Dan's Papers - May 6, 2008

On Friday afternoon, I walked the few blocks from our apartment in Manhattan to a barbershop I frequent on the north side of 88th Street just east of Third Avenue. They give me a nice haircut, a beard trim and a shave for less than $20. I think I look great. I give them a big tip. Everybody's happy. I think this is a secret find in the city, and I'm telling you about it, but let's keep this to ourselves. Okay?

Anyway, the barber finished up and I left and headed toward home, beginning by walking west on 87th toward Lexington, with the intention of continuing south when I got there. But at Lexington and 87th there was something going on.

The police were there. There were five police cars and they were setting up wooden sawhorse barricades along the curbs of 87th. And though people were still crossing the street to get to the south side of 87th, I was held up because I stopped for a moment to watch two police helicopters hovering right overhead, and by the time I got myself re-oriented, there was this big phalanx of police cars coming down 87th Street, but the wrong way. This is a westbound street. They were coming eastbound.

What was going on? It's busy around 5 p.m. out on the sidewalks. Some people were pushing through and crossing the street. Others, seeing what I was seeing, stopped. And then there was talk. It's the Pope. It must be the Pope.

"This is the most important day of our lives," a woman next to me said to her husband and two grammar school-age kids.

In the next five minutes, the police stopped all traffic on Lexington. They did this by driving the police cars right out onto the crosswalk that goes across Lex on the north side, and then parking them there bumper-to-bumper. The cars weren't going to be going through that.

A few minutes later, they did the same thing on the south side of Lexington. I couldn't think of a reason for this at first, except that it now made a passageway across the avenue for whoever was coming. And then I realized that in the event anybody tried driving UP Lexington the wrong way on the street, they wouldn't get through either.

The crowd was now about two people thick behind the barricades on both sides of the street and growing. A policeman on a motorcycle came roaring down westbound for a minute. Then some big gray box vans came in a group of three going eastbound, accompanied in front by another motorcycle officer.

They all had their lights flashing. From this point on, all traffic coming down 87th had their lights flashing.

"Is it really the Pope?" somebody asked.

"I'd bet my life on it," a man next to me said.

Nobody seemed to know which way he would be coming from, whether the right way down 87th Street, which would be westbound toward Fifth, or the wrong way down 87th Street, which would be Fifth toward the East River. People were looking every which way.

Now there was a formation of eight motorcycle policemen with black helmets going westbound. Then there were these big black Lincoln Town Cars going eastbound with the flashing lights not only on the top but in the grillwork too.

After that, there were big black SUVs, six of them in two rows of three that came down west to east from the Fifth. Everybody was craning their heads, first one way then the other.

"You sure it's the Pope?" a man asked.

"Absolutely," a woman said.

I looked west down 87th toward Fifth. There was a change. There were police cars parked bumper-to-bumper south to north on Park. Nobody was going past that. My guess was that somebody coming up Park would be rounding the corner up there to come down 87th. Or they'd be going up 87th to turn left at Park.

A man walked over and asked one of the officers about who was coming. But he got no answers.

"Serious business," the man shrugged as he came back.

Now the pace picked up. There were black Town Cars, three of them in a row, each with the flag of some country that wasn't America on the front fenders above the headlights. I peered in as they glided by, flags fluttering. Nope. No Pope.

"Is he going to be in the Pope Mobile?" somebody asked. Nobody had an answer.

And now it was becoming a parade. There were lots of cars now turning onto 87th from up at Park. He's coming! There were five big black box vans in a row. There was an overly wide white motorhome that occupied almost the entire street.

And then, after a pause, there came the longest phalanx of motorcycle policemen I had ever seen in the city of New York. There was, at the front, a single motorcycle policeman all in white. He had medals and gold braid on his shoulders, and he wore dark sunglasses with a white helmet on his head and he held himself ramrod straight on his motorcycle, or as ramrod straight as you could doing that. Behind him were two motorcyclists in black police uniforms side by side. And behind them, all with their lights flashing, were rows and rows of motorcyclists, maybe ten rows in all, each of four officers and each in black uniforms and looking very serious, and they made the loudest racket that you have ever heard as they went by.

I thought, I didn't know there were this many motorcyclists in the city of New York.

The motorcyclists crossed Lexington and headed east, and now you could see that almost everybody on both sides of the street were confidently looking west to see who would be rounding the bend at Park next. The roar of the motorcycles began to fade away. And now you could hear the helicopters again.

A woman near me was holding a little girl of about three. "This man is responsible for all the churches everywhere all over the world," the mother said.

"Got your camera?" a woman asked.

"I'm just so excited," a man said.

The cavalcade was rising to its climax. A squadron of 20 police cars, two by two, with all their lights flashing floated through.

Then came another huge squardron of black SUVs, another 20 vehicles I think, and we all looked through the tinted windows in the back.

"Is that him? Is that him?"

And then, after a slight pause, which opened a brief gap, there came three black SUVS all by themselves with flags fluttering on the fenders.

"It's HIM! It's HIM!" somebody shouted.

He was in the middle one. There was a driver and a police officer with an earpiece in the front. And then in the back seat, a man in full white religious regalia next to another man in full red religious regalia.

"It's the Pope! It's the Pope!"

"Did you get a picture?"

It was only a split second view of him that I got. I hold it steady in my mind. He was not waving. He was not looking out and smiling. He was looking straight forward, probably thinking of wherever it was he was going. The man in red was doing the same thing.

More motorcyclists and box vans and SUVs and Town Cars came by after the three SUVs did, and I remained with all the other people right there on the curb behind the barrier, taking it all in. What an entourage he had. What a mobile home he had. What a bunch of other officials he had. Soon, the parade of vehicles became fewer and fewer. It was over.

"He BLESSED us!" an older man said.

People began to move. Cameras were put away and cell phones were coming out. Everyone wanted to talk about what just happened.

"You will remember this for the rest of your life," a mother told a girl of about eight.

Now we knew it really was over. Down the street came a moving van with Tel Aviv Moving Co. on the side, and below a squiggle of white spray paint. And behind that, a yellow taxi cab.

Things began to return to normal. The police cars blocking Lex got moved. The traffic began to flow. The spectators began to walk down the sidewalks again. The only remnant of all this was everybody talking excitedly. It had been quite a 15 minutes. And then there was just one last swoop of a chopper overhead, and that was it. I crossed 87th Street, turned right on 86th, and headed for Fifth and home.

"Looks good," she said, when I arrived there. "They did a good job. You had to wait?"