This is Harlem, Denzel.

9:30 AM, Sunday morning: Bopping along to Common at New York Sports Club, it hits me. A ton of bricks, too loud crashing down making rubble on the sponge-like gym mat. Last night on 7th Avenue. What a trip.

It's really Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard but that's about 100 syllables too many for most people to mouth. When we call it 7th, we forget it's Harlem.

We're talking about Harlem. Just south of 125th, more American than ever with the newfound presence of American Apparel.

9:30 PM, Saturday night: I'm watching Titanic on TBS. Rose and Jack have just had sex in the buggy. That sweaty palm outline! The trembling! Rapture!

Text message from a friend who wants to meet up for a drink. Do you want to go to Minton's on 118th and 7th?

Yes. Wait - text message language. ys its nr my place so taz kul.

I don't really text like that (in fact, I'm not even sure what that says, do you know?). I'm proving Jamie Lee Curtis' point. I'm whispering ever illiterate.

10:15 PM: I walk out to Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd and turn left, walk the three blocks to 118th.

This is going to be an easy walk. How could something crazy and fascinating happen in a mere three blocks? Genuine thoughts, my heels clicking on cement and broken glass.

Between 119th and 118th, I see a gentleman facing the curb, a van blocking his body from streetviews. The legs of a scaffolding monster separate us. I quickly glance toward him and back to the sidewalk ahead of me.

Pssst. Pssst. No. Someone turned on a faucet. Where? I turn around. The gentleman holds himself, his crotch, his thing and whizzes all over the van.

"Get overe here you! You wanna feel it! You wanna touch it! I want you to feel it. Right now. GET BACK HERE."

His urine still streaming as he screams toward me. Nobody on the street turns around. I am invisible and completely obvious at once.

I walk faster, I don't turn around. Clickclickclickclickclick across the street toward Minton's, on the west side of Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd, just inside 118th. As I escape from his calls, I think about what happened to me and JaneAusten (JA) Friday afternoon in Crown Heights/Bed-Stuy.

On Classon Avenue. Just past Fulton Street. JA crossed the street briskly talking of books, of good recipes we enjoy, of family members. All warmly, as JA is quite warm, very sweet, smiles well. As we step onto the sidwalk, a young man on a bike yells at us, "You betta give me a blow job! Yeah!" Emphasis^10 on "blow job," there.

"He was totally talking to us." Who else could he be talking to?

"What about the woman who walked out of the house?"

I looked at JA, eyes wide, soft voice. "I don't think so, honey."

"Oh, this place is not for us." Great assessment, JA!

CLASSOFF, baby.

As usual, I am early for my Saturday evening engagement. Sounds from tat-tattat-tattering cymbals and steal-the-show snare drums skitter out the open front door of Minton's and meet me on the street. I smile at the loud jazz music, as women breeze by me on their way into the joint.

Now, there's no one on the street except for me and a man hunched over the hood of a car. He's closer to Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd. I stare forward, my back pressed to the bar's exterior.

10:20 PM: Denzel wanders up to me and says something, nonsense. "Goodnightyou whatyou what. What." He wears a tan fatigue tshirt with moderately baggy jeans; a du-rag and a baseball cap turned backwards.

I spring from my casual stance and step toward the center of the sidewalk, a getaway pose, hands outstretched as if to say I didn't bring my weapons with me this time.

"No, what you doing?! You afraid of me because I'm a black man. You white women always so afraid of black men."

"Um. I don't know you, and I'm not sure why you're trying to talk to me, that's all. We're the only ones on the street and I don't know you." Very convincing.

"Well you'll excuse me, I'm a little drunk here and I had to walk that crazy old man into his house over there."

"Oh, okay." No really, Denzel.

"My father is co-owner of this place." He stays about four feet away from me throughout our conversation, smiles every now and then.

"Oh yeah? I've never been here before." Nervous, concealed well behind constant smile.

"Yeah where you at?"

"Oh, me? Where am I at? Well I live in this neighborhood, a few blocks away actually."

"That's cool."

"Yeah. There's a lot of whites up here. It's weird."

"What you talkin about? Don't you know you're white?" Very observant, this Denzel.

"Yeah, I know I'm white, but this neighborhood is historically black. Seems fucked up for whites to take it over." I cross my arms over my chest because I'm cold.

"Listen to me, as long as we can still build our things, I think it's okay." What a sage, this Denzel proves to be. "Wait, a second, you afraid of me? What's the matter with you?" Not limited to sage-like wonders, Denzel is also a master of reading body language.

"But what the fuck is up with American Apparel up there? Wait, what?" I uncross my arms, realizing his attention to cues. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Okay. Good. Yeah, that place is whack."

"Serious whack."

We start to discuss the economy and issues of national and global importance. I'm finding Denzel to be a fine conversationalist.

"My cousin lives down in Georgia and says they don't got no gas."

"Fucked up! What? Is that in the newspapers?" Outraged!

"Nah! You know, they don't report on that kind of thing." Denzel is onto the ways of the media.

"That's really annoying. What's even crazier is that people here think it's just not going to affect them, because we live in this bubble that is New York City."

"You're so right about that. Man, what the fuck. It's gonna hit us too, and then, well, then we'll just see what happens."

10:30 PM: My friend walks up to Minton's at last and looks at me askew.

"Oh hi! I've just been chatting with this gentleman here for a little bit now."

Denzel continues chatting about the economic downturn and misfortune of his family members in southern states.

My friend seems skeptical of Denzel. I'm not.

"I think it's terrible that we don't know about what's happening in certain communities in this country. So insulated."

"It is. You're right about New York too." Denzel smiles crookedly, shuts his eyes for a brief moment.

My friend looks at Denzel, then me, then says, "Um, let's go inside."

"Bye Denzel." He takes my hand for a moment and looks me in the face, nods goodbye.

Well, I didn't say Denzel, but he might have liked it if I had.