ay 1.
I drive into Manhattan with my friend Jerm. We're lost, it's raining, we're stopped in traffic. A tree fell in the road. "Should I go left? Should I go left or should I go right?"
"Go left."
"Okay."
"No. Go right. Shit."
It goes like this for some time. We ignore our plight, sing The Promise Ring as the skyline comes into the corner of my windshield. "We could do more outside things / If we weren't so busy / Getting busy." The blown speaker buzzes underneath the music. Jerm thrashes out the drumline and slaps at his knees, at the dashboard.
"Jesus Christ, that's New York!" I am yelling.
"I know!"
"Jesus Christ, why aren't I a rock star?"
"I don't know!"
Jerm is a rock star, kind of. He sings and plays guitar in clubs, which is a lot more than I've ever done, songs that are funny and sometimes goofy and playful, like "Rock N Roll Cured My Cold" and "Sexy Secretary." His latest song is about his girlfriend's bunnies hiding under the couch. I met up with him in the Berkshires, where he was visiting his parents, and now he's my escort into New York City, his hometown and the country's biggest Big City, the place I put on display and admire every time I'm lost in some shitty unknown somewhere, whenever I'm bored and out of ideas. Almost to New York. Almost to New York.
We drive in circles around Bleecker and Houston (except they say House-ton), trying to find places lodged in his memory.
"Should I go left? Should I go left or go right?"
"Go right."
"Okay."
"Wait. Is that right? Maybe go left. No right."
It goes like this, but it's fine. I feared driving in Manhattan, but I find it exhilarating, like a game we are all playing together, pushing each other to drive better, to drive sharper. Pontiac coming from the left, veer right!
Jerm's friend Kevin is producing an interactive bachelorette party at an Eighties dance club. We have no idea what that means, but we go anyway. We walk in to find crowds of women in tight and shiny dresses, in spiky heels. They hold drinks and sway their hips to the music. "Oh baby, baby, can't get enough of your love." A woman in a lace-up leather teddy and carrying a bull whip slinks over to Jerm.
"You're finally here!" she says.
"I am!" he says.
"Let me dry you off," she says, rubbing the rain in his dark hair and kissing his cheek.
"Do you wanna stay?" I whisper after she leaves.
"Yes."
It's a weird scene. The actors hold Truth or Dare matches with the bachelorettes. One girl performs a lapdance for a bulky blond Fabio in a mask. One girl takes a blowjob shot. (A blowjob shot?) One girl licks whipped cream off the chest of a character named something like Big-us Dick-us. There's a sex education episode, involving the world's largest jelly dong. We just play along with it, dance when appropriate, take turns wearing the cowboy hat I put on to keep my hair dry in the rain.
We're lost heading back from the club. Go right, go left, go straight, go fuck-all knows where. We sing Built to Spill just to stay awake: "I need a car, you need a guide who needs a map / If I don't die or worse, I'm gonna need a nap." We're cross-eyed and dopey when we finally make it to his sister's place in Brooklyn at 2am.
"Hey guess where we are?" Jerm hollers from the bedroom upstairs as I sprawl across the couch.
"Brooklyn!" I holler back.
"And guess what that means?"
Sleep.

Day 2.
This morning in New York City there's black smoke in the sky. It looks bad. I am staying with Ada and Neal, old Austin friends who live in Brooklyn. Neal grabs the keys and runs up to the rooftop of the building to get a better look. Ada grabs her digital camera and follows him, saying the same thing, over and over.
"Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."
Later, we will learn that a transformer has blown at Con Ed, the city's power supplier. That's after we check the news channels and the websites. CNN, the New York Times, Salon. CNN, the New York Times, Salon. Later, Ada will tell me the sky looked just like it did on September 11. Now we just stare into Manhattan in silence. The black smoke fills the sky. The word "belching" keeps coming to mind.
In the afternoon, we hear reports of power outages in lower Manhattan and walk to Ada's parents' Greenwich Village place to check on things. A friend in the city has told us people are crowding around the ice cream shops, eating up all the perishables. A city employee groans when we ask him about the probable outcome. "Gonna take a while to get that train running again." We shrug and accept the worst. What else can you do?

written in Brooklyn, New York