‘I’m Edwin, but you can call me Ed’

Battery Park, 10am

From now on, I have a special appointment with Ed every Wednesday at 10 am on the wooden bench facing the Hudson river.

“Are you going to be there next week?”, Ed asked me with pure joy in his eyes. I replied probably yes. My new friend seemed happy and so was I.

It all started with a common passion for squirrels. I saw Ed feeding squirrels with peanuts, six of them were gathered around his feet- squirrels aren’t aware that mass gatherings are prohibited in these times, lucky them- fighting for the biggest, crunchies peanut. “I order them on Key Food, it’s fancy but the squirrels love them”, he tells me. Ed confesses that he is not shopping at Gristedes or Whole Food anymore, Key Food is, for him the best alternative. “See those Oreo cookies, it’s 5 bucks for one box at Gristedes, I got two boxes for five bucks delivered at my place when I shop at Key Food, be careful Edith, be careful”, he tells me as if he was my grandpa.

Ed seats on the same bench every day- except when it is windy- with his morning coffee. I can see his coffee with “milk and whipped cream” steaming from the opened reusable cup. My new friend is 76, he has lived in the same building on South End Avenue for twenty years. Before retiring, he was working at Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) on Liberty Street; “At that time, I was buying my morning coffee at Starbucks you know but now, I’m trying to save a little so I’m doing it myself and it’s even better”. With his kaki Levis cap, yellow and blue checked shirt and his black New Balance sneakers, he looks like a young hipster from Williamsburg.

We talk about how lucky we are to live nearby the water in such a busy city; Ed declares that the neighborhood was calmer before 9/11; he regrets that now tourists come here after their ‘Statue of Liberty cruise’. “Look at the boat here, this is another consequence of 9/11”, Ed shows me a U.S coast guard boat patrolling from Ellis Island up to Brookfield Place. I ask what they are looking for, “terrorists of course!”, he replies. Ed is part of this generation of American people who have survived 9/11. The terrorist attack has affected his career and his family and not a day goes past when he is not reminded about it. I tell him that I was 4 years-old when it happened so, for me, it is hard to imagine all the chaos.

Twenty minutes after I presented myself, Ed asks me for a second time what my name is. I say I’m Edith and that it is a French name, so it is normal if he does not remember it. “Of course, I remember it! You have the same name as Edith Bunker in All in the Family!” I tell Ed that I don’t know what All in the Family but that I’m happy to be the second ‘Edith’ he knows.

He explains to me that it is his favorite sitcom ever and that the character named Edith is also is favorite. “If you have the cable, you can watch it and next time we meet, we’ll talk about it!”

I do not tell Ed that I am not sure if I really want to binge watch an American sitcom from the seventies, I might only watch an episode or two just to see Ed’s happy face when he will realize that a 22 year-old French girl named Edith watched his favorite sitcom.

It’s 10:58. Ed finishes his coffee, grabs his walking stick and goes back to his apartment.