A Walk Around Bushwick
I started off on the corner of Eldert and Irving, paused and opened my ears. I could hear faint Bachata music coming from a car parked near Covert, someone's favorite song turned way up. As I turned to the left and began a pace, the Bachata music, fainter now and intercepted by a thumping base from a car driving past me. Almost on Halsey street, I could hear the sound of three men fixing cars, the wheels of a skateboard rolling back and forth and loud friendly greetings, the smell of gasoline blended with warm bacon/coffee smell wafting from Los Limones, the corner bodega. As I walked up the graffiti'd stretch of Halsey street, I heard clicking heels and loud headphones, and the lonely sound that a tire makes when it rolls along the pavement. I heard a mother chiding her toddler in Spanish, the sound of the L train below the ground, more Bachata music. As I turned left again onto Myrtle Avenue, I heard the honking of truck horns, more hellos, and wheels rolling across the street. I passed the shop that sells live chickens, heard men yelling and lots of very distressed clucking, the flapping of wings, and the steel sadness of the cages as they screeched open and closed. More thumping base as I approached Food Bazaar, my final destination. I heard shopping carts across the parking lots, car horns beeping, and finally the sliding of electronic doors and the beeping of electronic cash registers.
