Ozone Avenue
Chapter One -“Escape From New York”
East Village, New York City, 1987
The apartment was finally empty, except for a Blockbuster 1987 wall calendar hanging crookedly tacked to the wall. The faint smell of bleach, vinegar, and Windex layers the air, mingling with the dog hair swirling in the afternoon light.
Twenty-something Zoe, her blue hair an electric halo against the dull beige walls, looks around. Buddy, the adorable mutt Zoe adopted at the pound, is asleep on the floor beside her suitcase.
“We gotta get out of here, Buddy, or we might die from the smell”, as she puts the mop into a nearby pail. Her gaze lands on a kitschy plastic Jesus light, its bulb flickering as though hesitating to glow. Zoe smirked.
“Hey, there Plastic Jesus,” she laughed, her voice echoing in the hollow space.
“It’s me, Zoe. You know, the one who only checks in on Christmas, unless someone dies, of course. Look, I need a sign. Something to tell me that ditching Manhattan for a college town in the middle of nowhere isn’t a giant mistake. Which I personally think, it is a giant mistake. Personally”.
The words hung in the air along with the smell of extreme cleanliness, which is next to Godliness, she thinks.
“Will you flicker once in agreement, and twice for no?”
Suddenly, a knock at the door startles Zoe and disrupts Buddy’s nap. Startling her as Buddy runs to the door, Zoe laughs nervously.
“Jesus! That was fast!” she muttered, walking to the door.
Zoe opens it hesitantly, to find a young delivery guy holding a pizza box.
“Zoe DeSivo?” he asked, smiling.
“Yeah, but I didn’t order pizza.”
“You’ve been evicted,” he said with a shrug, slapping a certified letter on top of the pizza box and handing it to her. “Pizza’s on the house. Call it a parting gift”.
“Thanks. I guess. What kind is it?”
“Half cheese, half pepperoni”, as he takes off.
“Cool”, she says flatly.
It was. A blessing in disguise, coming in the form of a mini life crisis. Only Zoe didn’t know it at the time.
The housing crisis in New York had tenants being evicted when the buildings went co-op, letting landlords ask under-the-table cash offers to secure the apartments. Zoe’s musician boyfriend, Josh, hasn’t had a job in months as she has been supporting them both, but it’s just not enough. Josh finally got a job offer. Only, Los Angeles was not in her playbook to move there. In fact, Zoe thought it was where you went when you sold your soul to the devil.
“Time to go, Buddy”, Zoe picks up her bag, drops the eviction notice into the waste bucket, and leaves with the dog.
Zoe exited the blue building off Avenue A and headed to the car, where Josh leaned back in the driver’s seat, drumming along to music. Zoe jumps in the passenger seat of Josh’s old car, pizza balanced on her lap. Buddy, her mutt, nosed at the edge of the box.
Josh drums along to his cassette tape music, completely absorbed in the beat. His easy grin was as unshakable as his messy brown hair.
“Hey! Where’d you get the pizza?” he asked.
Zoe shrugged. “Parting gift. Came with the eviction notice”.
“Ouch. So, are you going to be pissed off all the way to LA?” Josh laughs.
“There is a qualitative difference between pissed off and totally bummed out”, Jaime snaps back.
Josh winced but said nothing, letting the music fill the space for a moment before speaking again. Instead, he turns it up louder.
Zoe turned her head to stare out the window, watching the gray streets of the East Village roll by for what might be the last time.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t want to leave”, she said finally, her voice trailing off. “Especially not to Los Angeles of all places. I’ve told you it’s where your soul goes to die”.
“I play music for a living. It’s what I do. This is the first gig I’ve gotten in months, you know that”, Josh replies.
Josh sighed as they crossed Canal Street and headed for the edge of Soho.
“The thought of leaving makes me ill, and wanting a cigarette, even though I quit”.
As they passed through the Lincoln Tunnel, darkness ensconced her thoughts. Zoe found herself constantly in the dark, not knowing what to expect in a place 2,000 miles away.
“What would people think when they see my two-toned hair color and punk attire. Am I’m visiting from another planet?”
Josh snorted. “I think there are some cool sections out there. Look, think happy thoughts. Sunshine. Better apartment. Fast food. New start!”
“I’ll take dark and cloudy with a change in seasons, not ninety-degree heat all year round, thank you,” Zoe replied with a sardonic smile.
“Come on, give it a chance. Try to be happy”, Josh says, exasperated.
“Happiness seems a bit overrated at this moment”.
They lapsed into silence again, broken only by the hum of the music and the occasional bark from Buddy.
“They’re keeping my job open for me. Just in case”.
“Just in case what? I’m sure Blockbuster will survive without you, for many years to come”, Josh laughs sarcastically.
They drive out of the darkness inside the Lincoln tunnel into clear blue skies over the Hudson River. The car chugs up the incline of the highway as the skyline of New York City shimmers. Zoe silently cries.
“So... We’re coming up to all points north and south, and far away from Manhattan”, Josh says. Zoe says nothing, wipes a tear away.
“Can we go?” Josh asks patiently with a slight edge.
‘If we must”, Zoe shrugs.
“I start my new gig on Tuesday”, he sighs. “We kinda must”.
Josh turns up the music on the radio, REM’s “It’s The End of The World as We Know It”, as the car heads towards the sign U.S. INTERSTATE 80 WEST.