Really High Anxiety by Sondra Nones
The summer of 1955 was a brutally hot one. I had just graduated from college, gotten married and moved with my husband , Leonard from Philadelphia to Manhattan. Luckily, we found an apartment in a beautiful townhouse on 75th St. between Riverside Drive and WEA. Once it had been a magnificent single home belonging to the Sulzberger family. By the time we had moved in, it had been turned into five apts.- one per floor. The front door to the building was never locked and the two doors into our apt. opened easily with a hair pin. We were young and naïve never believing it could be unsafe.
At that time, the city was very different from what it is today. There were no environmental regulations controlling emissions from cars, furnaces and incinerators. Having no AC nor fan, our windows were always open. Black soot covered our sills, floors and furniture. There were no laws requiring dog owners to PU the Poop. Leonard and I would walk on the sidewalks singing “Tip Toe Through The Dog Poop”.
That first summer, Leonard, a commercial photographer, opened his first studio. He found space on 52nd Street between 6th and 7th aves. And thus began his wonderful career. I began working at home as a freelance fashion illustrator. My husband who had preceded me to NYC by 3 years would often regale me with stories of interesting people he encountered on the streets of NY. One of them, Vito Esposito, from Little Italy was a foot soldier in the mob. One hot summer morning in Aug., Leonard had left to go to his studio. I was still in my bathrobe, working on an assignment, when the doorbell rang. I opened it to find a stranger who introduced himself as Vito Esposito. He was accompanied by a weaselly looking sidekick who was cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife. Being polite, I invited them in, but must admit I was frightened. After a few minutes of small talk, Vito handed me a box of cannollies and they left. Not long after, we heard Vito had been rubbed out.
Many evenings, Leonard would have to work late and sometimes through the night in order to meet a deadline. I would spend most of the time with him and leave around 11 PM….. alone. I would take the Broadway M 104 bus to 75th St..
Nervously walking from Broadway to Riverside Drive, I would pass many shady looking people sitting on the stoops of their buildings. Yet I would always arrive home safely.
In the sixties, when our daughters Karen and Margot were 5 and 3 years old, we built a small house on Red Dirt Road in Amagansett. At that time there were only 3 houses on our end of the mile long dirt road. During the week Leonard would go to NYC and I was alone with my daughters. Margot invited her friend
Evie to sleepover. In the middle of the night Evie awoke screaming. She wanted to go home. Nothing would pacify her. So at 3 AM I put her and my two daughters into the car and started off. The fog was thick and down to the ground with visibility practically nil. As I made a left turn onto Accabonic Highway I saw in my rear view mirror 2 headlights. Because of the dense fog I drove very slowly. The headlights followed as I turned left onto Abrahams Path. They were still there as I made a left turn on to Rt. 27 and were still behind as I turned onto Atlantic Ave. My anxiety increased as I turned onto Bluff road and grew even worse as I reached my destination on Wyandanch Lane only to see the headlights that had been following me were still there. As I cautiously stepped out of the car I realized that what had been terrorizing me had been an East Hampton police car.
The NYC subway is a wonderful way to get around Manhattan. Once I found myself jammed inside a very crowded car surrounded by four large menacing men. Two seats became vacant and two of the men took them. One spotted me standing and graciously gave me his seat. So much for menacing!
On busses and subways long before I thought I looked old, young boys, men, women and girls of all races and ages would jump up to give me their seats.
All these past experiences never prepared me for what transpired this past April. Once again, I was waiting for the Broadway M104 bus. There were just two of us a young man and myself waiting in the bus stop. When the bus arrived the young man started to get on first. He noticed me and stepped aside. He not only let me go first but, picked me up onto the steps. The bus was not crowded and the bench behind the driver was empty. I sat on the space furthest from the driver. The young man went to the back of the bus. The bus started to move. I took out my cell phone, lowered my head and started to read the NYT. Suddenly, I felt someone pushing against me. With my head down glancing to my left, I saw the top of a pair of men’s legs. There was hardly any space to my right, but I slid over as far as I could. He pushed up against me with even more force.
I began to feel my adrenaline flowing, my heart racing and many thoughts coursing through my mind. My first was no one was sitting on the other side of him, the second was what kind of pervert could he be to get a thrill out of rubbing against an 83 year old woman, and the third was Sondra get up — — move. As I rose, I turned and looked at him. What I saw with a smile on his face was my husband. — — — LEONARD!!!!!
