New York’s mean streets are no laughing matter these days, even for famed satirist David Sedaris.
L’Upper East Side who wrote his way to fame with bestsellers like “Naked” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” opted to stay in the Big Apple when the pandemic hit, testifying to Gotham’s descent.
“Normally, in New York, one in 200 people you meet is crazy. Now it was more like one out of two,” he wrote in his latest collection of personal essays, “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which hit bookstores May 31.
Sedaris gathered material for the book on walks around town, preferably in the wee hours.
“I started going out after midnight and taking walks because I felt like I didn’t have to wear a mask after midnight,” he told the Post this week. “It was a time when you had to wear a mask in the street. And I thought, ‘Well, I don’t meet anyone, so I don’t see why I have to wear a mask.’
Not all encounters were print-worthy.
There was one night last summer at Park Avenue and East 72nd Street when a stranger got a little too close to be comfortable.
“There was a woman around the corner. She said, ‘You want some nice and tight p—y?’
“And she said, ‘Give me some of that dk,’ and she grabbed my penis.
“And I said, ‘I’m gay!’
“She said, ‘I’ll fuck you the a- then!’
“And I thought, ‘With what?'”
Another “disturbing” contact with a stranger occurred on Seventh Avenue in the 1950s West.
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“Just when he got next to me, just when we were face to face, he raised his fist and wanted to punch me in the face,” Sedaris said.
“And then a fraction of an inch from my jaw, his fist froze then moved in slow motion and just brushed my chin.”
The comedian got serious when he opened up about the city’s misguided approach to the mentally ill.
“It’s a real problem in New York and you’re doing no one a favor by saying, ‘Look, you’re free to defecate on the street and take a nap on the sidewalk. They deserve to be treated better and they need to be in an institution. The street is no place for them,” the 65-year-old said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
The prolific author, who has written 13 books – three of which have been published during the pandemic – attempted to write a story about the issue, but thought better of it, realizing readers might say, “You blame the victim.”
Sedaris, a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, who moved to Manhattan in 1990, hasn’t given up on public transportation either.
“The thing is, if a mental patient pushes you in front of the train, it’s nothing personal… but you’re still dead,” he said.
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