Riding a bus through the soul of a city is different than riding it through the physical world, as you might expect. The physical world has limits: the island of Manhattan is thirteen miles long and just over two miles wide at its widest point. Depending on what shape they’re welded into, steel, concrete, and glass can only support so much of their own weight. Two objects can’t occupy the same space. Time only ever moves forward, so whether you miss something dearly or if it’s a scar on your memory, once something is gone it can never really come back.
None of that is true about souls. Souls are about meaning. That’s as true about the City’s soul as it is about yours. That’s how the Statue of Liberty can be a mile-high colossus whose lamp can be seen thirty miles out to sea – not that I would recommend going out into the soul of the wild ocean beyond the harbor. That’s how Coney Island can be as big and full of wonders as you remember it from when you were a kid, instead of being a three-block remnant filled with carnie rides. That’s how Manhattan can be as big as it looks in the movies and TV, with Studio 54 from the heyday and Nineties nightclubs separated by only a few blocks of Eighties urban decay.
And that’s how I can be accosted on the bus by gang members from The Warriors. Not the Coney Island Warriors themselves, oh no. They might actually be reasonable. Not even the Baseball Furies, who everyone pictures when they’re thinking of The Warriors.
No, I’m sitting there reading The Wealth of Nations on my phone when I hear:
Clink-clink-clink
Clink-clink-clink
“Jess-a-lynnnn, come out to play-ayyyyy…”
I look over and of course there they are, Luther and the Rogues, with Luther clinking those bottles in challenge, like he always has to. Seeing that they have my attention, they get up and start ambling toward me, taking it slow and threatening.
Damn. I should have paid Ralph extra when I got on the bus so he’d have the power to guarantee a safe ride.
As they gather around me, I play the meek little bunny.
“Please,” I say, taking money out of my purse and waving it at them. “I have money. Please just take it and leave me alone.”
Luther sneers. “Sure baby,” he says. “We’ll do whateeever you say.”
Even better.
He’s being sarcastic, mocking the very idea that he’d do what I want just because I give him money. But he’s said the words. His hand closes on the money, the Deal closes like a circuit, I grin and his jaw drops.
Here’s a little secret: these guys were never living people. They’re characters in a movie who came to represent street crime and violence, and took shape here as living concepts. Spirits, in other words.
Living people are free. We don’t have rules, just limitations of the flesh. Spirits have rules. They can’t break deals. They can be bound.
And he said “We” before taking my deal. That binds all of them.
“Right,” I say, letting him take the money. “First question: what made you think it would be a good idea to try and attack me?” It’s a legitimate question. I’m not hiding what I am, they had to know.
His jaw works, and I wait for him to say “No reason, I just like doing things like that.” Dumb, weak little spirits like him can get caught in routines that are almost as strong as rules. Like the clinking bottles. Instead, he says “I got my orders. You don’t make it below 14th Street.” Well isn’t that interesting. Someone doesn’t want me to get to Boss Tweed.