have gone for more hysteria. I told her my number and waited as she lethargically dialed my home.
“Nobody’s home.” She regarded me with blank indifference.
“He is home, he’s just sleeping the sleep of the seriously jet- lagged. Can you please try again?” My husband had just come back from Romania last night looking ill from fatigue, a good fifteen pounds thinner than I’d ever seen him before.
The station agent stared at me for a moment, as if weighing her options. In the end, she redialed the number, using a pen to protect her inch- long nails.
Hunter, I prayed, please wake up and answer the phone. I hadn’t been expecting him for another week, and had nearly jumped out of my skin when he walked in the door as I was eating day- old Thai food from the carton with my fingers. He’d been sick with a stomach bug, he’d explained, and had changed his ticket. No, he didn’t feel up to giving me the details just yet, and yes, if he needed a doctor he’d call one. His tone implied we were having an argument, and mine implied I hadn’t noticed. I’d gone to bed at eleven and actually fallen asleep fairly quickly, an unusual occurrence for me. I had no idea when Hunter joined me, but at three a.m., when I woke up, he was on my right, snoring lightly from his attractively once- broken nose. For a moment I had wished him gone again, so I could pamper my chronic insomnia without restraint–turning the lights on, surfing the tele vi sion, eating breakfast cereal in bed.
Then he had spooned his body around mine, a rare intimacy, and I had felt his warm breath on the back of my neck. Savoring the closeness, I had remained motionless while my left arm fell asleep and he began to snore again. I hated to bother him now, and knew he’d probably be irritated at first, but he’d understand once I explained what had happened.
“Still not home,” said the station agent, hanging up the phone. “You want to talk to the police about the theft of your personal possessions?”
“No,” I said, disconsolate. “Could you just let me back through the turnstile so I can go home?”
The station agent buzzed me t...
