Dario came back from his summer in New York with a lot of stories. We
all wanted to hear them, except for Jenny, whose family used to live in
the Bronx. "I lived in New York for half of my life so far, and I think
Dario's making all this up," she said.
    "That doesn't even count. Your parents moved here when you were seven.
You can't count all seven years."
    "Well, he's still making it up."

    Supposedly, when Dario got there to check in for his summer program,
the whole building had been replaced by a trash heap. "That happens all
the time," he said. "New Yorkers are cool about it because there's so much
garbage anyway. The Mob leaves garbage in places if they're pissed at
someone, but then, like, everybody litters because they think it makes
them look tough. And then the city has to open up a new dump."
    He went on. "So I figured I could do whatever all day and just tell my
uncle I was at camp. First I figured out the graffiti, which is, like, a
secret map for stuff if you know how to read it. It tells you which pizza
places have real New York pizza and which ones are like basically traps so
people will buy bad pizza. That's why Jenny has a problem with me now, is
I know all the secrets."
    "And let me tell you, the fake pizza sucks. I screwed up once 'cause
I'm colorblind now--"
    Jenny cut him off. "That's another thing, Dario. You can't catch
colorblindness."
    "No, I told you, it's just, like, super-rare. The doctors in France
said they had only ever seen one other case. Anyway, did I tell you guys
about the cops there? It's a law they can't go through stone archways
because of historical preservation, so if you shoplift or whatever, you
can keep them off your tail as long as you plan ahead. Not that I stole
all the time, that would be weak. Just a few times, I was like dying of
starvation, so I stole a block of cheese from the cheese carts out in Cen-
tral Park."
    "Plus one time, in the Village, I took a CD from this record store
where normally you have to pass a test just to get in, but on Tuesdays
they have open visiting hours. For educational purposes, I guess. They
were all super-hardcore in there, even on Tuesdays. I don't think anyone
saw me take the CD. I'm studying it and I think I'm gonna work there next
summer."
    I didn't understand, maybe because I didn't have a summer job, so I
asked, "Study how? Do you just have to be able to sing along?"
    "No," said Dario, "it's more like-- oh man, I guess you guys don't
have this here! I forgot! Once you've read all the graffiti and you know
where stuff is, you can listen to these recordings that play from some of
the lampposts, out of speakers that are locked down so nobody takes them.
You can learn even more things from them. Everybody in New York is into
the lampposts, like no matter what time it is, day or night, everyone
on the sidewalk is just CRUISING. They're booking around trying to find a
lamppost they haven't listened to yet. That's basically what the CD I got
is like, only it's easier because I don't have to worry about the city
department, I think it's called the Department of Urban Decay, coming
around and changing lampposts on you. I heard they're so busy with all the
recordings that the department hasn't had time to do all the arson and
roadblocks they're supposed to this year."
    Jenny, starting to come around, had a question: "The one thing I heard
was that those homeless guys all actually have a million dollars in the
bank somewhere. Is that true?"
    Dario looked thoughtful. "I bet no. When I was bored once I sat down
and talked to one of them for like an hour, and it was really sad.
Really sad."

written for Susan Futurebird while standing up 11/1/08

Seriously, what was wrong with Jenny's elementary school that they didn't teach this stuff?

The technical aspects of this one kind of got away from me. I put my energy into wondering how the Internet has affected what sort of information that middle-schoolers can use to impress classmates with their worldliness, and trying to remember what my first impressions of New York City were. I don't like how the lamppost thing came out, and having the Department of Urban Decay commit arson was a little much.

I was going to have the Bronx be the main location, but then I remembered that that was where Alan claimed to be from in Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars, which even so I probably unconsciously borrowed at least one detail from.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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