Bouncers

Did you know that New York
surrenders the energy
of its frenetic days
slowly.
You can hear it,
like the faint sigh
of a bicycle tire
with a leaky valve.
At 3 AM it’s done
and the city streets
are unburdened by the buzz
of millions of tethered lives.

Tony told me that
soon after we’d reconnected.

He was easy enough
to track down,
and we would meet
for coffee on occasion
at the Pink Pony
on Ludlow Street.
Old and Army-thin,
Tony loved to talk
about Brownsville,
the Canarsie Bouncers,
and my brother—
the Warlord.

They were a greased-up gang
of Jewish and Italian kids
in combat boots and garrison belts
that headquartered
in his mom’s apartment
over the greengrocer’s.
They hoped for girls and glory
and spent the nights
looking for fights
with the Hispanic and Black gangs
that shared the neighborhood.
My mom said their claim
to fame was that
they never changed their clothes.

Tony raced his chopper
up and down Hopkinson Avenue
all hours of the day and night.
One day his Uncle Frank
grabbed him by an ear
and took him to an Army recruiter.
Army life suited him.
Tony told me he’d fought
in Vietnam and every backwater
battle that never made the NY Times.

Tony rode his bike
well into his eighties.
He’d take to the streets at 3
and ride ‘til dawn.
He boarded a Greyhound last week
for one last visit with his aging
Army buddies scattered across the country.
He hopes to see
two old Bouncers,
Sal and Artie
in San Diego.

He gave me his bike to tend.
Ride it,
he ordered.
At 3 every morning,
I hump the bike
down four flights of stairs
and ride for an hour or so
in the eerie dark
of early morning
absorbing all that freed-up energy
with every breath I take.

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