The handball wall was the only wall on the Lower East Side that was loved. Every other wall on the block was something to lean against or something to write on or something between you and the cold. The handball wall was the destination. You did not pass the handball wall on the way to somewhere else. You went to the handball wall because the handball wall was where you were going.

The wall was concrete and the concrete was painted blue and the blue was chipped and the chips were a map of every ball that had hit the wall since the last time the city painted it and the city painted it never. The wall painted itself through impact. Every ball that hit the wall took a chip of blue with it and the chip fell to the ground and the ground was covered in blue chips and the blue chips were the confetti of a celebration that never ended.

The ball was a Spaldeen. The Spaldeen was a pink rubber ball that cost a dollar and bounced higher than any ball had a right to bounce. The Spaldeen was the official ball of the Lower East Side the way the baseball was the official ball of the suburbs. The suburbs had diamonds and outfields and dugouts. The Lower East Side had a wall and a Spaldeen and two men who would rather die than lose a game of handball to each other.

The game was simple. Hit the ball against the wall. The other man hits it back. The ball hits the wall and comes back and hits the wall and comes back and the rhythm is the rhythm of two men refusing to quit. The game did not end when somebody won. The game ended when somebody's wife called them home for dinner and even then the game did not end. The game paused. The game resumed tomorrow. The game had been pausing and resuming on that wall since the wall was built.

I played guitar next to the handball wall on Houston Street and the sound of the Spaldeen hitting the wall was the metronome I never asked for. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The ball kept time and I kept melody and the two men kept score and the wall kept everything. The wall held the blue paint and the ball marks and the score and the sound and the sweat and the arguments and the wall did not mind any of it because the wall was loved and loved things hold everything.