Meandering Through Artifacts

The beach glass is a scarred old cloud, frosted like a flat lump of rock candy, and embedded with crisscrossing wires. They were supposed to prevent the glass from breaking, but it broke anyway, and the waves on Brighton Beach pounded it soft and smooth. A little seawater seeped inside the glass, rusting the wires. I found it at the water’s edge after the tide ran out, and kept it in my jewelry box, a mile from the ocean.

I’ll put it in my pocket and visit the New York Aquarium in Coney Island. Maybe I’ll throw it into the sand before I go and see the walruses. Maybe I’ll return it to the ocean. Will it be sad to leave the safety of its home among my baubles, or will it splash and sink, snug and sound into the surrounding sea?

The walruses resemble the drawing on my refrigerator magnet but the walruses themselves are in-your-face real. The enormous male’s courtship habits, if you can call them that, are crude and to the point. He seems drawn to hunter green and follows the dark uniform shirts of the Aquarium docents.

Maybe I’ll go to the Botanic Garden next week, for the Chili Pepper Fiesta. I can just taste a hot chili pepper on my tongue. A chunk of solid fire, it ignites my taste buds, making the food seem to sizzle in my mouth. There will be African drumming, Cajun music and Cajun food. Sad, that New Orleans has been flooded twice, and no dove returned. Their traditions, expatriate now, visit Brooklyn for a little while at the Fiesta.

I leave the beach and ride the B68 bus north on Coney Island Avenue. Russian immigrants from Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay converse as we travel. Someone left a tattered orange voting card on the seat beside me. Against the blue seat, it looks like a patch on the seat of someone’s jeans. The card is printed in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. I puzzle over it. Why no Russian? A woman shakes her head to emphasize her speech, earrings clacking. They are castanets, and her husband beside her dances to their beat.

I get off at Avenue T and pass the elementary school. It’s called the School of Music. Through the lunchroom windows, glass shot through with wire, like the bit of beach glass in my pocket, comes the wail of off-tune violins. A red object catches my eye, lost among the crunched brown leaves at the entrance to the schoolyard. Is it a handball? No. It’s a red rubber heart, to squeeze in your hand for exercise or to pop up a vein so the doctor can slide a gleaming silver needle in. I squeeze it, idly, wondering if this constitutes aerobic exercise, and slide it into my pocket alongside the Brighton beach glass.