Party City

Sometimes after waking up in a different boys bed I like to start my day with a side quest. Today I walk from The Photographer’s to buy bodega tulips then traipse my way uptown to get balloons. I’m typically loyal to the Balloon Saloon, but we’re shooting the Subway Surf Report at the Q stop on 69th Street so it’s off to
Party City. 

The Union Square Party City is cavernous, monstrous, an actual metropolis large enough to warrant its own time zone. But that brisk Saturday morning it was vacant: just me, a handful of cashiers, a grandfather with a gaggle of grandkids circling him like pigeons to bird seed. 

I want red balloons, medium sized, at least six. The grandchildren have enough balloons between the four of them to put on a convincing parade. The grandfather takes a mylar-sized pink balloon from the oldest girl. The kids form a semi-circle, an eager audience assembled in the Helium Inflation aisle. He inhales, holds it. Then he begins to sing Happy Birthday, the voice coming form his large, navy-cloaked frame a shrill little squeak. The children erupt, inconsolable, pure joy floating up toward the ceiling. For some reason I’m so touched by this moment, standing in line to inflate my now shriveled red balloons, that I feel tears coming on. It’s just us: a private performance. Such a human instinct—to inhale, to entertain. I notice the cashiers are just as touched, loving it, filming all the familial delight. Again, again!!! The kids scream.

“We love your grandpa,” the cashier says to the littlest boy. And then grandpa turns to me. “Sorry for the holdup.” I realize, then, who ‘grandpa’ is. I look down at my bouquet of wilted red latex, then back up into Alec Baldwin’s apologetic face. Just us and all that latex, all that unnatural light.