I’m watching from our ringside seats on the sixth floor of the Aloft Hotel as the human parade fades from the sidewalks outside the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9. The New York skyline is rendered in peach and baby blue. A siren screams.
A woman in bright fabric catches my eye. She is surrounded by three leaping children and all of them carry a plastic grocery bag. Sharing the load, blithly. I see a couple pushing a cart of bedding. A vendor of flashing finger beams and other brightly lit toys stakes out a spot outside the theater doors. People glide by on bikes and scooters and someone steps briskly into the night with their headlamp already lit.
The lights inside the theater lobby are brightly lit now and I can read the words ‘cotton club’ on the inside wall of the second floor. The sky is dark. Some of the rooms across the street are lit up. Perhaps someone is watching my face as I type. What a peaceful way to end another magic day.
