New York, you seductive devil, how I wish I could leave you now. Days after the hurricane and after being nestled warm, shut in my apartment for a week, the thought of braving the cold, then braving the subway shuttle, subway shuttle to the shuttle bus to God, I hope I can catch a cab, only to go man an empty, lifeless Western themed bar near West 4th, terrifies me. Subways aren't going here today, we've been closed for a week. I know before I get there I won't be making any money. In the restaurant industry, everyone always has a reason why it's slow. "Oh you know, it only gets really busy here in the Winter. All the folks are out of town for the Summer." But honestly, who the fuck prefers enduring the cold? I suppose it's because New York City is built for the indoors. Unfortunately, I am not.
I pause now for a moment from writing, to pack me and my lovers laundry into a large tote that can only be carried with both arms, to walk it down the street, then down one more dark block in Bushwick, Brooklyn to start our laundry. I've put this off all day, because I'm scared. I wish I had a car. A washer and dryer. Are my domestic brain cells finally developing as a result of being engaged. Or am I just starting to realize how primitive and bleak this urban dream has become.
Not to be mistaken or taken to mock the recent plight of my neighbors, the homes shifted by misplaced water, entire trees that caved in the roofs of cars of hardworking family people, those left in the dark, cold without power, those dead by stroke of chance, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know not of this pure despair, but despair is the tide of the times. I have, been without work for a week, so has my fiancee. We will again, be very late on rent, being that we live on a pay, only day to day, left with a few twenties to spare that we call savings for a wedding, a van for touring, better gear. I testify, however, to longing.
I laid in bed all day today, if my friend from the burlesque world calls to say I have a ride to Coney Island to help clean up, I'll go. Til then, I'll remain here. In bed, where Chris left me and my cat. Waiting, drifting in and out of sleep, no calls, no text, my phone dies and I don't move to plug it back in.
I know I must get up at some point today to do the laundry before the laundromat closes, so I won't feel like a complete and total failure.
...You ever notice how the more times you hit snooze, the longer you sleep, the more times you wake up and decide to go back to sleep again, the more, wild, ridiculous, and evil your dreams become. Wrong sexual arrangements, seem vivid and normal, the worst seems to come alive as you move lucidly through your worst nightmares. Things you're even ashamed of in the privacy of your own mind. And these nightmares begin to ware on you and even reel you into their brand new themes and colors. Suddenly these strange apparitions could become more desirable, than the nothingness that surrounds you in the mortal realm. For, there you've become a breathing carcass on which the flies that have infested your home, come to rest and vomit. Why wake up now. To do laundry, I suppose. To make a nice boy proud, to feed your cats...
I don't have winter clothes. This is my third New York Winter and I still haven't accepted it. This morning, I opt to wear Chris's thermal. Something that probably cost all of $5, I could've bought my own anytime from then to now, but I haven't. I have three pairs of pants, one of which the zipper is broken and I hope nobody notices. I tell myself often this is temporary. But how many east coast winters will it take to acquire winter clothes.
...I remember, smoking joints in a cave in La Jolla, yards away from the lightly crashing waves, looking onto a sunset, passing around a bottle of Champagne, on a Wednesday of no note. I remember campfires among friends, telling stories, laughing hard, staying up til dawn, outside in an orchard. Driving through the redwood forest, winding roads, to have a picnic, to smoke from an apple. The vastness of Tennessee, it's rolling hills, passive snow, then crisp light air, green grass and orange leaves. The PCH. I miss you and I love you...
The other bartender brings friends in last night to help fill up the hollow bar. "Why don't you tell your friends to come in?" The third bartender asks me.
"I would, but, I don't have any friends.And my fiance is at work too." I respond with grave honesty, somehow with a smile.
Sometimes, as a bartender, to get a customer to stay (if they are at the bar by themselves), you have to expose a little more of yourself much faster than you usually would in a normal social situation. Whoring your soul out, for a few more dollars, and because, you too, are very bored and want someone to keep you company as you drink. In my case, anyway, who I am is unrecognizable to anyone, anywhere, my identity lays in limbo, as nothing I do or say will ever be retained or matter, it is the lowest and most common form of paid entertainment. The bartender.
I tell the patrons what I tell you now, " I wish I was at the door of a plane, checking for air traffic, looking down at the landing area with a parachute on my back, I wish I was skydiving. I wish I was driving through the night, making our way to the next gig, in a city we don't live in. I wish I was singing on stage. I wish I were swimming. I wish I were driving. I picture myself, when I was sixteen, chain smoking cigarettes, singing, driving, smoking. All Day Long. Dreaming of places like New York City. I remember my drive up to Hollister, CA two nights before my one way flight from LAX to JFK. My last AFF skydive. On my way up, I pulled over at a rest stop in the middle of the night, and in my moleskin notebook. I wrote, 'I hereby dedicate my life to love and adventure. Nothing else is worth a thing. I will settle for nothing else.'I completed my last AFF skydive, was congratulated by my mentors, the boys that taught me how to jump out of planes, we drank heavily and I woke the next morning for a 5 hour drive, I packed one suitcase and two backpacks and flew 5 hours to New York City. When I woke up in Stuyvesant Town the next day, before I opened my eyes, I felt so perfectly happy. Still, in my dreamlike state, it happened so fast. I thought I was still in Hollister, CA. I thought I had missed my flight."
That was two and a half years ago.
See now, something is tethering me to a force unnatural. And I lead myself here. How strange, my sense of direction is so rarely wrong, I see, I've been asleep too long. I miss having friends, I miss my other love. Adventure.
If I had my way, New York, I'd leave you right now, you dirty girl.
My laundry is done, I must retrieve it before I'm forced to walk into the familiar scene in which my neighbor is rearranging my panties and Chris's socks.
I'll sign off now with a song that I didn't write, but I swear was part of my DNA encoding in the womb:
"Babe, baby, baby, I'm Gonna Leave You.
I said baby, you know I'm gonna leave you.
I'll leave you when the summertime,
Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin'
Leave you when the summer comes along.
Baby, baby, I don't wanna leave you,
I ain't jokin' woman, I got to ramble.
Oh, yeah, baby, baby, I believin',
We really got to ramble.
I can hear it callin' me the way it used to do,
I can hear it callin' me back home!
Babe...I'm gonna leave you
Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you
Oh I can hear it callin 'me
I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?
I know I never never never gonna leave your babe
But I got to go away from this place,
I've got to quit you, yeah
Baby, ooh don't you hear it callin' me?
Woman, woman, I know, I know
It feels good to have you back again
And I know that one day baby, it's really gonna grow, yes it is.
We gonna go walkin' through the park every day.
Come what may, every day
It was really, really good.
You made me happy every single day.
But now... I've got to go away!
Baby, baby, baby, baby
That's when it's callin' me
I said that's when it's callin' me back home..."
-Led Zeppelin
