Brooklyn Morning – Coney Island in Winter

by Vegas Tenold

Once the subway had rumbled off, a couple of blocks down Stillwell Avenue there was no sound left and Coney Island was an alien place. For a minute or two there was nothing. There were no cars along Atlantic Avenue, no people entered or exited Nathan’s and Deno’s Wonder Wheel was completely still.

Then there was a quiet whirring. The whirring was coupled with an almost inaudible bumping sound.

The sound slowly grew, and as it did it became connected to a small speck in the distance — an old Russian man in a motorized wheelchair.

He glided past glacially, the only thing in sight that moved, and eventually his shape began to shrink again until it disappeared around the corner of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs.

*

The old Russians sat along the wall, facing the ocean on the Brighton Beach part of the Coney Island Boardwalk.

After the tourists, vendors, freaks, dancers, bicyclists and clowns left for the winter they stayed behind, sharing the newfound peace and quiet of the boardwalk only with the homeless.

They sat perfectly still, looking straight into the sun and out to sea. All the tables and chairs from the restaurants had been removed and so they sat on benches and makeshift chairs made out of walkers. Not far from them, two homeless people engaged in a slow motion fistfight. Their indignation over whatever insult had started the thing was fast paced, put their dukes and bodies struggled to keep up, giving them the appearance of fighting in thick viscous liquid.

Some of the old Russians watched as the two languidly went at it. Soon the fight descended into lackluster wrestling and seamlessly, with no change in pace, reconciliatory hugging. Eventually they stopped completely and joined the others in looking out to sea.