The G. There’s a lot of us, boisterous, uncontained. Loud voices discussing things sure to frighten other passengers. Ejected by steam into the vomit-coated street. Turning in place. Standing in the chill and talking; the little one shivers like a wind-up penguin and tells us she can kill a man with her bare thumbs. We shove wadded-up bills at the ticket-seller en masse and wind down and down and down to seats. We laugh. We cringe. We laugh some more. The doors open up and we spill back onto the street. Too early to go home. He has a psychic McDonald’s sense, always points to the nearest McD’s. We buy shakes for the thirsty ladies and a happy meal. He doesn’t get the wrestler. The dog’s bone is tiny, frail plastic and sure to be lost by the end of the night. Where to? Where to? The national debt clock whirls. Forsaken we file back down into mahogany dusk. Lovers rest head-to-shoulder. We offend and are loud, then the brakes scream and we are home.

The original National Debt Clock was erected in Times Square, in 1989, when U.S. debt stood at 2.7 trillion dollars.  Seymour Durst, real estate developer, created it to show Americans how their government was doing, debt-wise. In the mid-90’s, debt rose so fast at one point the computer behind the clock crashed. In August of ‘99, however, a frugal Democratic Congress began paying back the debt and the clock began counting in reverse. This was so emotionally jarring for many New Yorkers that Durst’s son disconnected the clock September of the following year (fun fact: then vice-president Al Gore outlined a plan to eliminate the national debt by 2012; his running opponent Bush also promised to eradicate the debt but failed to set a specific deadline).

The clock was switched back on two years later as debt rose and in 2004 it was replaced by a digital version in the Financial District, which we passed on our outing. At the time of this writing, the national debt stands at $9,246,939,934,027.54.

Sources: a CNN article from 9/7/2000 which can be found at http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/09/07/debt.clock/

and a Russian paper article translated into English called Pravda dated 3/30/2006. It can be viewed at http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/30-03-2006/78085-nationaldebt-0

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