The Girl On Mulberry Street
by Larry Whitler
Title
The Girl On Mulberry Street
Artist
Larry Whitler
Medium
Painting - Digital Oil
Description
It was nothing more than a smile. Nothing, except that raw and deeply seated wiring within me. The fact that I was nineteen years old may have played a part in this, too.
But there I was on Mulberry Street in the section of lower Manhattan they call Little Italy. I was on the sidewalk just outside of my car. My 1970 Chevy Nova. It was not the coolest car on the streets. But then I wasn't the coolest guy on the streets, either.
I was in Little Italy to deliver some glass domes with dried flowers in them. Hey, it was a job. I worked in a warehouse in Brooklyn at that time and the boss wanted a volunteer to deliver three boxes of those things to this small shop on Mulberry Street. So I jumped at the opportunity.
I loved volunteering for deliveries because it got me out of the sweat shop. Besides, I had always loved lower Manhattan.
This was 1974. My car only had an AM radio in it and it was tuned to WABC which still played Top 40 hits at that time. I know, I know. How uncultured was I to be listening to pop music? You think I cared? Hey, in those years those songs made me happy, they vitalized me, they were the very things that my daydreams were made of.
But whatever daydreams I had were put on hold when I spotted that girl on Mulberry Street.
That's it! I saw her. I didn't speak to her, I didn't get her address, I didn't try to come up with some clever line, and I certainly didn't rev the engine in my Nova to impress her. (I don't think it was able to be revved!)
But I looked at her. I couldn't help myself.
And then, in a moment that has forever become embedded in my mind, she looked at me.
And she smiled.
Oh. My. God.
Yes. It was fleeting. Yes, it meant nothing (ya think?). And, yes, I felt like I had been caught.
But that smile zoomed across that cigar smelling street and pierced me right in my heart. Or somewhere.
My ambition at that time was to become a songwriter. It was in my car on the drive back to the warehouse that I began making up the words to a song I wrote called, "She Smiled."
That's the whole story. A dorky kid from Long Island, who had temporarily moved back to New York after his family moved to Florida, got a minimum wage temporary job at a warehouse in Brooklyn, and was stopped in his tracks by the beauty of a passing stranger.
And the dork I was then at 19 is the dork I still am today at 68. Only difference is now I'm painting pictures of pretty women instead of writing songs about them.
They say that after we die we get to review everything we did in our lifetime. I hope there's a pause button when I get to the part about the girl on Mulberry Street.
This is a digital oil painting made on an iPad using the Procreate app with the turpentine brush.
Uploaded
December 28th, 2022
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