counting backwards

Milk of Magnesia

I think I fell asleep on the ferry. At the very least, I was in that semi-lucid state between sleeping and waking. I was keenly sensitive to the lapping tide of the New York Bay, and the couple $4 whiskey shot/Genesee beer combos I had at International Bar toward the end of the night were splashing around uncomfortably in unison with the water. I thought I was going to hurl.

Once the boat docked, I zombie-walked through the terminal and up the ramp to the bus. The S51 is the most direct route; and thanks to the usual bus driver, it’s lightning fast. At 4 a.m., the usual driver is a man, seemingly 35-40, with a barbell piercing in his right eyebrow. He gets the hybrid bus moving, too. The bus doesn’t stop, as much as it pauses at each stop as we rocket down Bay Street. Red lights are merely suggestions.

But last night, the driver was different: a matronly woman. She drove at a careful speed and came to gentle, courteous stops. Most remarkably, she announced upcoming stops over the loudspeaker with a cheerful voice. When it came to my stop, she asked me, “Is here good, or do you want me to move up?” As if she knew where I lived. “As far up as you can go,” I said, and she took me all the way up to the corner. I thanked her, and so did my stomach.

The River Styx

I have a ferry wait time limit: never more than a half-hour. In the salad days before the end of summer, I’d hop off the N at Rector Street and belly up to the bar at Ulysses for a drink or two to kill time before the next boat. Nowadays, If I have to wait an hour for the boat to dock at Whitehall, I’ll just continue into Brooklyn and transfer to the S53 at 86th Street.

This is the dreariest of trips, especially in the wee hours. I have to transfer to the R at 59th Street in Brooklyn, and there’s no telling how long it’ll take for the R, relegated to meager Bay Ridge shuttle status at that time of night, to show up. The only bright spot is that the delis on 86th are still open, and they make a mean sandwich.

Last night, the N had dropped me off with 35 minutes to spare. This time, open air won out over a late night trolling the tunnels. I walked upstairs to sit on the patio behind the neon Staten Island Ferry sign. I like to watch the ferry come in at night. It seems to emerge out of nowhere when it swings around Governor’s Island. I opened the side doors of the terminal and saw a couple sitting on a bench—a man and a woman. I thought the man looked like Lou Reed from behind. When I took my seat on the neighboring bench, I realized the man was David Johansen from the New York Dolls.

Coming up on 3:30 a.m., Lower Manhattan was even quieter than usual, but I couldn’t make out their conversation. (I’m a chronic eavesdropper. I’m not as ashamed of it as I should be.) The lady had long black hair and a nice laugh, which she flashed often during their dialogue. Thought I couldn’t make out what he was saying, Johansen’s voice had a vampiric tone—dark and hollow. Between drags of his cigarette, the only word that rang clear was “fascists.”

I entered the ferry alongside them. As soon as I got on the boat, I turned on the ramp and headed downstairs so I could stand outside. When I did so, I was facing Johansen and his lady. She was smiling as she propped him up; he wore amber sunglasses and had the pallor of the walking dead.

Quiet, This is a Library

After the Mets game last night, I’d just transferred onto the R toward Whitehall. A large, jolly black man saw my hat and shouted about the Mets’ extra-inning victory. He said a walk-off walk doesn’t really count, but I told him I’d take it anyway.

Further downtown, an old white entered the train and sat kitty-corner to our conversation. He wore a suit that may have been as antique as he was—a sort of dusty dark blue—and large, round wire glasses. The metal buttons on his jacket sleeve were tarnished. His pale red thinning hair was brushed back and to the right of his large forehead, splotched with liver spots. When he sat, he buried his pointy nose into a magazine. He reminded me of my old elementary school vice principal, except entirely joyless.

The train pulled into the black man’s stop, and he continued to speak with me in his boisterous manner. He stood at the doors closest to the old white man, and the black man kept talking even as the train rolled came to a halt and the doors hissed open. So rapt he was in what he was saying, the black man didn’t even notice that to his left, the old white man looked up from his magazine and fixed him with a glowering look, and muttered at him, under his breath.

The black man exited the train, and the old white man returned to his magazine, and paid me no mind.

Bulls and Balls

The more I wander lower Manhattan, the more I love it. Right now, there seems to be construction on every block. I’m not sure what they’re doing, but I don’t know how they can make it any better.

Tonight, I was further uptown on the Bowery again at a club called Crash Mansion. There was construction there too: They were paving the roads, and the smokers outside were drenched in a cloud of tar steam. The stench was thick, and as I paid the door person admission to the club, it seemed to get thicker. It made our exchange somewhat agitated. She rifled through the cash box for change of my 20—it was a $5 cover—and stood up as she did so. My eyes began to tear, and she became more anxious.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to try to close the door…”

“Has this been going on all day?” I asked.

“It’s been goign on all week,” she answered mournfully.

Downstairs, the stink was only peripheral. The club was rather nice; it looked brand new and oddly enough had the warmth of a hearth. There were stones that lined the walls that made me think of fireplaces. Maybe it was the mix of smoky tar and brisk temperatures. The setting, however, was not nearly as beautiful as the people gatherered, namely the women, who looked shiny, new, well appointed and thoroughly sauced on various liquors. I met up with a friend of mine who’s also a publicist for the band I was going to see. He was there with another person, and soon after we were joined by four others. One of the guys was a Brazilian transplant, who, upon learning that Spaten had provided beer for the event, pulled out his iPhone to show us pictures of his recent trip to Oktoberfest in Munich. He said the experience compared favorably to Carnivale in Brazil. One photo showed him happily posed in front of a breathalyze. He blew a 0.25. We all congratulated him.

Other bands played while we all talked off to the side of the staging area, but I don’t remember any of them. I was more into what the DJ was playing between sets. He’d dug out the original version of “Molly’s Lips” by the Vaselines. I’d only ever heard the Nirvana version, which I love, but I found myself singing along to the original before I even realized what it was. Now I know what Kurt was always raving about.

The band went on late. Hypernova (I’m not crazy about the name) is from Iran—where playing Western pop music isn’t such a good idea—but now live in New York, where you can pretty much do whatever you want. The singer was shaky, nervous, and didn’t really project his voice as a result. But the music was good: a dance-friendly, electric rock with big beats and buzzy guitars, and though the crowd wasn’t heavy, it was moving. The beautiful women sauntered away from their Red Bulls and blow to have it out on the dance floor. One such woman took it upon herself to encourage other people to get up off their asses and give them a good shake. She was tall with tight curves and had the look of a prized groupie. She rocked out to the band with the same fervor that her short pink dress clung to her backside. She hopped, wooed, spun, flailed her arms and spirited away whenever her friends fetched her so they could take shots. Later, after the band had finished, Pixie-in-the-Pink-Dress crashed hard. She stretched out her long legs and laid down on the couch with a forearm covering her eyes.

My friend gave me a ride down to the ferry terminal, but since I’d already missed the 1:30 boat (which has been a theme of late), I asked him to drop me off at the Bull. From there, I walked toward the cobblestoned section of Stone St., which is home to one of my favorite bars (basically because I miss the ferry a lot), Ulysses’ Folk House (which is a fancy name for bar, I guess). As I got closer, I noticed the street was surrounded by blinding lights, that I thought marked more construction, but it turned out that they were filming a movie or something. I asked one of the dudes carrying cable if the street was closed, but he said it wasn’t and that I could walk down it if they were between takes. As I got to the corner, I heard the director shout, “Roll sound!” so I sat back and watched the take. Two actors walked toward the camera where I was standing, but the lights at the end of the street were so blinding, I couldn’t make them out.

Luckily for me, the Ulysses also has an entrance on Pearl. I swigged back a pint of Guinness and a shot of Jameson, for just $11.50. A victory for sure, but the best part was, I actually made it back to the terminal in time for the 2:30 boat. When I got dropped off at the Bull, one of the passengers said that he hated Lower Manhattan because everything closed so early. And he’s right. When I wander around the area, it’s like a ghost town. There’s not a soul except construction workers, secruity guards or the odd dogwalker/drunk dude looking for vanilla extract. But I guess even ghosts need a place to drink.

Bucks Short

I’ve gone into the city every night this week so far. The reason is more coincidence than anything else. A friend had a two day layover through Sunday and Monday, and today began the CMJ festival, which brought out another friend from California. It’s been fun, but tiring. People always act shocked that I’ve come out “all the way from Staten Island,” but I always respond that it’s not that far. It’s not on the way there, but it does feel like forever on the way back.

Last night, I sat outside a bar on 11th St. in the Lower East Side and watched as someone tried to get into their apartment. A roommate had set the chain on the door and though he had the key, he was unable to get inside. The lights were off, and it was pretty late on a Monday night. First, he armed himself with a pebble, but was unable to hit the window as his throws bounced off the stone sill. He then found some cardboard tubing from out the trash piled up against the neighboring building. My friend and I cackled as she smoked her cigarette. Eventually, a pedestrian took notice and joined in audience with us. We explained to him the situation. When the guy across the street finally got the attention of his roommate, he took a bow, and we gave him a round of applause.

Inside, I had good conversation with friends, colleagues and people I’d just met. It was a good night.

We cut out of the bar around a 1:30 a.m. It was a gray area as to whether I should head to the ferry or not. Leave now, wait forever, hang out for a bit longer, run the risk of missing another one. I was enjoying the company I was in and opted for the later, and ended up in the West Village in a nice apartment. It’s a beautiful area of the city. Around 2, I began to stir, but my friend asked if I was sure I’d make the boat. I was convinced to stay, but I really didn’t need that much convincing. A fresh beer was in front of me. At about 2:45, we were all pretty beat and dozing off to Ronin, which is a movie I’d like to see the whole way through. I figured I was a lock to make the 3:30 ferry, but the 1 train took forever, and I arrived at South Ferry a minute after the doors were closed. I hiked to the McDonald’s on Water St and ordered a Quarter Pounder, and sulked around Lower Manhattan until well past 4.

Tonight, I went to a club called Annex where three bands played. It was free, too—a definite plus. I saw Chairlift, Violens and Amazing Baby play; neither of them were all that bad, but none of them really turned me on either. Violens had a lot of techincal problems, Amazing Baby seemed like the most buzzworthy, but I thought they seemed more concerned with being awesome than playing a good set. Maybe they just need time to fill out, because I thought their songs were promising. Chairlift was probably my favorite of the three. They sounded dark, cool, mellow, but there was a lot of warmth in the lead singer’s voice. It wasn’t all that radical, but it was enjoyable enough, and they performed well.

After the show, a few of us went downstairs because we heard there was free vodka, and there was, but there were also a lot of creepy people dancing to “Womanizer,” so we left, drinks in hand, before someone got shanked.

At that point, I was pretty tired of trying to fit in with scenesters. I had my sights set on the 1:30 a.m. ferry, but like the night before, I miscalculated and ended up at the terminal at 1:31 a.m.—just in time to see the doors close. I wandered around Lower Manhattan and the Financial District. I walked up to Stone St. I love the look of that part of the city, and reading all the historical builiding plaques. A drunk man in a business suit came up to me, his facial growth maybe a day fresher than mine, and asked me if there were any super markets in the area. I told him I wasn’t sure if there were. He said he needed vanilla extract, because it was his daughter’s birthday the next day and she’d be disappointed if she didn’t have a cake. He asked me again if there were any supermarkets and I said I hadn’t seen any. As he walked off, he asked how all these millionaires could live in the area without any supermarkets. I said they probably ate out a lot.

I walked up to the stock exchange and then down Broadway to Whitehall past the Meryl Lynch Bull and got back to South Ferry with 15 minutes to spare. I thought about a lot of shit, I guess, that I was thinking of writing down, but right now, I’d rather go to bed.