Gotham by Nick Earls Page A

parents, probably, will never go near festivals. The music would be wrong and the UV exposure unthinkable, the toilets, too. But the magazine readers will want to know how Nati Boi works and why he works. They have heard about rap and the culture around it and he will serve as anew proxy for his perplexing generation. That’s the promise we will make them when we flag the interview on the cover.
    Through the glass doors at the less conspicuous 59th Street entrance, there’s something golden about the light falling on the black-and-white tiled floor. I can’t tell if it’s a tint in the door glass or something they do with the light itself. I’ve never been inside, not once in five visits to New York since that first time. Above the double door there’s an awning with a brushed-steel look and ‘Bloomingdale’s’ on it, Os crossed like a Venn diagram waiting for content to be dropped in.
    There’s a security guard inside, standing side-on to the door and rocking on his heels, hands clasped in front of him. He’s gazing straight ahead, neither out nor in. It’s nine-thirty, an hour after closing and exactly when I’m supposed to arrive.
    I tap on the glass and he turns my way. He’s big and broad and his name tag says Lopez. He presses a button on the wall and the door lock disengages with a clunk. He eases the door open, but no wider than his hand.
    â€˜Yes, sir?’ This is another featureless night in a thousand to him, my face another featureless shape in it.
    â€˜Jeff Foster.’ I let a hint of American slip into my accent, so I only have to say my name once. It’s a habit, not an intention. ‘I’m here for an interview.’ I can’t say my interviewee’s name. I can’t say Nati Boi, even though it’s a safe bet that an S with a slash or two through it sounds precisely the same as one without.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’ This time it’s not a question. He draws back on the long brass handle and swings the door fully open. ‘Please follow me. They’re in our ‘At His Service’ section. Men’s personal shopping.’
    He keeps his hand on the door as it glides into place and locks behind me. He walks me through the silent store to the lift. Inside the store, the light is not as golden as it appeared from the street, though it still has a lustre to it. Somewhere, far across the shop floor, I can hear the hum and slap of a polisher buffing the black-and-white tiles. Behind the counter nearest us is a trolley, with fresh supplies of the store’s distinctive Little, Medium and Big Brown Bags.
    Lindsey bought a brooch on that first visit to Bloomingdale’s. That was not part of the plan. The dollar was low, our dollar against the American, and even the half-price theatre tickets we’d been lining up for weren’t cheap. We’d seen Matthew Broderick in a comedy, and a Ben Johnson play that didn’t survive the creative shift to a late nineteenth-century schtetl and a whole lot of kvetching. She came out with the brooch in a little brown bag with ‘LittleBrown Bag’ written on the side, and told me the bag was the main reason for the purchase.
    My mouth was dry from salt and stale pretzel. The guy at the stand picked up another pretzel in a square of white paper and took a handful of coins from his next customer. I wondered if that pretzel was stale, too, or if the others were all fresh, even warm. I had a ball of dry bread in my mouth. I felt like I’d been suckered somehow.
    â€˜They’re iconic,’ Lindsey said, holding the bag up and letting it swivel on its string handles. ‘These bags. Bloomingdale’s bags. A New York icon.’
    We had an argument about it right there on Third Avenue, this purchase made in the name of packaging at a time when all our money was being measured out. It was another big deal made out of nothing. I should have taken it in my stride.