Brooklyn is full of rats these days. The garbage collection is still sporadic three years into this pandemic, and they're everywhere—both alive and dead.
I'd like to trap them and bring them to Gracie Mansion, where Eric Adams can remember what it's like, but it's a daydream not a course of action. Have some fucking rats, Adams!
I've come to realize that complaining is a human right in New York City, and sometimes I wonder if it's necessary for our survival. I've tried to hold it back for years and keep calm and collected. I let the tourists be tourists and don't get angry even when I'm angry.
But recently, I've begun to realize that complaining is one of the things that makes us New Yorkers. The fucking tourists! Why the hell do they amble around like bored cats and stop in the middle of the sidewalk without warning? And no, I don't want to see a god-damned comedy show! Do I look like I want to laugh? My god, what the hell is that smell?
And don't get me started on people walking down the street with their headphones in and their phones in their faces like the world around them doesn't exist. I want to slap that phone right out of their hand, then keep walking without so much as a nod.
The richer you are, the less you have to deal with it. In New York, money gives you access to privacy more than anything else. A private car, a quiet elevator, your groceries delivered, and restaurants that don't make you wait with the humid masses. You can avoid the subways, the supermarkets, and the crowded laundromats. And if you try hard enough, you can only see the kind of people you want to see; you can pretend the rest of us don't exist.
And the truth is, I get it. I'm not sure many of us would choose to ride the subway if we didn't have to. I don't know if anyone prefers a crowded grocery store to an empty one, and having a quiet building with neighbors who don't bang on the walls or yell and scream late at night sounds like a fucking dream.
So, I get it; I do. Sometimes I'd like to live high up, looking down at the ants on the street, and never leave the solitude of my sacred tower. If every bar was quiet and every restaurant slow and easy, I'd be as happy as a rat with a churro.
Solitude in a city of ten million is a luxury, and it's one plenty of us wish we could enjoy.
But that solitude is also antithetical to New York. What the hell are you doing if you don't yell at the tourist standing four across on the sidewalk when you're trying to get past so you're not late for work? And if you can't commiserate with friends and neighbors about how the subway platform at 14th street reached a hundred degrees last August or how the A train is running on the F line again, then what makes you a New Yorker?
Our commonality is suffering as much as anything else, and we take pride in it. It holds us together more than language, cuisine, or custom. It binds us into a singular people from a million different backgrounds and histories. You may have grown up halfway around the world, but fuck Mayor Adams and the damn rats, am I right?
So, I'm learning to get angry. Learning to yell back occasionally and bump a shoulder when I either need to get by or just don't have the strength to hold back.
Fuck the garbage on the streets. Fuck the crowded, hot subways, and fuck the asshole walking his tiny dog while he's staring at his phone, unaware that his little darling just shit on my foot. Especially that guy.
We're fucking New Yorkers, and we're pissed off.
And on a good day, that makes us happy. And it keeps us alive.