Philadelphia Freedom

The Italian Market

The air is thick with garlic oil musk. It’s the Italian Market, and I’m 12. We’re on a field trip. There are sprinkles in huge wooden barrels for sale. The sprinkles—“jimmies,” my friend Maura, who I won’t meet till years later, would say—are the translucent kind, blue and purple and green. They are frankincense and gold and myrrh. I get all three colors. I walk around the market, through the streets and under the green and red plastic tarps overhanging the shop fronts, for the rest of the afternoon toting flimsy plastic baggies full of sugar. I take the care with which one might carry newly won carnival goldfish. I feel like a rock star.

Pat’s

Fried onion and anger and haste; this is the flavor of Philadelphia cheesesteaks. It’s not just what they taste like, it’s what they are—anger and hate and cheese wiz and greasy meat. It’s beautiful, for some.

The warm buzzing electric red glow of the Pat’s sign draws you in like a moth. You stand in line, wondering what to order, although there are but very few options.

The men behind the window at Pat’s do not have excellent bedside manner.

They point to the menu and tap when one orders incorrectly. They will not even speak. They’ll scold you for ordering tomatoes. “Steak wit wiz,” is the only acceptable conversation. You get your steak, and the roll shimmers, translucent with grease. The cheese fries, crispy hot and covered in molten gold, make the trip worthwhile. The steak isn’t the best in town.

The Art Museum

The art museum is stunning, majestic, grandiose. It sits, stone-pillared, atop an intimidating height of stairs. Inside, treasures abound—it’s full of antiquities and armor and works by Pollock and Monet and Van Gogh. Van Gogh did this nifty thing wherein he utilized texturized paint so that it might cast shadows, natural shadows, when his work is illuminated.

You save running up the stairs for after you feel good and cultured. Rocky used to be at the top, but now his bronze likeness sits at the bottom of the stairs, arms raised in glory, fronted by tourists who want a photo with the Rocky Statue. You can’t believe they moved him to the bottom of the steps—what the hell is that?

Norristown

I’m on the stone apron outside my office in Norristown, Pennsylvania. It’s on Main Street—the absolute hub of commerce!—and I’m smoking a cig. I’m menstrual and fat and bloated and none too pleased. A man, working on the building, painting or some such, says, “You shouldn’t be smoking when you’re pregnant.”

I say, “That’s okay, I’m not gonna keep it.”

Puff, puff.

He does not look amused.

Old Original Nick’s

At the corner of 20th and Jackson streets is Old Original Nicks, a dive bar with the best damn gravy fries you’ve ever had. They slow roast their beef, you see, which stews unhygienically behind a glass wall at the bar. It’s under a heat lamp, like a blooming orchid might be, and it sings. The joint is small—real small; about ten tables in the back for four or so people a piece. You pull out a sticky wooden chair covered with years-old maroon vinyl and wait for your surly waitress to arrive. You order a Yuengling and gravy fries and wait. Mere moments later, the snaggle-toothed woman who you assume is fiercely loyal to her family and neighborhood plops your bounty before you—warm shredded beef with savory gravy atop French double-fried potatoes. You consider making this your last meal, after you commit your One Great Crime. You make a note to figure out what that crime might be.

Valley Forge

We’re 16 and Maura and Will and Dennis and I are in Valley Forge Park at 9 p.m. (It’s the suburbs—what else is there to do?). Will says, “I think we should dress up in antique clothing and white makeup one night and walk around some of the old forts so people think we’re ghosts.”

“We’ll get shot,” I say.

“It’ll be fine,” he conjectures. “We’ll be dead already.”

Manayunk

The hills, by God, the hills! Manayunk is known for its annual bike race, a grueling test of man vs. self, an occasion on which spandex-clad churn and huff up and up and up whilst Philadelphians look on with beers at 10 a.m.

Built on a hillside, Manayunk is perfect for goats and hipsters who enjoy pushing baby strollers uphill. My oldest childhood friend is one of these people, living in the neighborhood, eating vegan food, being happily married. We haven’t talked much since the baby came.

In Summation

That’s just a bit, of course, but that’s some Philly. That’s beauty and grease and diamonds-in-the-rough, stony-faced people who love their families and the friggin’ Eagles and throwing snowballs at Santa and liquid cheese. That’s home. That’s love, in a weird way, but—that love is freedom.