6:26 a.m. - 2023-01-21
NYE/NYC
There it all went. Jameson and Guinness, fried chicken and collard greens. Cans of lager, high-dollar gin cocktails and two dozen oysters. Bottled Budweiser...tequila, chips and salsa. Commingled testimony to thirteen-some hours of reckless indulgence, down the toilet. Most of it. The rest was in the vicinity. Or on my hand, which I'd clamped over my mouth as I bolted up the theater stairs towards the men's...
~ ~ ~
I'd taken the train up from New Jersey to spend a night out on the town before I headed back to Texas. A night spent out and up. This had become a bit of a tradition whenever I wrapped a gig there. One born (to some extent) out of economic necessity. Because while I love New York, it's a tough place to visit. The hotels are expensive and demand credit-card assurance etc. so fuck it I'd just stay awake instead. Close down the bars, crash an after-hours, grab an egg sammy as the sun rose and then, feet sore from walking and my liver on the ropes, I'd catch a train to Newark and sleep it off on the flight home. It was always nuts but yeah, throw New Year's Eve into the mix and things get exponentially wilder. And they did. There was a story behind every ingredient in the bilious bouillabaisse I'd just spattered across that toilet-stall. Too many to work into one journal entry, it turns out.I tried though, twice. Hitting the five-page mark on both attempts before realizing I had at least as many pages left to pen en-route to the destination/recollection that had inspired me. Because the night had been episodic. I'd bounced around Lower Manhattan like a pachinko ball: from Soho to Alphabet City, from the Westside to Times Square to The Bowery...every scene staged in a different location with a new cast of characters. And despite yours-truly in a recurring role as “besotted protagonist”, there was no story arc. No conflict...just a spiraling, bloated travelogue.
Some of this “bloat” can be attributed to the fact that I've never written about my life in NYC before, so I'm sitting on a fat observation-surplus. One that informs and compounds my decades-long appreciation of the city...just as modern Rome is built on the ruins of its ancient antecedent, my New York present is built on the memories of my New York past. And I lack the editorial rigor to deny these ghosts a voice... Clearly though, all this “insight” wasn't getting us any closer to our destination.
Which was where, exactly?
A brief moment yet to come. A snapshot morning memory, crystallized and captioned with lyrics from an Elton John song. That was my inspiration to sit down at my desk this New Year's Eve. This isn't uncommon; whether it's a sunset in the desert, a storm over an alpine meadow or a barge moving through the mist while I lay next to a beautiful stranger, it's usually the moment that motivates. “So why all the rest of it?” you might ask, “What gives with the jib-jab?”. Well...that's prose, isn't it? The framework both frames the work and is the work, but the line between context and content had become hopelessly tangled here. And attachment to the places and people I'd already documented was frustrating my attempts to parse it down to something readable. So I filed both drafts away. Chalking it up as an exercise...a fun night to recall, at least.
I revisited both yesterday, with the intention of completing one. Primarily for archival purposes...but something new caught my eye. A narrative detail I'd failed to consider: five years ago, upstairs from a swingin' dance-party/drag-cabaret show, I'd gifted my future-self the perfect edit point. A way to cut thirteen hours and countless scene changes out of the script...to get us within striking distance of that magic moment, where Elton John waited patiently for his cue. A way to metaphorically erase the better part of the evening by literally flushing the evidence down the toilet.
~ ~ ~
I tidied up as much of the stall as half-a-roll of toilet paper would allow, washed my face and headed downstairs.It was hours past midnight but the party-goers were paying the clock no heed, and the DJ was spinning away. He'd killed it all night, mixing danceable indie-pop between the burlesque instrumentals and campy torch songs of the performers' sets, and I'd told him as much. He was appreciative (and high) and we talked (shouted) music and he introduced me to his girlfriend (?) who was either the owner or the promoter or maybe they both were...all I know is that, whenever the mood struck either, they'd step behind the bar and pour us a round of shots. Given that the place was jam-packed w/hip professionals and artsy kids, all of 'em thirsty in their eclectic finery, I was as happy about not fighting the crowd as I was about the free booze. But as it turned out, you could have too much of a good thing...so I descended another flight of stairs to the exit.
The cold air felt good on my face. And as competition for cabs was fierce at this hour, I set out north from The Bowery on foot. I reckoned it was time for a cup of coffee.
~ ~ ~
Who could know this would be my last meal at Odessa? The pandemic that would shutter it for good was but a gleam in the eye of a baby, soup-destined, pangolin then. The diner was an East Village institution and, as one of the first restaurants I visited in NYC, a personal-history landmark. It was there, after a night spent in the louche limelight of the late-80's Pyramid Club, that I had my first pirogue.Some maps still designate the neighborhood as “Ukrainian Village”, after the immigrants who'd settled there. Settled there alongside Russians, Hungarians, Poles...Slavs of every stripe. And Odessa's menu bore testimony to their influence. American standards like tuna melts and Cobb salad shared a kitchen with blini, borscht and cabbage rolls. A cuisine that to this day reminds me of that smoke-filled dining room. Of those upholstered booths where outré club kids would vamp and gossip while behind them elderly immigrants (usually men in flat-caps, less-often grandmothers in batiks) dined in stoic contrast. Methodically cleaning their plates in silence...knowing that every breakfast was but a predicate for the guest-check. A document to be scrutinized and frowned-at as one counted out exact change.
They'd painted the place and scrubbed the nicotine-tar off the plastic plants but it remained otherwise unchanged. A raucous crowd, fresh from closing down the bars, filled the room with noise and laughter as black-vested waiters shuttled food out from the kitchen. I took a seat at the counter (where the likes of Jim Carroll, Keith Haring and countless Russian mobsters had dined before me) and turned up my coffee cup for service. If I'd known this would be my last order here I would have had pirogues again, to bookend my memories. But it didn't matter, whoever the new tenants were they moved happily into my recently-vacated gut, and it felt good to warm the old bones after a long walk. I sat there for the better part an hour, people-watching, chatting with the staff and drinking at least a pot of coffee before settling up. The clock read 5:15 AM at that point, I was running early.
I figured I'd wend my way through the neighborhood, keeping an eye out for any after-hours spots or parties before heading back towards Penn station. Not really expecting anything, and fine with the prospect of sleeping in the terminal 'til the first train left, but I didn't get far. One block, to be precise.
~ ~ ~
As would later be explained to me, bars in NYC can apply for a special holiday-license/dispensation whereupon they don't have to quit serving at 4 AM. This caught me by surprise, as did the bar that had received one. Doc Holiday's had been around forever but, despite the fact that it's located in my old stomping ground, I'd only been there once. 'Cause it's a dirtbag bar, and my ex-girlfriend (who'd introduced me to most of my NYC haunts) preferred beat joints.What's the difference between a “dirtbag bar” and a “beat joint”, you ask? Well...as someone who's logged too-many hours on too-many barstools, I could write a long essay (or a comprehensive travel guide) based solely on that distinction. For brevity's sake though: while both are always-rotten and oft-sketchy, dirtbag bars tend to have a white-trash element/association about 'em. So definitely not her scene. But she was long-gone and Doc's was open so I stepped inside.
The special holiday license had been a good investment, it seemed. The crowd was thirsty and, despite the hour, showed zero interest in slowing down. This may have had something to do w/the dude peddling party-favors at the end of the bar. A fellow that, even after I declined to sample the wares, wanted to talk. And talk. I suspect he'd been dippin' his beak in his own supply, but his braggadocios small-time hustler stories were unintentionally funny and of a different stripe than I'd hear back home. Plus I was drinking a beer at 6 AM so what the hell. And speaking of back home--Doc's calls itself a “Texas-style Roadhouse”, but the only aesthetic nod to that pretense is the music selection on the juke-box. A selection that this Texas-boy found a bit disorienting...shooting pool with a coke-dealer from Queens, listening to George Strait.
~ ~ ~
While I was thus engaged, a morning mist had moved in off the river; veiling the East Village in faint luminescence. I left the bar and set out into it, turning right on East 7th street, where seven or eight handsome couples materialized down the length the block ahead. It seemed that some New Year's Eve parties were still letting-out. Young men in confetti-flecked tuxedos walked arm in arm with young women in evening gowns, their heads resting on their lovers' shoulders, their elegant coifs framed-askew by plastic tiaras. Everyone proceeding without hurry, sated and silent...feet sore from a night spent dancing in seldom-worn shoes, perhaps. All of us making our way west towards the trains and taxis that would fetch us home. As dawn encroached, the mist brightened and changed hue around us...shifting from periwinkle to lavender to rose and then, as the street lights began to wink out, Elton John sat down at the tiny piano in my head:Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, sons of bankers, sons of lawyers, turn around to say good morning to the night...
Were the lyrics to that song a line-for-line literal narrative? No. Did they feel poignant and perfect in context? Yes. Yes...and their 70's vintage was perfect too. Because part of said context was the fact that I was twenty years older than the rest of our sidewalk fellowship, and the only one walking alone. I'd already been one-half of a handsome young couple, a few in fact, in this city and others. And I knew that whatever precious wonder the moment held, it was just that; a moment. That one of these couples might get home and argue about money. That one of these women could be cheating on her betrothed with a co-worker who was cheating on his in turn...or that one of these young men knew it wasn't going to work out but lacked the courage to say anything. And all of that was part of what made it wonderful and human: this intersection and juxtaposition of the real and the ideal. This war between our aspirations and inclinations. You see it writ across all that we create, and this city that I loved, from skyscraper to sewer, was a glorious case in point. So as New Year's Eve turned dramatically into New Year's Day, I turned around to say good morning to the night...
~ ~ ~
Because it was a holiday, and early yet, Penn Station was relatively empty. But there was a line in the restroom nonetheless. Three, actually. One for the urinals, one for the stalls and another off to one corner by the janitor's closet. Where a handsome older gentleman held court...and I presumed “older” only because the gray in his goatee and long dreadlocks betrayed him. Anyway, he was on his knees blowin' a dude. One of what would eventually be, judging from the line, several. (Although, depending on where he was in the queue, the guy who was already jerking-off might have left before his turn was up.)“Dang it New York”, I thought as I took the escalator up to street-level, in search of a dumpster to piss behind, “why you always gotta New York like that?”
