STREET SKILLS

Hanging out in a folder I rarely visit, I happened to click on this.  I'll call it:

STREET SKILLS

I’m standing on the balcony horking up a good dollop of phlegm, snorting up my nose what I can gather, then hacking whatever’s in my throat, combining the mixture in my mouth and stirring it with some saliva into a gelatinous glob.  I gaze into the air beyond the railing, aim at a 45⁰ angle to counter the affects of gravity ... and I spit.

It’s a good shot … out about twenty feet, then continues its parabolic trajectory for another ten before landing on a dandelion… dripping… proud … a good spit.  An excellent spit.

Then I hear a high pitched snort next to me and there’s my four year old imitating me, her mouth open to an exaggerated gaping maw, making cackling sounds in her throat, her nose scrunched up, a twinkle in her eye.

“Go for it,” I say.  “Give it a spit over the side.”  She looks and spits, a miniscule whitish sliver  quickly dissipates into a gentle spray that disappears before it reaches the ground.  I need to teach her how to spit.

I remember my youth, some sixty years ago and Billy Smith who could spit a good three feet further than anyone on the block, teaching us the finer points of street spitting.  He would form his tongue into a tunnel, thus creating extra thrust the way a rifle barrel directs the expanding gas of an exploding bullet.

We’d draw a line with chalk on the macadam and edge our toe up to it like a basketball player at the foul line.  We’d grunt and hork and snort and bring all the phlegm we could muster into play, gather it, coddle it up and cup it in our tongue, take a breath and blow.  The pressure formed by the conjunction of tongue and lips would hold it for an instant and then let the missile go with a 'fathoosh'.  The mass of gelatine would sail into the still autumn air, soar beyond the manhole cover, and land in a skipping splash on the street.

We’d mark it.  We’d comment on it.  Then call the next contestant to the line.

Spitting on East 29th Street, Brooklyn was an art.  I’m grateful I can live in the country, in a house with a balcony overlooking a garden that accepts my bodily fluids without disdain, and a granddaughter to carry on the tradition.