autumn in new york.

Apathy is dead.

Awakened from their defensive malaise, they rush out onto the streets. From the bars and the restaurants and apartments they stream, their cries of victory reverberating through the East Village canyons. They gather together in delirious exuberance, rushing toward one another in mutual camaraderie, slapping perfect strangers on the back, hugging neighbors, high fiving. They’re a young crowd, a hip crowd, but a diverse crowd, people of all different colors and sizes and shapes jumping and bouncing together with the rhythm blasted out of a souped-up car stereo. They meet in the street, this spontaneous nexus of celebration at the intersection of St. Mark’s and 1st Avenue, signs and buttons and t-shirts and pumping fists merging together in a final affirmation that yes, this has truly happened, yes, this day has really come and no, it’s not just some self-denying collective dream that promises to fade with the night’s crazed excitement.

The lights flash primary colors and the horns honk a sustained chorus from the traffic that backs up on the avenue as the crowd continues to clot the intersection like so many fish in an uncoordinated school. A woman blasts victory notes on a bugle, passing her instrument through the crowd; another produces an accordion and two wingmen wielding portable percussion to a tribal beat. The observers climb atop lampposts and newspaper stands, the flashes from their cameras and iPhones lighting up the intersection like a stadium night game. Latecomers sprint toward the crowd, eyes wide, arms splayed, mouths open, their whoops echoed endlessly by the throbbing mass they join. Here comes the traffic; a self-proclaimed enforcer rushes through the crowd screaming “get out of the fucking way!” as taxis lurch through the throngs of hands slapping their hoods like metal drums. Another celebrant climbs atop the M15 which glacially fords the waves of hundreds, busting out dance and martial arts moves to wild cheers from below. The cops are nowhere to be found.

From the formless blob of mob that has materialized on St. Mark’s, a parade is born. The blue-yellow-red flashes from police cars stab through the crowd, the airhorns pierce the steady cries of celebration, and the people start moving – up the center of 1st Avenue, following the pied pipers of bugle and accordion, absorbing clusters of the uninitiated to join in the chants of “Yes we can!” The cars move amongst them, unable to pass, reveling in the music their horns create in time with the vocal chants around them.

The moment is gone more suddenly than it began, dissolving at the border of Stuyvesant Town, 14th Street acting as the firewall to this temporary irrational celebration. The crowds separate into clusters, then couples, then individuals as they go their different directions, their cheering growing softer with distance. Soon they are drowned out completely. The booming engines of rushing traffic overtake all noise. The light turns green and the cars race up 1st Avenue again; no trace of the mob that had held them helpless and stationary minutes ago. It’s another autumn night in New York again.

-Derrick