I spend my days below 14th St. and generally above Canal. I’ve had girlfriends. I’ve been in love. I’ve had my heart ripped out and handed to me by numerous women. I’ve done my share of ripping too. These are stories of my New York.
Lower East Side Summer 2004…
“I’ve got a girl for you to bang, she’s too tall for me. I wonder if you’ll be into it.”
“Who, who?”
“This chick that comes into my work all the time. She’s pretty hot, I feel like you might be into her.”
“Hook it up.”
“Next time she comes in I’ll text and you can casually pass by.”
My best friend was bar tending at this random spot in the West Village. So far it had been really good to him. There were countless older women and plenty of girls our age too. He was really making his presence felt on the other side of Broadway. Finally he was ready to share the wealth, someone over his 5-8 cutoff range, someone for me.
I remember that summer so well. I was getting to know more and more people in New York; maybe I was not universally loved, but I was starting to fit in. I smoked then, and I had this shitty one bedroom right in the mix near Ludlow Street. A twin bed on the floor, skateboard in the corner, and impromptu ash trays everywhere; it was too small and cluttered to ever really be clean. Dusty and messy, sure, but I can take messy. I never ate anything but take-out so it never got cockroach dirty. I can’t stand bugs so there were no dirty plates or food but I’d leave a pair of pants on the floor for two weeks without a thought. In those days (much like these days) I’d grab such pair of APC jeans or white Levis 501’s (The hot ticket for boys that summer) off the floor and head over to home base: Max Fish.
From The Fish I set out on my missions, scouring downtown for a girl with a great haircut and impeccable taste to complete me. I tried to make every loft party, every Wednesday at The Hole, and every event that seemed to matter. I’d even hit up posh Bungalow 8 occasionally. I was always ready to go anywhere the girls were. If worse came to worse there was always the Fish. In those days The Fish was not defined by the skaters that hung there; you never knew who would walk through its doors. There was always optimism, the feeling that any night could be The Night.
The more I immersed myself in the superficiality of nightlife and the downtown world, the unhappier I became. I’m not saying that I didn’t have a shit load of fun or make great friends. I did both, but on a deeper level I was floundering. A whale marooned in the shallow pool of Ludlow Street. Social creeks and rivers fed and drained my pool, but no matter what tributary I traveled I never found enough water, let alone the ocean I sought. In hindsight I could have gotten up at any moment, walked on water, on my own two legs. But at the time I’d decided to forgo bipedalism, opting to be the whale, to mire. And finding her, whoever she was, had become the answer to my mobility. The ocean. Freedom.
I was hooking up with lots of girls and making the scene friends, but at the same time I was letting my career fall by the wayside. My career was the whole reason I moved here in the first place, to fucking make it and leave my mark. I was on my way too, but I had lost my momentum and was letting it piss away, skipping work to go to the next Vice party or the next whatever. Going to the next Vice party is never not fun, and there is a comfort in smoking too much and feeling sorry for yourself, so for most of that spring and the first half of summer I had the time of my life. But in mid-July it started to go south. I remember one day staying up all night after watching Reality Bites. I just smoked and wondered when it would be my turn; where is my fucking Winona Ryder. Still awake the next morning I wandered to Starbucks on St. Marks. Dead tired but wide awake, I drank coffee and lounged on the forest green patio furniture. Chain smoking and watching the East Village head to the 6 train, I fancied myself as wasting away. I called an old friend who I’ve always depended on during crises of the heart. She assured me I would be fine and that, love happens when it happens. She suggested maybe sleep was in order. I agreed and headed home.
Days like this, where my desire for companionship clashed with the lingering misanthropy of my adolescence, became frequent. One word could describe me and my state on such days, actually two words: fucking and corny. Bring on the Morrissey, and the cigarettes, and the mopey bullshit. And always the searching, endless searching, looking for someone to make it all stop. So I could go back to work, get back to my life, out of the mire and end the fucking downtown merry-go-round. I wanted it to be like the movies, and the songs, and the books. I wanted to meet my her so bad, to quiet the subtle white noise I heard when I stood still.
My life was not a constant pity party though, I was still in the streets, having fun and chasing girls. Earlier in the week I had taken home this chick from the Fish, a goonie bird as we liked to call girls her shape. 5-10 or more with broad shoulders and sturdy legs, the kind of girl Carlos D of Interpol was famous for romancing. Even when they are pretty, which to me is often, or on the skinnier side of goon, there is something inexplicably goofy about these girls. Being tall does not make you one, neither does being of plus size. If you know goonie birds, you know one when you see one; it comes down to a kinda vibe. It’s no secret that I fucking love a goonie bird now and again, and this girl was goonie with a capital G.
I slept with her and afterwards she told me about the last guy she’d slept with, a dude from her gym who hit her during sex. And we’re not talking about the kind of slapping I get down with, she said he would pummel her as he came. A day or two later I was at Black and White where I ended up making out with one of my friends. Then someone I’d seen around for a long time had shown some interest, asking one of my friends about me. As I remember it, this was all happening at once.
Come by that chick is here…
