It was 3 AM and I was sitting at a bar downtown after hearing a band play. An old lady came in and sat on the stool next to mine. She ordered a water and was speaking with a old man on her other side. I guessed she was 85 years old, which intrigued me instantly given the time of night. She kept looking at me and returning to speak with him.
Finally she turned to me and asked my name. I replied, '“Morgan.” She nearly disagreed with me. She said I must change my name to Betsey and I’ll become very rich. She delivered the stern message repeatedly. When I left to go home, she said “goodbye, Betsey.” I remembered it clearly over the following weeks and months, now years.
A few months from that time I became friends with an older woman on the Upper West Side. She gave me a pair of black, fingerless gloves that belonged to her late friend, Betsey. Betsey was wearing them when they met.
This reminded me of a time a complete stranger deliberately verbalized a message to me in my first week in NYC. I was parking my car in Astoria and I stepped out of it onto the sidewalk. A man was passing me and as we made eye contact his demeanor changed: he looked surprised. He said “very lucky!” He pointed at me and reiterated “very, very lucky!” He seemed to speak little English. He did not stop to talk to me or try to say anything else to me, he just kept walking.
What to make of these interactions? Are they the ramblings of insanity or do they hold truths asking to be examined? I do not know. What I do know is that they remain stained in my memory with clarity. I’ve made a ritual out of wearing Betsey’s masquerade-like gloves on New Year’s Eve. They just seem to belong then. And with that, Happy New Year and on to 2022 we go.