34th & 31st Ave. (A Shrine)
There was a car accident on the corner of 34th Street and 31st Avenue in late November. A block from my front door, three people were killed, their remains taken away, covered by white sheets, leaving behind small piles of shattered glass, bent plastic, and metal parts. The next morning, a news crew parked on the corner.
Outside their van, a reporter in tall black boots and a red pea-coat jacket paced with a microphone. Make-up perfected, she looked hurried, frantic, trailed by a cameraman, as she sought a sound bite to confirm the tragedy. I passed them three times that day, and each time she asked me, affected, like an actress in real life, “Did you know the victims?” I would say no, scowling at the mercenary approach of the aging blond, her looks faded, her career, peaking at coverage of local fatalities. The wind blew her hair, and she pulled the strands from her mouth as she asked the same question to the man walking behind me. He shook his head.
It was cold the night I came home after the accident. I had missed the sound of the screeching cab as it broadsided the SUV, the screams of bystanders, the sirens, and the sinister chill of silence when it was over. By the time I passed the corner, the stop sign was surrounded with Latin prayer candles: each tall glass filled with bright wax, plastered with tawdry images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, a halo rising behind his arms against the cross. Flowers were tied to the post with strings, festooned with ribbon and wreaths. Pictures of the victims were taped to the cold pole:
*A mother and her daughters pose against a tan background for a cheap photographer.
*A young couple waves from a second story window lined with flowerpots.
*A man holding a martini waves with his arms draped over the shoulders of two women.
Discerning the victims was impossible. I sought an indication of mortality, but in this instance, there was an inscrutable difference between life and death. The photographs told nothing of the tragedy. If there had been only one, the face of the victim, I suspect it would have given off that aura, the sense we have after knowing—the quiet sympathy that comes with death.
Love letters blanketed concrete surrounding the pole and swathed the metal between draping bouquets:
“Mi amor, te echo de menos. Pienso en ti siempre.”
“Te quiero con toda mi alma.”
“Cada día te quiero más que ayer y menos que mañana.”
For months, the shrine has accumulated bottles of lotion, a string of ivy and ribbon, small wrapped boxes full of gifts. Fresh flowers are delivered and strung on Sundays. Weathered photographs are replaced with new ones. Brighter candles succeed the others and collect at the base like Japanese prayer sticks.
Notes and letters continue to be added as though the chronology of real time indicates some tangible presence, interactions contrived by absence:
“Feliz Navidad.”
“Feliz cumpleaños.”
One day, I noticed that the shrine began to breathe. Its shape personified, adorned by the trappings of human life: jewelry, hair ribbons, and necklaces dressed and decorated its expanding figure. Full cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee were brought to the foot of the post with a name written on the Styrofoam in a black Sharpie, “Para ____. Te quiero.” The shrine flourished, as though the the metal stop sign would one day loosen from its concrete base, conjured to life by each item and sentiment, it would begin to sway and lumber off to work, holding a cup of coffee, its hands born by the stems of roses.
Today there was a rainstorm, and, in the gutter down the block, flowing towards the city drains, I found the carcasses of withered flowers. Later in the day, the ribbons from the post had come untied. The Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups had been swept away by the street cleaners and many of the candles had tipped and fractured. I did not mind the shrine or its persistence. I did not mind this instant of quiet neglect. In the morning, it may come alive. I have watched it grow and die, a performance with the seasons.
