 Some mornings there’s nothing like an O. Henry tale to stir the day — to shake off the humid hold of the night with every fan running and the windows cracked just enough for the air to move. You smile, brilliantly, because a simple WhatsApp message from a faraway lover reminds you that you still love him and probably always will. It’s the exact moment you finish your coffee and sit down at the desk to write just one paragraph of your manuscript. But first you laugh — because you see the note you left for yourself in red yesterday, right at the part you were working on before you stopped: (This whole section needs work!!! It repeats… repeats and repeats… It stinks… Find the original and go back to it!) And somehow that makes the morning feel even more human — the writing, the humidity, the lover, the O. Henry story, the red‑ink warning from your past self. All of it whispering you forward. And like Soapy on that Madison Square bench, I felt the season shift — not winter, but something quieter, something that whispered me toward the desk.  After a dental appointment at Sun River, it’s nice to unwind by admiring the artwork from local artists in the lobby. 
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 Bruised Apple Books on Central Avenue displays a James Dean book on the anniversary of his death, September 30, 1955. Some nights when you’re up late and writing, you start to wonder if you’re the only one awake. The buildings across the street look dead — no lights, no movement, no signs of life. So you go out to investigate. And you discover that Peekskill doesn’t sleep as deeply as it pretends to. A dozen windows lit, TV screens flickering, people awake in their own little pockets of night. It’s comforting, in a strange way — knowing you’re not the only one drifting through the early hours. Today (9.30) in 1955, James Dean died after that car crash. I always think about the driver who made that left turn in front of him — how he lived and Dean didn’t. That must have been a terrible weight to carry. RIP Brother Dean. I saw the skunk again tonight — one on Main Street near my building, another on South Street. Both of them ignored me completely, which was fine by me. Peekskill wildlife has its own agenda. After a few more minutes of writing and editing a Zeno/Abel scene, I drifted into old New York — The Prisoner of Second Avenue with Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. It’s a genuinely good movie, funny in that sharp 1970s way. The radio announcer inserts were the best, especially this one that floored me: “In sports today, the Nassau Coliseum opened its doors and its heart when it announced it will house a charity basketball game between the Harlem Globetrotters and a team made up of members of the Gay Liberation movement. The gay libbers in a prepared statement said they did not expect to win, since their team is young and have only been playing with each other since December.” Only Neil Simon could get away with that line. And much to my surprise, The Prisoner of Second Avenue also features Maxine Stuart — Jack Lemmon’s sister‑in‑law in the film. Ms. Stuart was an original cast member of The Edge of Night when it premiered on CBS in 1956, so it was a pleasure to see her pop up in the middle of a New York comedy. And as I sit here this morning with coffee, reading a little O. Henry while the sky‑climbers on the lift outside my window wave good morning, I remembered one more thing from The Prisoner of Second Avenue. I was happy to see a young Sylvester Stallone — mistaken by Jack Lemmon for a pickpocket teen — sprinting through a part of Central Park I’ve walked a dozen times. It’s always a strange thrill when a movie suddenly shows a place you know by heart. Then I found myself watching Garbo Talks — Bancroft again, this time with Ron Silver, set in New York in 1984. If you’ve ever loved New York, you’ll love both films. You see the city you fell for, the one that existed before everything changed. Normally I prefer horror films, but yesterday I was in a comedy mood. Neil Simon never disappoints. In other good news, my housing grant was renewed, and my rent stayed the same. A blessing, because without that funding I’d have to live somewhere like Mississippi to survive. I don’t think I’d be too happy in Mississippi — or anywhere below D.C., really. Although “Biloxi” is an intriguing name. The place couldn’t be all bad with me there. And wasn’t Tennessee Williams from Mississippi? One of the most important playwrights this country ever produced — back when we still had history before everything got rewritten.  Late at night in Peekskill Plaza, almost everyone is awake in the wee hours. Could it be that we all have insomnia?  One wandering night led me back to the place I once lived on Decatur Avenue, at the foot of Fort Hill, where I listened to the crickets.  The corner of Main and North Division Street in Peekskill is, in my opinion, one of its most stylish and attractive spots.  Peekskill has a certain charm late at night, with just you, perhaps another wanderer, the sound of crickets, and the occasional skunk.  Another skunk is out and about on South Street near the Wells Fargo Bank above Division Street, doing its usual nighttime activities.  Back home, it’s still late, but a sudden case of the munchies leads to making grass-fed burgers from ShopRite, where the beef is a bit better than other places.  Starting October with a blank canvas...except I just remembered I have a 2 p.m. appointment.  Riverview Avenue, Peekskill Rainy days are really nice—especially the kind of rain that isn’t cold. The kind you can walk in from south of Division Street up Maple Avenue, then turn onto Riverview Avenue, where even through the mist you catch glimpses of the river and Indian Point rising out of the grey. The domes appear and disappear over the water and the mountains, putting you in a Basic Instinct kind of mood—especially here, where the big houses look like they were built for writers of murder mysteries. On days like this, you can feel Painted People stirring. Zeno walking gingerly through the room, lying yet again to Abel as he lifts the poker from the fireplace beneath his portrait—wanting, once more, to wipe Abel out. After a long walk east up Crompond Road, all the way to the edge of town near Peekskill Hospital, the rain feels even nicer. You have an umbrella, but you hardly use it. The cool wetness on your forehead—or your bald head, since the hat was too hot—feels better. You shove the hat in your pocket and use it as a handkerchief to wipe the rain from your eyes. Back home, you settle into your favorite part of the loft: the Writing Room. It’s transformed again, books and pictures on the wall—people you admire, including him, your grandfather, and that pullout from the New York Post you loved even though you hate the Post. The Knicks photo—your Gotham’s Heroes—still makes you smile. For some reason you start searching for a particular photo of the Civic Center sign in San Francisco—the one that used to change weekly on Leavenworth Street in old Polk Gulch, just west of the Tenderloin. The sign your friends update at Whiskey River almost daily reminds you of it: the same wit, humor, sarcasm. But you can’t find the photo. Probably still on that old desktop you left at your mom’s. Instead, you slip back to 2009 like through a time machine—Pride Parade, Gavin Newsom looking like a movie star, Kamala Harris looking like a movie star, Mark Leno looking like a movie star. A Bette Davis impersonator riding a cable car. Practically everyone in the parade looked like a movie star because that’s just the way it was then. All of this comes back on a rainy day in the Writing Room, which you have to transform again because of exterior work on the building. All tenants must clear their balconies. The sky garden sits temporarily in the window by your writing area, where you notice five new tomatoes being born. That butterfly you saw the other day really did her job. In the background, The Outer Limits plays—not watched, just streaming for company. The haunting intro repeats, the Control Voice taking over the room with its bold, eerie calm. A controlled voice in the background—something you can manage—is far more serene for a mind that never settles down except when the right person is around. All these things happen on a rainy day in Peekskill: new baby tomatoes, a run‑in with Leo who made you laugh because he said he’d never heard you say the F‑word before and he liked it—liked the way you said it, said it made his day. You changed the subject because the conversation was heading somewhere you weren’t entirely ready for… even if, truthfully, maybe you wanted to go there. And you knew there’s no way on God’s green earth you’d ever throw a person like Leo out of bed—rain or no rain. Then you go back to making a meatloaf of veal, pork, beef, bell peppers, garlic, onions—the one you wanted to make on Sunday after craving beef following the disappointment of ordering a burger at Crown Fried Chicken (the worst burger in history). And maybe Joaquin will drop by unexpectedly just in time for when it’s done.  Through the rain and mist, the domes of Indian Point rise above the river beneath Riverview Avenue in Peekskill.
 The deli closed, the street empty — and one skunk wide awake. The rain finally poured and, for a change, it cut the humidity. The air feels almost like beach weather to me—like walking on sand when you feel the heat but it isn’t oppressive at all because you’re on the beach and you just don’t care.
The sky is a flat white-grey right now. The outlines of the buildings on Fort Hill are prominent, and so is the tree line that rises even higher than the steeple of old St. Mary’s—now The Abbey & Spa, the most expensive hotel in Peekskill. Room rates range from $349 to $629 per night. In peak season like now, they climb to $433 to over $900. Yes, the tree line is getting its colors. The very rich are in town. Two nights ago I heard the crickets again the way I used to hear them on Decatur Street—the way I got used to hearing them, missed hearing them, and liked hearing them in a more urban setting, when really they were the only sound except for my breath in the cool air and still night. There were few cars and definitely no people walking Main Street in Peekskill at 4 a.m. Then last night, much to my surprise, I saw the culprit behind that horrible smell—like bad weed or something. It was a skunk, making her way up Main Street until she found the garbage left out by the Latin deli and had herself a feast for the longest time. We’re part of the world and all its quirks and tragedies and wars, etc., but in Peekskill it’s easy to forget about all those things. We’re almost a world apart—and that’s the way it can be, if you think hard enough. And maybe that’s the strange cost of living here—this little city that feels like it’s tucked just outside the world’s noise. The very rich sleep up on the hill behind their white-grey sky and their $900 rooms, and down here on Main Street a skunk decides the night’s menu. Crickets return like old friends. The rain cools the air just enough to make you forget the heaviness of everything happening everywhere else. Peekskill lets you drift a little. It lets you pretend the world is softer than it is. And sometimes, in the right weather, with the right quiet, you believe it.  Presidential election on November 8, 2016, with ballots cast in San Francisco. Even as some of us get older — very older, older than we care to admit numerically — there’s always that moment when someone says, You can’t be that age, and you almost believe them.
But you are that age. Long past the era when Seals & Crofts’ Summer Breeze was the soundtrack of every warm night, and long past the high school days when our class turned Junior–Senior Prom into a dress‑up event. I still remember our class beauty and great pianist Staci, the head cheerleader — beautiful, fearless — showing up as a pregnant housewife and giving birth to her pretend baby at lunchtime. Only in the South could someone pull off a stunt like that and still be crowned prom royalty. Summer Breeze was our prom theme that year, and it was also the first time I ever got so drunk I felt blind — literally couldn’t see — and still drove home when I absolutely shouldn’t have. I guess my guardian angel was working overtime that night, because I could have been gone a long time ago. You’d think as you get older the need to party fades away. It doesn’t. It changes shape, sure — you’re not out every night, working full-time and still finding energy to dance until closing — but the impulse remains. And sometimes you still get out of control because alcohol works differently in an older body. Hangovers last longer. Mine stretch into two days where I don’t want to do anything except scroll through a hundred thousand meaningless things. And with all this fuss about voting — vote by mail, early voting, absentee ballots — I remember when I voted by mail in San Francisco. It was easier than standing in line at the booths on Election Day, especially with all those propositions on the ballot. You needed a quiet place at home to read through everything and decide whether you were voting yea or nay. Mostly, I voted nay. Though I’ll say this: if a person running for Supervisor showed up at my door — which happened often in the Castro’s District 8, later renumbered to District 10 in the 2000s — I voted for them. If you took the time to knock, you earned the vote. That was the rule. Florence, South Carolina, and Peekskill are the only places where I’ve ever voted in person, usually on Election Day. This one is important, so I’ll be there — just like the time we voted in Florence about liquor sales on Sunday. That vote mattered to someone who still liked to party, so that was definitely a yes. Funny how age changes everything except the few things that never change at all.  Whiskey River at that quiet hour when the only person in sight is the bartender, making them the most interesting presence in the place. It’s Sunday in Peekskill, mid‑September, that strange pause before the leaves commit to their yellows and crimsons and reds. Fall is the season most of us love more than summer — unless you’re lucky enough to have a place on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard or somewhere along the rocky Maine coast, where the fog rolls in like a Stephen King prologue. But here, in this friendly little town, I keep wondering how downtown businesses even survive — with the exception of Whiskey River, which seems to operate on its own gravitational pull. How many delis does a downtown really need? Times have changed, sure, but Peekskill needs something that draws people with money — people who spend freely, who aren’t hung up on the nonsense of race and all the tired black‑and‑white arguments that never seem to die. And this is coming from a writer who cares very little about such things, because size, color, all that noise — none of it tells you what the kitchen needs to feel anything. Peekskill needs bike lanes, too. I never thought much about it until an acquaintance — and I have more of those than friends, because I’ve never been keen on friends — told me he hates bicyclists in the streets. He’d seen too many this weekend. Car people tend to resent us cyclists, even though we have the same rights. I always give the right of way when things get tight; the automobile is the more powerful creature. But I’ve never had a problem with drivers here. They usually move aside, as if they understand the fragile choreography of a cyclist threading through town. And yes — I agree with Blanche DuBois. I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers. Acquaintances, strangers, the people you meet once and never again — they’re easier than friends. They don’t demand anything except the moment you’re already in. I’m not detached or delusional, just a little mad sometimes — the way all of us go a little mad sometimes. As for downtown on a Sunday in mid‑September, not much is happening. The streets are nearly empty — the kind of quiet that makes you notice every shuttered door and every “Open” sign glowing for no one. It’s the sort of stillness that makes you wonder what keeps these small businesses going, what invisible thread holds them through weekends like this. A small Target might help — though fears and politics would probably kill the idea before it ever reached a planning board. Still, it would be nice to have something with real quality control, something not cheaply made from China. A Vees Boutique brick‑and‑mortar would suit this town — black‑owned, clothes for women of all sizes. Or Cut Loose, with their San Francisco‑dyed fabrics and American‑made stitching. Anything that brings foot traffic. Women make up the majority of shoppers; men hover around forty percent. Peekskill could use that energy. But today, the town feels suspended — waiting for the leaves to turn, waiting for cooler air, waiting for something new to arrive. A Sunday before the colors, quiet enough to hear your own thoughts, even the mad ones.  Main Street on a Sunday is alive with trees but nothing else.  From the waterfront bell toll to the meat‑heavy supermarket and that Southern ghost of a house on South Street, the whole day moved like a Friday pretending to be the 13th. Some Fridays qualify as Friday the 13th without actually being the 13th. Today — Friday, September 11, 2026 — wasn’t the 13th, but it carried that strange, unsettled charge. I left the apartment on a simple mission: feed the seagulls, the pigeons, and whatever other bird species happened to wander by. I didn’t expect to walk straight into the 9/11 Day of Remembrance down at the waterfront. Firemen in red shirts, Peekskill police, volunteers, families — all gathered in the 9/11 section of Riverfront Green. A bell tolled at the exact minute the first plane struck the North Tower. A man read the names of Peekskill’s volunteer firefighters. It was moving in that quiet, unadorned way these ceremonies can be. I saw one girl crying in the arms of another. That image stayed with me longer than the speeches. Not how I expected my day to start, but that’s how it started. After the crowd dispersed, I headed off to finish errands and somehow ended up on Welcher Avenue, then at the new Peekskill Supermarket where Apple Farms used to be — that strip‑mall stretch near McDonald’s and Westchester Diner, just off the freeway. The place is built for meat lovers. Too much meat, honestly. One tray held something that, at first glance, looked like a tiny piglet curled in plastic. I’m still not sure — maybe it was just a stomach shaped like a piglet, something disturbingly embryo‑like — but it was horrible enough that I didn’t stay to solve the mystery. I just left the aisle. The store smelled funny — something like slaughter, something I didn’t care for — but I still bought a few things: very lean 96/4 ground beef, tangerines, granola, Starbucks beans. Their lemons were cheaper than C‑Town’s: fifteen for eighty‑five cents versus twelve for ninety‑seven. Little things, yes, but little things matter when everything else has skyrocketed. I didn’t even check the price of the ground beef. I only saw the total at checkout. The Spanish girl made me laugh — she read the number backward and told me $83.94. I said, “What!” and she corrected herself: $38.94. Meanwhile, a long line had formed at the other counter for a raffle to win free groceries. That’s how desperate people are now. Did I enter? Why not. I never expect to win anything, but sometimes you fill out a ticket because the clerk tells you to. Heading back toward downtown, I walked a stretch of South Street with no sidewalks — an industrial corridor past chemical and salt factories, Charles Point Business Park looming in the distance. An old dilapidated house stopped me in my tracks. It looked more like something from the rural South than Peekskill. I stood there for a long moment, took pictures, then continued on to Riverwalk and finally home. By the time I reached home, the whole day still felt like a Friday pretending to be the 13th.   It was kind of neat — an old word from the 60s — showing a man where the collard greens were the other day. He wanted me to identify every vegetable in the garden at Peekskill Regeneration Farm, and that’s when I realized I didn’t know the names of everything. Which was fine, because neither did he. We just knew what was edible, and we laughed about that. I had been messing around, trying to avoid him and his little dog down John Street and Oakside School at Decatur as I slipped into the garden, but he ran over anyway, asking where the collards were. I wasn’t sure at first. They were tiny things, nothing like the precious giants my cousin Aunt Lilly used to grow on Cortlandt Street. People had already picked the bottom leaves, so I picked a few myself and made collard greens for the weekend. I didn’t expect to run into him again, but I did — in the elevator. Turns out we’re neighbors. He reminded me of our garden encounter, which was neat in its own way. Kind of nice that he lives on the floor above me. He was heading out to find a babysitter for his dog. That was the beginning and end of that. Today I’m cleaning up my inbox, embarrassingly behind — correspondence dating back to July. Messy work I thought I could do soberly, but it’s given me a headache. Seeing things I should have answered long ago. So I made myself a rum and lemonade to ease the burden as I go through all this paper. I remembered that the guy asked when everything in the garden should be harvested. I told him “now,” because I didn’t really know and didn’t care to look it up. But I see my little cucumbers — more of them now — are coming to an end. And the tomatoes have finally decided to produce one tiny fruit, a small green promise hanging on even as the season winds down. And through all of it, I’ve got Drake in a fast remix version playing — the kind that makes you move a little in your chair, loosen your shoulders, and let the day feel lighter than it started.  End of day, end of season — someone else out there doing their own careful work while my little tomato tries its best. Peekskill always has another angle.   My Saturday office: a wooden corner, a river view, and Bear Mountain supervising. This morning’s adventure took me away from downtown and across the Jan Peeck Bridge to the Annsville Paddlesport Center — an intimate little park that juts out into Annsville Creek, four miles east of Bear Mountain. If the sidewalk hadn’t ended there, I would’ve kept walking. It’s that kind of place. You cross the bridge, pass Annsville Circle, and suddenly you’re in another world — dynamic views of Peekskill behind you, Annsville Creek beside you, Bear Mountain rising in the distance, and the Hudson stretching out like a quiet invitation. What a magnificent way to spend a morning doing absolutely nothing except being alive. Just standing there, seeing the beautiful earth, all that water, and all those fishermen by the creek casting their lines into the stillness. There was one spot I loved most — a simple bench with a board built like a table. I set my mug down, stared at the view, and thought: One day I'm bringing my laptop here. This is a writing desk disguised as furniture. I suppose the best way to know a place — or even let the place know you — is to occasionally spend the day as a tourist, seeing where you live through someone else’s eyes. It makes you appreciate where you are, and the love you feel for it grows.
    September finally slipped in last night — not with a breeze, not with a calendar announcement, but with rain. Real rain. The kind that doesn’t ask permission. It hammered the balcony, slapped the windows, and dragged you out of sleep like a detective knocking at the door in the middle of the night. You didn’t turn on the lights. Noir doesn’t need them. You just stood there in the dark, watching the downpour carve silver lines across the glass. Across the street, the artist’s studio flickered its usual palette — pink, blue, purple — like someone was painting the storm from the inside out. You drank a glass of water, listened to the sky empty itself, and went back to bed without a single dream daring to follow you. Morning arrived with that strange clarity you get after a night like that — the feeling that you woke up a little smarter, a little sharper, like the rain cleaned the inside of your head too. And with that new intelligence, you solved the mystery of Joaquin’s eggplant: slice it, salt it, pepper it, bless it with parmesan and olive oil, then let the crockpot do the slow, silent work. Four hours. Hands off. A recipe fit for a man who prefers his Thursdays to behave like Thursdays. Outside, the city is shifting. Summer is losing its grip. Autumn is waiting in the wings, rehearsing its entrance for the 22nd or 23rd. Some call it Indian summer. You call it transition — that liminal space where the air cools, the colors deepen, and the world feels like it’s about to tell you a secret. Painted People can wait. Heaven can wait. Even adventure can wait. Today is just Thursday, and the rain already wrote the opening scene. |
AuthorCHARLES PEARSON 
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