(This piece was written on Sept. 7)
The Volvo is packed to the gills; a full carload of people—myself and three friends: Lasse, David, and Josh—and a full carload of stuff. We're heading east on Interstate 94 out of Minnesota and I can see Wisconsin across the St. Croix River. This is the first hour of a road trip that will culminate in Albany, New York, with stops in Chicago and Youngstown, Ohio along the way. The final destination, however, is New York City. From there we'll go our separate ways.
It's a perfect day, and as we pass over theriver and into Wisconsin, I can't resist. I lean forward and stick my head between the two front seats and look at Lasse, who's driving.
"Do you feel the Moment!?"I ask.
Lasse has just graduated and today is leaving four years of college and Minnesota winters behind, and taking his belongings with him—which occupy most of the remaining space in the station wagon.
He laughs. "I feel a moment. I don't know if I feel the Moment. Why is this moment any different from any others?"
"Because Minnesota's in your rearview mirror—for good,"I answer. "This is it. Macalester is a memory."
"I don't know if I believe in the Moment."
He fails to get it. This is a Moment.
* * *
It is getting close now. I can feel it. The crowds, the sights,the noise, the commotion, the excitement, the rush, the sweat Éthe fear. I'm looking out the window at the Hudson River rushing by, only the river itself is moving slowly; the train is the one doing the rushing. Rushing, so that we can get to the City,where we can then get onto the subway and rush some more and then get out onto the street and rush some more.
This will be my first time returning to New York since fleeing it one year ago, after a school year spent failing in my quest to be a musician. I think back to my dramatic exit: An overnight packing job; weaving a Ryder truck through the back streets of Queens the next afternoon; whooping in jubilation as I crossed over the Throgg's Neck Bridge and out of Queens, only to discover moments later thatI had gotten on a cars-only expressway with scarcely enough clearance to keep the truck from becoming a convertible; driving to homeland Maine in one shot after a sleepless night, the whole way talking and singing to myself in the radio-less truckcab to keep from driving off the road, desperately trying to make it back in time for my mother's third wedding the next morning—where my once best friend would become my new stepbrother.
I hope that my arrival will be less stressful.
* * *
The scenery begins tochange outside the train car, as the affluence of Westchester County gradually turns to the urban grime of the city outskirts. Suddenly our view of the gleaming river disappears and a towering concrete wall, with barbed wire at the top and several watch towers on either side, takes its place. I've had my eyes glued to the window in anticipation of this. I look out the other side. Same thing. I turn to my friend since childhood, David, seated adjacent. "This is it. Sing Sing."
One of the little known facts about the train ride between Albany and New York is that the tracks run directly through the Sing Sing Prison, one of the largest state penitentiaries in the country. We pass through, which takes all of five seconds going at seventy-miles-an-hour, and I tell David what it was. He seems interested. I lean forward to the next row of seats to tell Lasse and Josh, but they're preoccupied making up silly rap lyrics. It's been three days and we're all starting to get tired of each other. "Get serious. This isserious business,"I say to the two of them, but they continue to ignore. I'm unsure what the hell I'm talking about, but I'm conscious of the New York angst setting in.
* * *
We arrive at Penn Station and go our separate ways, David and I staying together. New York is as I remembered it. Chaos. The sidewalks are jammed, and our five pieces of luggage exacerbate the congestion. I've braced myself for the shellshock though. David hasn't. His body language shows it as he walks in front of me: he's totally out of his element. For David, this is a bit like an arachnaphobe diving head first into a tarantula cage. His revisit to New York marks a kind of official reemergence into society for him, while my reemergence in New York marks a revisit to a brief, f ormer life, or perhaps an official parting with. Yes Éthis visit is a Moment.
* * *
We finally get to where we're going: the Upper West Side YMCA. As usual, New York has begun screwing me over. I've been unable to reach a cousin living in Manhattan—our only free place to stay, and thus we are stuck with the next cheapest thing, the Y. To complicate matters, we are running out of money—I have been paying for both of us, after David's wallet was stolen at the beginning of the trip.
We walk up to the check-in desk.
"Do you have any rooms available for tonight?"I ask the clerk.
"I'm sorry sir, our computers are down."
"Ohh when will they be back up?"
"There's really no way of knowing. Sorry."
Things are falling apart, a familiar feeling. I can't place it.Ahhh É.a New York Moment.
* * *
Things work themselves back together. I reach my cousin and he tells me he can take one of us in his cramped studio apartment. Josh later convinces his grandmother to take in one more tenant, and camping out under the sta rs in Central Park is skirted. David is reluctant to stay with someone he doesn't know, but gives in.
* * *
Later that evening, the four of us reconvene in Times Square, where we wait in line for a half-hour to buy Broadway tickets. We go to Neil Simon's "The Dinner Party."It is a bore. Jon Lovitz is annoying. I catch up on sleep. This is not a Moment.
* * *
Late that night I arrive at my cousin Eric's. We catch up on our respective years—there isn't much to say—and he shows me around his new building, which I have not yet seen. We ride the elevator to the top and I get out and peer over the edge, some twenty stories down. The building towers over everything else in the nearby Grammercy vicinity; the view is spectacular. I look north. It's a straight shot to Midtown and I see the Empire State juxtaposed against the night sky. South. The Statue of Liberty, lit up. East. Queens, where I lived for year. And finally I look West, towards 55W 13th Street, The New School, where a little over a year ago at th is hour I was probably sitting in a small room on the fifth floor, practicing my trumpet till my brain hurt. Two years ago I would have gazed at this still night spectacle with awe. Now I just see it. It's lost its romance. I don't miss it at all. I'm glad to be free from this place. I don't miss it.
* * *
OK, maybe just a little bit.
