Get off A Train in Washington Heights and called Lauren T. She was like, yo, what up, I’m over here, and I was like, yo, where the hell’s over there? This apartment dance ended with her hunting me in the street. Looming before us was the George Washington Bridge, where the Goblin killed Gwen Stacey, and its bus terminal, a monstrous structure reminiscent of a fortress built by Heinrich Himmler on the dark side of the Moon. Hey ho, never be still, Lauren brings me inside. I eat and read an interview with Norman Mailer in the Paris Review. Apparently, he had problems with frequent urination. This information infects me for the rest of the night & so I have to pee every 30 minutes.
We wander Washington Heights, one of those amazing places in Manhattan with varied elevation. Now I’m up, now I’m down, now she’s high, now I’m low. It’s like the first 5 tracks of Mechanical Animals. We buy the world’s cheapest bottle of wine, a fruity South African number called Goats Do Roam, and, Christ, do they ever. Back at Lauren’s apartment, I’m screaming about something, we’re watching the 2000 A&E adaptation of The Great Gatsby and all I can think about Nick Carraway is, “Jesus, wasn’t this guy in Knocked Up, and when he’s gonna end up with his pants off looking at a portfolio?” (He never does.) The DVD starts skipping. I fall off the couch, convinced that I possess a direct psychic link with the player, and that if I talk to the machine with enough feeling, it will behave. I’m wrong. We miss a significant amount of Gatsby. That’s OK– he still gets shot by an Oakie-Ozark from the ashheap. C’est la guerre.
We sleep, or try to, but there’s a knife in my back for every day I’ve known her. So, like, two. This is a wine/MacDougal Ale House problem– insomnia. I force Lauren to watch another DVD, which I don’t remember the name of, and then I’m getting up and trying to sleep and failing. All night. Madness. Lauren handles it with the moxie you’d expect of a girl from Canarsie. Eventually it’s morning and she’s kicking me, demanding that I rise. She’s been up for hours. I shower. We walk to her job, and then I’m back on the A Train, heading to safety zone of life beneath 23rd Street.
50 minutes later, at West 4th, standing in front of the former Waverly like Frank Mills, I call Sam Tregar, author of the rivetingly titled Writing Perl Modules for CPAN. We had tentative plans for lunch– but it’s something like 12:30PM, and he’s only on the train from Westchester. I call Kaia Wong– she suggests that I head to 32nd, as she’s got lip balm and a book for Freaktard Harrison. I walk to The Giant Bagel Shop on 13th & University, a deli I’ve been frequenting since I was 17 and first moved to Manhattan. I eat.
Walking University to Union Square, a terrible urge takes me. I’m like Ulysses staring at the distant shore of Ithaca, I’m being directed by Fritz Lang on Capri. First I’m thinking it, then I’m yelling it.
“OKAY, NEW YORK, OKAY. YOU WANT ME, PAL? YOU WANT ME? I’M YOURS! I SURRENDER! YOU CAN HAVE ME. BUT YOU HAD BETTER SET THIS THING UP, BUDDY. YOU HAD BETTER FUCKING SET IT UP, PAL. YOU FUCKING OWE ME, NEW YORK. YOU FUCKING OWE ME.”
