"New York in the Summertime"
So I started my journey up to NYC after a late night (ha ha) of getting to bed at about 12:30am or so - after stopping by to see Lucas and hang out a bit with him before leaving. Now, if you know me, you also know that 12:30 is not a late night time for yours truly. It becomes late when you have to be up at 4 to fly out at 6am. This too would have been fine, all in all, but my cat, Jackson, woke me up at 2am for whatever reason, and you know it took me a little minute to fall asleep again after all that. Basically it was a sleeples night, and my friend Josh was so kind to stay up all night to drive me to the airport at 5am. So I'm obviously a bit cracked out. I do my self check in at the not so bustling Nashville International Airport (said apparently in a Billy D. Williams voice, or so I'm told my reading of the sign on the way in is very Colt-45 in tone), and get on a plane to fly about 900 miles to the center of the earth, to my best friend, to a party, to some unsuspecting friends, to adventure untold. I get in to LaGuardia, and it's chill. I'm a bit tired (I nodded off on the plane, but wouldn't consider it to be significant sleep time) and meet Larry. He immediately gives me a huge hug and hands me a cup of coffee. Yes, we have an understanding. We drive to a nearby diner and get some breakfast. Diners being a bit scarce south of the Mason-Dixon (Waffle House does not count. Nor does random truck stop country kitchens that make bad eggs that make me feel like the scene in ALIEN when the creature jumps out of that dude's stomach), this is a welcome event, and I'm all about it. So from this diner in a Westchestery town, I call Lucas to let him know that I have indeed arrived, and I call Flynn. "Chris Flynn speaking," the voice booms from the cell phone in my ear. He's at work. "Hey! It's Erin." "Whhhhhatt?!" "Yeah, it's Erin." "What are you doing?" "I'm in a diner in Westchester sitting across from Larry Berkowitz." "Whhha whhha whhaaat?!" I toss the phone across the table and Larry explains the situation to an obviously shocked Flynn, and extends to him an invitation to the evening's festivities in the Village. Apparently, as I am told, he gets a resounding "Hell yeah!" as a response to whether or not he will attend the party. We eat breakfast, we trade stories about what's up in the life of, who is in the life of, what has been happening, etc. And it's great just to sit and eat hashbrowns and omelettes and swap stories. A guy in a booth down the way puts Sinatra in on the table operated juke boxes, and Larry strikes up a conversation. It's one of those classic moments that only makes sense if you know him. It's like when he and I broke a Lego Man in FAO Schwartz one spring and how we went to MOMA and he made the ticket girl smile just by being him. It's one of THOSE moments. We leave...we take a brief nap. We gather ourselves up. We head into the City. As we approach the proper neighborhood, we call up our friend Lex, who I haven't seen in ages -- probably haven't seen since we graduated college, and with whom I went to New Orleans on spring break gone haywire - but that's another story. I ring her up on the cell phone, and by misdirection, she thinks it's Larry calling her. Of course, I hadn't really let anyone know that I was going to be in town, and he told her he had a surprise guest in tow with him, who would remain nameless. "Hello, Lex?!" And my greeting is met with exuberent screams and giddy giggles. "Oh my god! Rin rin!" (I hadn't been called that in I can't tell you how long.) "Yeah, it's me. We'll be there in a minute. We're just parking the car." We park and go find the apartment that is right down in the Bowery, ring the buzzer and go up to a scene of a party to be...and the preparations are in progress. Lex meets me at the door in a big hug, as does her boyfriend Nick. "You look great!" and he returns to his decorating and hanging of speakers strategically. In a moment's time he comes back. "Hey! and he hugs me and kisses me on the cheek again. Sorry if I'm being rude and can't give you the attention you deserve." "It's fine." Lex and I bop around the apartment a bit, and hang out on the fire escape, which sports a kickass view of the Chrysler building, my personal favorite. Eventually Lex and I meet Marty and his fiancee, Amanda down at this Thai place, "Lovely Day," that has a cute Aussie waiter. We bullshit about things, eat some pad thai, and basically just hang out. Then we go down the block to this mad place called Rice to Riches, which is all about bizzaro flavored frou frou rice pudding. Really, I should have just gotten the traditional kind, because I like rice pudding. But I figured I might as well try something different and be a bit bold -- so I got banana coconut rice pudding, which was actually good, but very very rich. Lex got cappuccino and rocky road. Yes, even richer. We go back towards the apartment and eat our rice pudding on the fire escape, and the rice and noodles expand in my stomach, which I clutch at for the next hour or so, groaning. Larry and Marty go on a little run for alcohol and other party gear, and eventually the party is underway. People arrive, and I'm not much in a social mood in terms of meeting other new people, so there's a little Colgate contingent out on the fire escape. Eventually I spot out Nick P. on the sidewalk and scream hello at him, and then try to jump back into the apartment to give him a proper greeting. The night rolls on and on...I'm exhausted, and sort of want to get back to Westchester, but Larry has all kinds of hairbrained ideas about getting a hotel in the City and staying...but they are all very unfocused plans that make very little sense. And he is being so indecisive that I can't stand it. Eventually he has to get his car out of the garage and move it to the street and we sort of exchange some words tensely. I'm a bit irate because of his renegotiation of our plans and about Flynn's non-arrival at the party. I tell him just to go get the car, and that "the conversation is over now. Just get the fucking car." In between all this, I leave a slurry of nasty messages for Flynn and drink some strong vodka drinks. But the elusive Flynn does show up with a mystery man named Hank, who I am still a bit unclear about how he knows Flynn...I tell him I'd left him several mean messages. He suggests that he just erase them, but I say that he should give 'em a listen anyway. "The last one is particularly evil," I beam. He shoots me a concerned look. "It's something like, 'Flynn -- you'd better have a great fucking excuse, or I don't know if we're friends anymore' Click. Genius, you know?" He still looks concerned. But we hug and then the bunch of us start doing shots of black label off this ice luge acquired for the event. Strange. Round 3 or 3:30 the party starts to break up, and we stand in the street. Larry flings himself across a parked car...one that I miserably watched from above as it was parked earlier in the night. It took the man 5 or 6 tries to do a really awful parking job. First he was about a mile from the curb, he pulls out, then he's on the curb. This went on for an eternity. At this point of the night Larry is across the hood. We wander for a while -- Larry, Nick P., Christian, Emily, and Emily's friend (name?) to figure out the next move. Marty has left with Amanda to go back to the SCHOOL, and I have not been successfully courted to go with them. There was a minute or two that I considered driving out the Long Island and back and ok idea, and a time when I was going to crash at Lex's...but then finally decided to see where the evening would take us. To a bar? No. Where then? And then Nick P. revealed the most brilliant suggestion as to what to do. "Why don't we all go out to Coney Island?" Fuck yes. This would be it. Puzzled looks from Christian and company. Larry and I were sold instantly. He goes into a local market to procure coffee. This would be the splitting moment of the evening, and I can read it on every face there. We would part our ways as the result of this suggestion, but it is a welcome parting. This is how it is to be. We say our goodbyes, they hop in a cab, and Nick, Larry, and I head for the subway to take the Q all the fucking way to Coney Island. It's four a.m. Nick and I catch up mostly on the train, and Larry fades and bobs in and out of consciousness between stops. I can still never understand what the fuck the conductor on the subway is saying and we speak the same fucking language. It is not like the Underground in which you can hear "Next stop, Kings Cross" clearly enunciated over the P.A. system. It just sounds garbled and fucked up, and you have to read the sign when you get there to see if you need to jump off at that stop. We get to Coney Island and head immediately for the beach. The sky has already started to lighten on the train ride over, which is brilliant because the ride is mostly above ground, so we can track the progress of the sunrise against the skyline as we go. At the beach it's getting pinky orange, and it's lovely. The water is -- well, the most water I have seen in concentration in ages, and it's wonderful. I feel so goddamned landlocked in TN, it's ridiculous. And here I am in NY for the weekend, and I have seen the water, and I have sand in my shoes to prove it. Nick takes some shots at rocks and petrified driftwood with Larry's golf club that he'd dragged into the City, as we spread out a blanket on the sand. We sit for a while, and I just take in the scene and breathe deeply. We go over to the pier, where crazy people, as far as I am converned anyway, are fishing. It just smells bad and the fish can't possibly be good, but there is probably something zen and peaceful in fishing. Afterall, the fishermen are the only other souls on the beach other than ourselves. Coney Island is all but deserted...so peaceful. We walk the beach a bit more, and then head over to this 24 hr establishment we'd spotted out on our way in. I immediately head for the bathroom. Larry and Nick offhandedly ask me if it's clean as I reemerge. "What do you think?" I shoot back, and plop down at the table. It's about 7 or 7:30 in the morning at this point, and my body just feels fatigued. I order some bad coffee and an even worse bagel, and feel wonderful. Larry gets real breakfast, Nick some fries. At about 8 we head back for the subway, and hop it back to the Village. Nick and I talk a bit while Larry sleeps, but even I'm fading. We get back to the car, I give Nick a hearty hug, and we head back to Hartsdale, pumping "Float On" a few times in succession, as I announce stop lights to Larry by shouting, "STOP SIGN!," and at nine in the morning, we get home.
