GOWANUS
By Hannah Harlow
I’d take a cab if it was dark, but it is only dusk and I cannot justify the expense. My apartment is just on the other side
of the canal. My husband, waiting at home, would say my safety always justifies the expense: Here, I’ll give you the
money. But it is not even his money to give. I work to pay off these loans before they are due.
Walking down Third Street in Brooklyn west from Park Slope toward Carroll Gardens, I pass over the bridge of the
Gowanus Canal. Below, the brown water mourns its current long gone. Through a break in the solid fence there is a
chemical company or a gas plant or maybe a construction company, its concrete buildings blowing smoke. Debris in
the yard: broken-down trucks, industrial pipes, rusted sheet metal, broken booze bottles, and puddles of water with
oily rainbow surfaces obscuring whatever might lie below.
An old black man walks his bicycle toward me, but he walks on the dirt path to the side of the bridge, into the tall
grass, and instead of crossing the bridge, he disappears beneath it. I pretend not to see and I tell myself that I am
not scared. I don’t want to know who else lives under there and who might come out to search my empty pockets.
A second look to the right reveals a red shack nestled in the midst of the company’s other buildings. What must live
in there with no locks and no electricity and still hope to keep out looters? There is smoke coming out of the chimney.
Our next place will be a house, my husband tells me, and it will have a fireplace and a dishwasher and, “if we’re
lucky,” a washer and dryer. He says “if we’re lucky” the way a parent tells a child that Santa will come “if you’re
good.” I try to be good, but there are no cabs on this road, no cars at all, and rent is due at the end of the week.
By Hannah Harlow
I’d take a cab if it was dark, but it is only dusk and I cannot justify the expense. My apartment is just on the other side
of the canal. My husband, waiting at home, would say my safety always justifies the expense: Here, I’ll give you the
money. But it is not even his money to give. I work to pay off these loans before they are due.
Walking down Third Street in Brooklyn west from Park Slope toward Carroll Gardens, I pass over the bridge of the
Gowanus Canal. Below, the brown water mourns its current long gone. Through a break in the solid fence there is a
chemical company or a gas plant or maybe a construction company, its concrete buildings blowing smoke. Debris in
the yard: broken-down trucks, industrial pipes, rusted sheet metal, broken booze bottles, and puddles of water with
oily rainbow surfaces obscuring whatever might lie below.
An old black man walks his bicycle toward me, but he walks on the dirt path to the side of the bridge, into the tall
grass, and instead of crossing the bridge, he disappears beneath it. I pretend not to see and I tell myself that I am
not scared. I don’t want to know who else lives under there and who might come out to search my empty pockets.
A second look to the right reveals a red shack nestled in the midst of the company’s other buildings. What must live
in there with no locks and no electricity and still hope to keep out looters? There is smoke coming out of the chimney.
Our next place will be a house, my husband tells me, and it will have a fireplace and a dishwasher and, “if we’re
lucky,” a washer and dryer. He says “if we’re lucky” the way a parent tells a child that Santa will come “if you’re
good.” I try to be good, but there are no cabs on this road, no cars at all, and rent is due at the end of the week.
New Hampshire Writers Flash Fiction
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