Monday, 01 December 2003 | Permission to vandalize

It's totally untrue that New Yorkers are not nice.

Walking toward my apartment yesterday, I saw some 10-year-olds pounding a car with big sticks as if it were a piñata. Pieces of metal and glass were flying off the machine the way water flies off a wet dog, which clearly made the kids happy.

I slipped into my apartment and returned with my super 8 camera. The kids had stopped chipping away at the car, but they were still hanging around, their sticks resting on their shoulders like baseball bats. I didn't want to upset the boys or make them nervous, but figured that they were ten years old, after all, and didn't pose any major threat to me or my camera, that the worst that could happen is that they'd ask me to leave.

I began filming the car. The windshield looked like it had accepted a meteor; the only glass that was left was around the edges, and that was barely holding itself together into a pattern of tiny clear shards. The car itself looked like a crumpled piece of paper, which fit in nicely on my street.

As soon as they noticed me, the boys ran up to me and excitedly reported what happened in a single breathless run-on sentence: the guy whose car it is didn't want the car anymore and was beating on it himself but then got tired and said we could finish the job.

I asked them if they would do me a favor and continue beating the car for a few seconds more while I filmed them. They were wary and didn't want to be on film, but agreed to help me out. Without thinking, they slid their heads inside their jackets so that their shoulders disappeared and their faces were hidden, like little street nuns. They gave the car a few more whacks for my benefit, smiled and asked me whether that was okay, and had they beaten the car enough?

Really sweet, right?