The In N Out Urge

I have spent more time in downtown Manhattan in the past few months than I have in all seven years I have lived in New York City. Part of this is Jonathan, who lives deep in the thick of the trademarked real New York experience I never had. I had wanted to live in Manhattan for my whole life. My mother’s tales of living there as a child and later visiting her grandfather and Aunt Caroline, turned it into a magical storied place of excitement and wonder. Living here has not disappointed. It really is more like the movie Enchanted than you could possibly imagine. However, I always knew it was expensive and endeavored to not make the leap until I was able to live in grand style. Fatefully at the end of the last century, my wish was granted and I packed up my hopes and dreams and moved alone into a gorgeous apartment building on 42nd Street and the West Side Highway.

My palace in the sky was a brand new two bedroom corner apartment on the 26th floor with beautiful views of New Jersey across the Hudson River. In the evenings, the cruise ships that docked just North of me would sail past my window, flashbulbs ablaze on the deck as hundreds of passengers took my picture simultaneously. I would throw myself on the mercy of the divan in my living room as Ella Fitzgerald sang “Manhattan” and wondered how little me ended up in such a delicious tub of butter. The fourteen months I lived there were, without a doubt, the nearest thing to heaven. Of course it was very lonely in heaven, thousands of miles from my family and friends, with no boyfriend to share it all with. But it was hard to ask for the moon when I had the stars.

When I first got to the city, I was averse to taking the subway. I would walk or take cabs everywhere. This limited my movements to primarily just the center of Manhattan. I joked that I never went South of Houston unless I was fucking a celebrity, and I have yet to fuck a celebrity. But lately, I have been veering closer and closer to star sex land, and I have even grown to love the subway. It is desperately efficient, and not just because the smelly underground platforms have the uncanny ability to retain both all the heat in the summer and all the cold of the winter. A subway ride is an extension of the general magic of the city. The wonder you experience at turning a corner and accidentally encountering a street festival is extended to a subway car when you unexpectedly ride for eighty blocks with a mariachi band. Tonight on my subway ride downtown there was a man playing the saxophone, first on the platform and then later actually in my subway car. He was doing a rendition of My Favorite Things which I am certain he thought was the Birth of Cool when in fact it was the Cesarean of Suck. It is magic here, just not always top quality magic.

I was heading downtown tonight to join Josh in his final fling in the city before he heads to West Hollywood. He showed me, quite casually mind you, his new apartment using Google Earth on his iPhone, his arms flexing in his tight t-shirt as he worked the numbers. Something tells me he is going to fit right in there in my old stomping grounds. When I arrived at Urge, drag queen Gusty Winds was perched, legs akimbo, on a stool on stage preparing the first round of drag queen bingo. I have been trying not to drink of late and from her first riff on the joys of Oprah’s Big Give, I knew this night would be the ultimate test. Josh was joined by his friend Dann, and two straight girls, but I don’t remember their names and no one is reading my blog to see links to the Connexion pages of women. No offense. Barton joined us midway through the first round, although I could tell by the look on his face that he could have lived his whole life without being there.

The first game required players to get “two lines.” I muttered to Dann that I was wish I had done two lines before I got there. Dann guffawed loudly, and never hearing such a thing before while performing, Gusty Winds seized on his laughter like she was having an aneurysm. “Someone is laughing,” she half-asked, which frankly is not a flattering reaction to give when you are performing on stage. Dann and Barton much enjoyed my antics from our banquette, while Josh and his female friends earnestly played the first round of bingo. The girl closest to me won and handed the card to Josh, who collected the $30 prize. This money went directly to the charitable fund that supplies drinks to needy alcoholic New Yorkers, primarily those in and around a small banquette inside the bar Urge.

In the second round, you needed to get a plus sign. I was half paying attention, mostly tossing bon mots at Barton, and reacting with both real and mock horror that in all his 36 years, he had never seen the lesbian episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy’s friend falls in love with Rose. It was especially painful because he didn’t know who Danny Thomas was and I tried to use Blanche’s reaction to the news that Jean was a lesbian to remind him of who he was. Since he runs a non-profit, the pop culture touchstone that wedged his memory free was St. Jude’s Hospital. I wish I had been paying closer attention to the game and hadn’t tried to find the bathroom during the calling of numbers because I ended up one number away from a win without knowing if the last number I needed had already been called. As it turns out, Barton won that round, splitting it with another guy, and leaving the $12.50 in winnings back in the needy drunks fund at the center of the table.

His insistence that he is a “good guy” was tested moments later when he won the third round all by himself, and somewhat reluctantly, dropped the $65 into the center of the table. It was only fair since Josh was the one buying everyone their bingo cards all night. But still, I felt his pain at parting with all that delicious money. After all $65 can actually get you pretty far in this town, though primarily from Manhattan to JFK Airport. Maybe even Newark if the traffic is light.

I guess the lesson here is that life in the big city is fueled by money. The more money you have, the better your life can be. You can have apartments too big for one person to live in, and cars that take you anywhere you want to go. But in the end, it doesn't matter where you live or how big your apartment is, what matters most in Manhattan are the little moments. It's a song on a lazy afternoon, the laughter of friends, sunset along the river. Yes, the $65 could have been very helpful in hailing a cab out of Urge and off to an apartment for him and the train home for me, but then we would have missed that delightful walk up Second Avenue on a quiet cool evening in New York City.