SET TRIP

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It would be rash to say that Ninth Street between Allen and Berkman Avenues is the most unstable of the blocks, but it has brawls more frequently than the corresponding block on Eighth or Seventh Streets have brunch; this most recent is the fifth since the first of the month. One man wielded a lacrosse stick belonging to his son. Another swung wildly with a plastic shopping bag filled with tealight candles. Midway through the fracas, an old woman appeared at her window to bellow encouragement not to either combatant, but to the concept of combat itself. “Kill him!” she said, not caring who. The Ninth Street toughs frequently visit the only other equally splenetic stretch in the neighborhood, Fifth Street between Carr and Davis, where they attempt to cause trouble by spreading rumors: they might tell a Fifth Street grinder that his wife is stepping out on him, or that his son has been spotted under the bridge, or they might just walk up to the man and swing a bag filled with tealights at his head. On the other hand, it should be remembered to the credit of the street that it alone, of all the streets in the neighborhood, has protected row house gardens, nearly every address having a small rectangular patch vibrantly growing vegetables.