The Yellow Ladder

This is New York. You sit in your coffee shop at lunch in about the same seat every time and you order about the same thing on certain days.
"The chef salad today?" asks my regular waiter because it's a Monday,
"Diet Coke?" I only have to nod as he waves his order book.
"Okay, Johnnie-boy" and he is off to two other tables.
Johnnie-boy.
No one else calls me that, but hey, this is the neighborhood, so what the heck.

His name is either Juan or John or something his boss finds unpronouncable like Ysidro. The Diet Coke is always fizzy and the salad arrives (no dressing, no cheese without me saying) before I finish reading the second editorial.
(Don't you read the Times or your hometown paper from the back page of the first section? I do.)
Though JuanYsidroJohnnie is spinning between five tables, one occupied by six very tough looking NYPD detectives, he somehow zooms by by my fourth or fifth bite to see if everything is all right. 'Tis or is immediately adjusted. Once, the salt shaker was filled with a solid mass of crystals.
"Oh, my God!!," an ashen-faced Ysidro yelped as if the table was on fire... .


I'm telling all this as another example of how this city lulls you into routines. Your world here is in a little village, regular, usual and unchanging and then, you look across the street at the windows above the Pick-a-Bagel and all you see is a yellow ladder..

It's empty. The space is vacant. And you can't remember what had been there before. What was there?

Accupuncterist?
Apartment Rentals?
Used dresses, er, uh,I mean, Vintage Clothing?
All doing business one day, living in the routine of the city, and the next day just a yellow ladder.

The city doesn't wait long to let a business know if it's going to be open for long.
Burgers and Cupcakes. That sounds like a really good idea, right? Um. It lasted about six months.
Super Pita? Lasted about six weeks.
Veggie Dogs?? Still there. Unbelievable. Veggie Dogs.