Brooklyn, 1973

I've lived in New York City my entire life and have never been to Coney Island. I've been close. My Grandmother lived a few blocks away. She had these old clocks that ticked like time bombs. She said they were always wrong because of salt in the ocean air. The fact that salt could fly and alter time only mildly interested me. It was how she existed in that apartment with the constant ticking that really consumed my curiosity. I wished for other sounds. Maybe a television. My parents would sit at her table, eating rugulah, listening to her passionate stories. Her hands would flail and her jiggling arm flab would force a giggle from my mouth at the worst moments. I loved my Grandmother. She would call my parents 'children' and offer us tongue sandwiches. By the end of our visit her voice would be hoarse and she would have wept at least once. And when we would leave I'd imagine her in that apartment with no television, just the ticking of clocks that were always wrong.