THE SIXTH BOROUGH

"Once upon a time, New York City had a sixth borough." "What's a borough?" "That's what I call an interruption." "I know, but the story won't make any sense to me if I don't know what a borough is." "It's like a neighbourhood. Or a collection of neighbourhoods." "So if there was once a sixth borough, then what are the five boroughs?" "Manhattan, obviously, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx." "Have I ever been to any of the other boroughs?" "Here we go." "I just want to know." "We went to the Bronx Zoo once, a few years ago. Remember that?" "No." "And, we've been to Brooklyn to see the roses at the Botanic Garden." "Have I been to Queens?" "I don't think so." "Have I been to Staten Island?" "No." "Was there really a sixth borough?" "I've been trying to tell you." "No more interruptions, I promise."

     "Well, you won't read about it in any of the history books, because there's nothing - save for the circumstantial evidence in Central Park - to prove it was there at all. Which makes its existence very easy to dismiss. But even though most people will say they have no time for or reason to believe in the Sixth Borough, and don't believe in the Sixth Borough, they will still use the word 'believe.'

     "The Sixth Borough was also an island, separated from Manhattan by a thin body of water whose narrowest crossing happened to equal the world's long jump record, such that exactly one person on earth could go from Manhattan to the Sixth Borough without getting wet. A huge party was made of the yearly leap. Bagels were strung from island to island on special spaghetti, samosas were bowled at baguettes, Greek salads were thrown like confetti. The children of New York captured fireflies in glass jars, which they floated between the boroughs. The bugs would slowly asphyxiate-" "Asphyxiate?" "Suffocate." "Why didn't they just punch holes into the lids?" "The fireflies would flicker rapidly for their last few minutes of life. If it was timed right, the river shimmered as the jumper crossed it." "Cool."

     "When the time finally came, the long jumper would begin his approach from the East River. He would run the entire width of Manhattan, as New Yorkers rooted him on from opposite sides of the street, from the windows of their apartments and offices, and from the branches of trees. Second Avenue, Third Avenue, Lexington, Park, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth...And when he leapt, New Yorkers cheered from the banks of both Manhattan and the Sixth Borough, cheering the jumper on and cheering each other on. For those few moments that the jumper was in the air, every New Yorker felt capable of flight.

     "Or maybe 'suspension' is a better word. Because what was so inspiring about the leap was not how the jumper got from one borough to the other, but how he stayed between them for so long." "That's true."

     
     "One year - many, many years ago - the end of the jumper's big toe skimmed the surface of the river, causing a little ripple. People gasped as the ripple traveled out from the Sixth Borough back toward Manhattan, knocking the jars of fireflies against one another like wind chimes.

     "'You must have gotten a bad start!' a Manhattan councilman hollered from across the water.

     "The jumper shook his head, more confused than ashamed.

     "'You had the wind in your face,' a Sixth Borough councilman suggested, offering a towel for the jumper's foot.

     "The jumper shook his head.

     "'Perhaps he ate too much for lunch,' said one onlooker to another.

     "'Or maybe he's past his prime,' said another, who'd brought his kids to watch the leap.

     "'I bet his heart wasn't in it,' said another. 'You just can't expect to jump that far without some serious feeling.'

     "'No,' the jumper said to all of the speculation. 'None of that's right. I jumped just fine.'

     "The revelation-" "Revelation?" "Realisation." "Oh yeah." "It traveled across the onlookers like the ripple caused by the toe, and when the mayor of New York City spoke it aloud, everyone sighed in agreement: 'The sixth Borough is moving.'" "Moving!"

     "A millimetre at a time, the Sixth Borough receded from New York. One year, the long jumper's entire foot got wet, and after a number of years, his shin, and after many, many years - so many years that no one could remember what it was like to celebrate without anxiety - the jumper had to reach out his arms and grab at the Sixth Borough fully extended, and then he couldn't touch it at all. The eight bridges between Manhattan and the Sixth Borough strained and finally crumbled, one at a time, into the water. The tunnels were pulled too thin to hold anything at all.

     "The phone and electrical lines snapped, requiring Sixth Boroughers to revert to old-fashioned technologies, most of which resembled children's toys: they used magnifying glasses to reheat their takeaway; they folded important documents into paper aeroplanes and threw them from one office building to another; those fireflies in glass jars, which had once been used merely for decorative purposes during the festivals of the leap, were now found in every room of every home, taking the place of artificial light.

     "The very same engineers who dealt with the Leaning Tower of Pisa...which was where?" "Italy!" "Right. They were brought over to assess the situation.

     "'It wants to go,' they said.

     "'Well, what can you say about that?' the mayor of New York asked.

     To which they replied: 'There's nothing to say about that.'

     "Of course they tried to save it. Although 'save' might not be the right word, as it did seem to want to go. Maybe 'detain' is the right word. Chains were moored to the banks of the islands, but the links soon snapped. Concrete pilings were poured around the perimeter of the Sixth Borough, but they, too, failed. Harnesses failed, magnets failed, even prayer failed.

     "Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher.

     "'It's getting almost impossible to hear you,' said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan as she squinted through a pair of her father's binoculars, trying to find her friend's window.

     "'I'll holler if I have to,' said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough, aiming last birthday's telescope at her apartment.

     "The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: his yo-yo string, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother's pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had seperated his great uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string.

     "The boy asked the girl to say 'I love you' into her can, giving her no further explanation.

     "And she didn't ask for any, or say 'That's silly,' or 'We're too young for love,' or even suggest that she was saying 'I love you' because he asked her to. Intead she said, 'I love you.' The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body." "Gross!" "The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there.

    "Some, like that boy's family, wouldn't leave the Sixth Borough. Some said, 'Why should we? It's the rest of the world that's moving. Our borough is fixed. Let them leave Manhattan.' How could you prove someone like that wrong? And who would want to?" "I wouldn't." "Neither would I. For most Sixth Boroughers, though, there was no question of refusing to accept the obvious, just as there was no underlying stubbornness, or principle, or bravery. They just didn't want to go. they liked their lives and didn't want to change. So they floated away, one millimetre at a time.

     "All of which brings us to Central Park. Central Park didn't used to be where it is now." "You just mean in the story, right?"

 

     "It used to rest squarely in the centre of the Sixth Borough. It was the joy of the borough, its heart. But once it was clear that the Sixth Borough was receding for good, that it couldn't be saved or detained, it was decided, by New York referendum, to salvage the park." "Referendum?" "Vote." "And?" "And it was unanimous. Even the most stubborn Sixth Boroughers acknowledged what must be done.

     "Enormous hooks were driven through the easternmost grounds, and the park was pulled by the people of New York, like a rug across a floor, from the Sixth Borough into Manhattan.

     "Children were allowed to lie down on the park as it was being moved. This was considered a concession, although no one knew why a concession was necessary, or why it was to children that this concession must be made. The biggest fireworks show in history lit the skies of New York City that night, and the Philharmonic played its heart out.

     "The children of New York lay on their backs, body to body, filling every inch of the park, as if it had been designed for them and that moment. The fireworks sprinkled down, dissolving in the air just before they reached the ground, and the children were pulled, one millimetre and one second at a time, into Manhattan and adulthood. By the time the park found its current resting place, every single one of the children had fallen asleep, and the park was a mosaic of their dreams. Some hollered out, some smiled unconsciously, some were perfectly still."

     "Dad?" "Yes?" "I know there wasn't really a sixth borough. I mean, objectively." "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "I can't remember. Which?" "Do you know what those words mean?" "Not really." "An optimist is positive and hopeful. A pessimist is negative and cynical." "I'm an optimist." "Well, that's good, because there's no irrefutable evidence. There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to." "Like what?" "Like the peculiar fossil record of Central Park. Like the incongruous pH of the reservoir. Like the placement of certain tanks at the zoo, which correspond to the holes left by the gigantic hooks that pulled the park from borough to borough." "No way, jose."

     "There is a tree - just twenty-four paces due east of the entrance to the merry-go-round - into whose trunk are carved two names. There is no record of them in the phone books or censuses. They are absent from all hospital and tax and voting documentation. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence, other than the proclamation on the tree. Here's a fact you might find fascinating: no less than five percent of the names carved into the trees of Central Park are of unknown origin." "That is fascinating."

     "As all of the Sixth Borough's documents floated away with the Sixth Borough, we will never be able to prove that those names belonged to residents of the Sixth Borough, and were carved when Central Park still resided there, instead of in Manhattan. Some people believe that they are made-up names and, to take the doubt a step further, that the gestures of love were made-up gestures. Others believe other things." "What do you believe?"

     "Well, it's hard for anyone, even the most pessimistic of pessimists, to spend more than a few minutes in Central Park without feeling that he or she is experiencing some tense in addition to the present, right?" "I guess." "Maybe we're just missing things we've lost, or hoping for what we want to come. Or maybe it's the residue of the dreams from that night the park was moved. Maybe we miss what those children had lost, and hope for what they hoped for."

     "And what about the Sixth Borough?" "What do you mean?" "What happened to it?" "Well, there's a gigantic hole in the middle of it where Central Park used to be. As the island moves across the planet, it acts like a frame, displaying what lies beneath it." "Where is it now?" "Antartica." "Really?"

"The sidewalks are covered in ice, the stained glass of the public library is straining under the weight of the snow. There are frozen fountains in frozen neighbourhood parks, where frozen children are frozen at the peaks of their swings - the frozen ropes holding them in flight. Livery horses-" "What's that" "The horses that pull the carriages in the park." "They're inhumane." "They're frozen mid-trot. Flea-market vendors are frozen mid-haggle. Middle-aged women are frozen in the middle of their lives. The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilt and innocence. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying. And, on a frozen shelf, in a closet frozen shut, is a can with a voice in it."