Jeffrey Stanfield

Manhattan

I only feel at home in Manhattan.
I only feel at home among those gargantuan glass and concrete shrines to excess. Only on those grimy, piss-stained streets do I feel at peace. The city filled with people who don’t know you, don’t see you, don’t hear you, don’t give a flying spinning skipping fuck about you. I lose myself in that city and forget my troubles. I walk from the theatre district through Chinatown pushing past vendors selling boot-leg DVDs of movies still in theatres and knock-off Rolex watches spelled with two l’s. I move through Soho pausing for a moment in mid-stride. Did Jeff Bridges just walk past me? I shrug and make my way to the Southside Seaport. I look out on the ocean turned brown from years of pollution. Tankers sail slowly by and I wonder what it must be like to be a dockworker.  I scan the faceless crowd looking for something or someone to fill the gap. The great thing about Manhattan is there’s always someone in a worse state than you. What I do for a quick pick me up in the morning is ride the subway.
It’s an adventure
On the E-train a scraggily, filthy, long haired hippy bastard sits next to me. He wears a long, gray trench coat with tears, rips and a hole in the shoulder. I have a sneaking suspicion he’s wearing nothing underneath. Maybe he’s waiting til the doors close and there’s no escape when he makes his big reveal. I slowly slide closer to the bar next to me trying to avoid any accidental contact. I pray to God, Buddha, Mars god of war, Shiva the Destroyer, and that god Bob Marley prays to ‘please let him keep his clothes on … and speed up this fucking train.’ I’m so preoccupied with keeping my personal bubble intact that I end up in Brooklyn.
I’m a New-Yorker even though I was born in Texas.
I can feel New York in my blood as if it were pulsing through my veins. Those streets and buildings call to me saying “You may just be another damn actor but you belong here.”