T A B L E_T A L K Ever been greeted by the unwelcome wagon? Discuss prejudice abroad in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Want to read more by Pico Iyer? Click here to find his books at barnesandnoble.com ___________________   R E C E N T L Y Cold front By Mona R. Washington An ugly encounter on a Viennese metro colors a winter's day (01/12/99) Behind the red curtain By Jeffrey Tayler A night at the official Communist Party hotel in China leads to everything but a good night's sleep (01/10/99) This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news from across the globe (01/08/99) Mother load By Tanya Shaffer An invitation to stay with a woman's family in West Africa opens the door to more than her home (01/07/99) The men who moil for gold By J. Kingston Pierce A century after the race for the Klondike gold fields, a hiker traces the argonauts' northward course (01/06/99)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		New York serenade   AN EX-GOTHAMITE RETURNS FOR FIVE DAYS -- AND FINDS THAT ATTITUDE HAS ITS CHARMS BY PICO IYER - - - - - - - - - D A Y__O N E A cold winter's day: I fly into La Guardia. You need a ticket, I find, just to enter the baggage claim area. A large sign on every carousel warns, "Keep an Eye on Your Bags." Another sign on the wall advises, "For Your Safety -- Don't Accept Unsolicited Ride Offers." Next to it, a poster showing some friendly, welcoming faces says, "Don't Ride With Them. They're Breaking the Law." The messages go oddly with the bright framed prints saying, "New York Is Art," "New York Is Dance," "New York Is Heritage." Outside, in the chill, a Trinidadian helps me into his cab, and, taking instant note of my complexion, jams some Hindi film music into his tape system. What brought him to New York? "Greener pastures," he says, catching my eye with an ironic glint in the rearview mirror. "Do you still think the pastures are greener here ?" "Now I don't know, man. You know how it is. My ex-wife's here with my kids, and I don't want to be too far from them." Being a New Yorker (and of Indian origin, to boot), he proceeds to discourse on the difference between Hindus and Muslims, on the work of V.S. Naipaul, and on the joys of being held up at gunpoint twice in his cab and finding caches of abandoned drugs in the back seat. As we pass through Guyanatown, FDR Drive, the area around the United Nations, he discourses on cricket, the joys of aloo roti, the ghazals he plays on his harmonium. He quizzes me about my books, delivers a sociological lecture on Surinam, informs me that the Indian population of his native island is 42 percent. By the time we arrive at my hotel -- and it's not a long drive -- he's cranking out "chutney" -- Trinidad-flavored Indian music -- from his car, and I'm catching, above the crash of Indian instruments, an island voice singing, liltingly, prettily, "Everybody dancin' -- windin' up de place!" A couple of hours later, I make my way to Brooklyn, in the dusk, to see snow drifting across deserted streets. One could almost be in some tattered sepia version of Henry James' New York, I think, in this muffled light, with not a trace of cars or noise, and no buildings higher than two stories. Not even a shadow stirs in the gently falling snow. The signs around me, as so often here, recite words I've never heard before: "Paczki: Maskie-Lotnicze. Katalogwe." - - - - - - - - - D A Y__T W O "I'll be 85 May 5th," says an old guy in a Nathan's Hot Dog restaurant near Times Square, holding court before two other codgers and signing autographs for a trio of polite, standing Guardian Angels. "You know, I wrote that song for Elvis?" he asks them. "'I Wish I Knew it Was Christmas.' Now I wish I'd written, 'I Wish I'd Made a Million Dollars.'" The Angels go off, and he resumes. "You see this picture of me and Giuliani," he says, naming the mayor in his creaky, Damon Runyon Broadway whisper, and pulling a worn snapshot out from his pocket. "That's me. You see those guys? They're bodyguards. That's me. Me saying, 'Ladies and gentlemen, meet the next president of the United States.' "You see that? That's me. That's the bodyguards. See, I'm saying ..." As he talks, a tired black man slouches past, the red apron covering his body advertising the "Bare Elegance" topless lounge. "There is a 20-minute limit at each table," say the signs along the walls and, elsewhere, "Customers only will be buzzed into the rest-rooms." Inside these forbidden sanctuaries, rolls of toilet paper are suspended in creaking black slings made of garbage bags. Undeterred by the 20-minute limit, the former king of comedy keeps talking about the 1,150 hours of the videos of himself he has at home and all the TV shows he once graced. At a fancy bookstore on Fifth Avenue, a middle-aged man in a suit pushes aside an old woman in a hat. "You know, there's a line back there," he barks at her. She steps to the side, stunned, not sure how to respond. "Hey, don't touch me," he shouts at her as she gently taps at his arm. Outside the bookstore's doors, a woman in a mink lectures her tiny children. "If one of you guys loses a foot" -- they've been misbehaving in a revolving door -- "I want you to pay me a million dollars." Behind them, an absurdly cheese-shaped, wedge-thin truck cruises down the street, blasting out James Taylor songs to get people's attention. On its side, in block capitals, a sign says, "DO NOT PATRONIZE CITIBANK." Patronizing us instead, I think. I walk past an ambulance in the Diamond District, surrounded by black-hatted Hassidim, that says, "Hatzolah." I pass the Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery. I see Angry Monk Tibetan restaurant, Polish Kilbasy, "Buddy Booths" advertised on what is called, with touching hopefulness, the "New 42nd Street." Outside a bank, two tough white blonds (with a dog) are facing off four black guys (whom the dog has apparently harassed), screaming profanities at each other. "Everything's black," spits one woman in disgust. "I ain't gonna be no gigolo," counters the man she's harassing. In your face, as they say round here; out of my expletive way. N E X T+P A G E | Everyone's auditioning for a sitcom - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. 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