The Skin I'm In

I just found this (very) short story I wrote last year...

My body has turned against me; it has revolted. I recently decided to do something about this expanding Pal O’mine that nestles between my chest and belt buckle, and what I decided to do was go jogging. Bad idea. My middle aged legs were no match for my teenager's memory, but nonetheless after a bit of cursory stretching I headed out into the park across from my new apartment, that has been silently chiding me since I moved in. ‘Run’ it has been whispering to me…’Run like it’s 1980’. The damp Shanghai breeze implores, ‘Fly maaaaaaan…’
But I didn’t feel like flying. As I waited for the elevator in my jogging gear I felt laden, over burdened. I decided to crack off a few jumping jacks, and by about twenty five I was winded and felt a twang in my left calf. Intrepidly I plowed on; fifty, fifty one, fifty two…thank god the elevator arrived. I was sweating. Well, no need to overdo the warm-ups.
Outside in the false Spring weather, I walked in large stretchy steps towards the building’s inscrutable watchman, who just looked at me blankly like they always do. At the last possible moment we both muttered ‘Ni hao’, smiled, and felt a little better about our relationship (I do anyway). Since he had never seen me do anything remotely athletic, on this day he must have been a bit puzzled as to why I was rocking a pair of brand new brown and silver New Balance sneakers, tight white track pants (where did I get them anyway?) and a stylish blue and orange Kappa hoodie. I was dressed for exercise alright, China style.
As I crossed Chongqing Lu and the massive, many tentacled highway above I started to run in place and kicked my legs out playfully, like a prize fighter training for a big match. I felt like Ali in Zimbabwe, or Rocky getting ready to run up the steps in Philly. Then I felt that twang again in my left calf. Reaching the park I gave the left leg another little stretch, and off I went; not running fast, but certainly quickly enough to easily pass the elderly strollers and backwards walking qi gongers, who it seemed, gave me approving looks as I swished by.
Breathing in the icy wet Shanghai air, my breathing became burdened as I picked up the pace, leaving great crystalline clouds in my wake. I was on my third lap around the little park and my lungs felt like they were about to go on strike; my heart was a pounding and I suddenly remembered the other part of playing sports when I was younger: I’d always hated running. Doggedly I ran on, picking up the pace. My left calf was twanging again.
There was one other guy who was jogging in the park, who was maybe in his mid-fifties and wearing street clothes, a ratty old pair of Chinese Warrior sneakers, and impossibly, a faded black Metallica cap. He was pacing himself and going very slowly, almost walking. The first time I passed I gave him a slightly deferential sideways glance, since after all, he was an old man and I was young, and full of vigor. I thought I noticed the slightest soupcon of a smile pass over his lips, and why not? I was a picture of hale (and stylish) athleticism.
Now as I came up behind him again at an accelerated speed I noticed that the path was in fact slightly slick, and I wondered at his safety. His sneakers were more like slippers, and the soles looked very worn and smooth compared with my own waffle treads which were built to grip the road. Huffing and puffing I came abreast of him and we exchanged small nods with each other. Then I came down on my left leg and felt a stabbing, searing pain shoot through my calf as the muscle seized and my leg gave way; I tumbled down to the icy pathway, skidding the last few feet on the ass of my white nylon jogging pants. Clutching my throbbing leg, I looked up just in time to see the old man shuffling past me in his thrift store outfit, with the faintest smile on his face. He didn’t stop.

Searching for the Young Soul Rebels

The first dirty leaves were falling off Central Park’s trees, windswept and sadly incongruous with the stone and concrete, reminding us that summer was over. It was starting to get chilly at night, so I added an oxblood v-neck sweater under my dark gray three button suit – a vintage suit I’d grabbed from my grandfather’s closet and had tailored. The Dominican tailor on Ludlow Street took the sides in, made an extra back vent and pegged the trousers, all for five bucks. It fit well, and had just enough give in the arms so that it would be no problem, even with the sweater on, dancing later at the Mudd Club or Danceteria. My polo shirt was baby blue with navy piping, and my white socks winked out from between my black loafers and the hem of my trousers in a flash of impudence that was just right. It all made sense, and grimacing at myself with a burst of amphetamine spirit, I made a few anxious dance steps and took a swig of my Budweiser quart, admiring myself smugly in the cracked bathroom mirror of my Godmother’s claustrophobic studio apartment on York Avenue.
Outside in the breezy night I drained the last foamy dregs of my quart as I stepped into the corner deli for a new one. I was okay because I had recently been at my grandparents and was starting the new semester at City University. So I had cash. But I knew my Godmother had an account at the deli so I told the Turk behind the counter to put it on her bill. The black eyes in his swarthy, pock marked face looked me up and down: stingy brim rude boy hat, tonic suit with 2 Tone and Mod badges on the lapels, hoop earring in my left ear; the expression of a truant. He wasn’t sure, but he had seen me with my Godmother a few times, and I even took him money once to pay her bill, so he grunted and put the quart in a brown paper bag, pushing it towards me. Seeing he was beaten, I added a pack of Trident gum and a small Nemo’s carrot cake. I hadn’t eaten a thing since a slice of pizza that afternoon.
The late September wind pushed me along 79th Street toward the Lexington line, and a straight shot down to Astor Place. As I sauntered along the blinking, humming street I barely noticed the young couples huddled conspiratorially, or elderly people emptying cars in front of their brownstones; I didn’t clock the Upper East Side at all. It didn’t really exist to me. I was only staying at my Godmother’s place until I could move back downtown. At the corner of 79th and Lex a fat walrus cop was standing outside of the subway entrance fidgeting with his night stick, so I crossed over to enter on the other side of the street, skipping down the steps with my quart half gone now and me half drunk, flying on nerves and anticipation. I looked across the station at the token booth; the torpor of the clerk, the neon insanity of his life. I waited until I heard the rumbling of rolling thunder, and then as the train pulled in I walked out and jumped over the turnstile and ran onto the Lexington Avenue Express as I heard the bored, distorted echo behind me, ‘Pay ya fare’.
On the train I walked up through the clattering, screeching cars, past the tipsy businessmen, anxious secretaries, bums and other assorted inner city flotsam, to the first car. I drained my beer and dropped the bottle on the ground with the rest of the day’s abandoned newspapers and wrappers, letting it roll back and forth down the carriage, bumping into the shoes of the indifferent passengers. Looking out through the smudged glass I could see the stanchions and lights of the tunnel flying by me as the train shrieked back and forth, plunging downtown through a subterranean carnival of lights. Stopping at 42nd Street a crew of Puerto Rican kids with a boom box got on, all of them dressed in sheepskin coats with tight Lee chinos and sneakers with big tongues and low fat laces. A few of them had on Cazal frame glasses, and one kid had ski goggles up on his wool cap. The radio was blasting some Electro tune I’d heard before but didn’t know the name of. They were B Boys and they looked fresh, but in my mind they were cartoon characters. They eyed me up and down but there was nothing there; I was like them - young, broke and looking for fun.
Finally the train pulled into 14th Street and I got out to switch to the local when I heard the music behind me, turned lower now, and the kid with the box said ‘Yo Punkrock, what up yo?’ I looked at him and smiled, but I was ready. ‘What up?’ I said, ‘Where’s the party at?’ They all started laughing and pointing at my gear, and the kid with the ski goggles said, ‘Oh shit, but the high waters are killin’ it!’ And I laughed too, because I could imagine it from their perspective – I looked like a guy off one of their parents old Salsa records. Then one of them said, ‘Yo but the hat is kinda fresh though’ and then the train started pulling into the station, but I didn’t want to get on with them. There were five of them and I had no chance. The train stopped and a few people got off, and they looked like they were just going to sit on the bench, so I waited until the doors were just about to close and I jumped onto the car. They had gotten off the Express train just to fuck with me, but since I didn’t respond they left it alone. As the car pulled out I looked right at the kid with the goggles and winked, lifted my hat up and gave him the finger.
As the train pulled into Astor Place I started to uncoil. Sitting across from me were two art school types with shabby vintage clothes and jagged haircuts they could have only done by themselves. They probably went to Cooper Union, I thought; rich kids from Connecticut who listened to the Talking Heads and Television and smoked clove cigarettes. We looked each other up and down but there wasn’t enough interest on either side, just the recognition of something new that we both acknowledged. I got up and sneered at them insolently, moving through the car doors and quickly up the steps and out into the kaleidoscope of Eighth Street.
The first stop was the deli on the corner of St. Mark’s and Third, where I bought another quart, and stepping back onto the sidewalk I felt the icy rush of the cold beer biting at the back of my throat. I took a few long chugs and looked out at this crossroads of culture; students, bums, punks, homeboys, rockabilly time warp weirdos… and all of it was mine. The black beauty I had taken earlier was kicking in, and the hair under my hat was standing on end, sending electric jolts quivering down into my brain and causing me to laugh out loud and shake my head a few times. I was a king; I had twenty dollars in my pocket and a full quart of beer.
By the time I reached First Avenue I was bubbling and fizzing, riding a poor man’s speedball and filled with high hopes for the young night. The regular meeting place was the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, with its cranky Ukrainian bartenders, faded 1950’s decor and cheap drinks. But we rarely spent our money inside the Holiday, being generally too broke to afford even its ninety cent drinks, especially when thirty two ounces of beer could be had at the deli for a buck ten. It was a matter of economics.
The first stoop before the bar was usually taken by some Psychobilly kids who always had a radio and all looked like the Stray Cats on acid: huge shellacked quiffs, big suspenders, lots of neon everywhere (including the hair) and tattoo sleeves. They were ok, and I knew some of them, but I couldn’t get down with the sounds at all. They took all the church and soul out of the Rockabilly and sped it up into a loud, screaming ball of white anger. The next stoop past the ripped awning of the Holiday was the domain of the Hardcore kids; post Punks in black leather, jackboots, shaved heads or spiky hair, and led by a big Russian named Ruby. We got along pretty well with the Hardcore kids because, like us they were out to get high and dance. In addition to this they also loved Reggae, which was part of our daily Rude Boy bread. Walking by I exchanged nods with a big kid named Frenchy, who was a doorman at a couple after hours places and had the Canadian maple leaf tattooed onto the side of his head. I gave a pound to Vinnie Dogma, who was the singer of one of the bigger Hardcore bands.
It was still early and there were only a few Mod looking girls hanging out on our stoop. I wasn’t sure who they were, but the word had gotten around that this was where the Rude Boys hung out, so kids that were into Ska or Mod music would come down all the time. My speed high had leveled off and I was almost done with the quart, so I walked by the stoop, making sure not to look at the girls, turned and drained the beer with exaggerated swagger and threw the bottle down into an abandoned doorway. Wiping my lips on the sleeve of my suit I finally looked up at them and asked them if they wanted some beer. The girl closest to me looked about sixteen, and she looked at her friends and said ‘Sure, you wanna go inside?’ But I was sure Walter the bouncer wouldn’t let them in because they were all in High School. I told them as much and said I would go buy a few quarts if they had money. The smallest one, who was wearing a bright orange mini-dress and white donkey jacket and matching hair band, produced a fiver out of her white patent leather purse and handed it to me. ‘I want change back’ she said, cracking her gum as I smirked and strutted off to the deli across First Avenue.
I could tell these chicks were from Manhattan because they had the look down and were confident. If they had been from Brooklyn or the Suburbs there would be some aspect of the style all wrong, like a Mod mini skirt and fishnet stockings or a bouffant hairdo. Plus there was always the accent. You could tell a Brooklyn girl a mile away. These girls probably go to Music and Art or Stuyvesant, I was thinking as I walked back over to the stoop, and they can’t be older than seventeen. I handed them a quart and I kept one for myself. Then I asked them where they went to school, and they said Music and Art, which was good. I liked arty girls. They were always good to go, and often fun to hang out with the next day. They usually lived in nice apartments in the Village, and would often throw parties when their parents were away.
The girl with the orange dress asked me for the change and I handed her back a dollar. She gave me a look but wasn’t sure of the price and let it slide. I had just gained another quart for later. Just then I saw the loose, gangly shadow of Leo coming around the corner of First Avenue, by Stromboli Pizza, followed by a more squat shadow with a quick gait behind him. This was Renzo, a film student who hung out with us part-time, did well with chicks, and always had beer money. He was a quick, shifty-eyed kid who knew how to find drugs and was ruthless about who he included in the party. For this reason he was both liked and disliked; it all depended on if you were included or not. But St. Mark’s Place was our world, and if he was hanging out with Leo it was a good sign. His presence usually meant a twist in the normal routine.
Leo was my ace homeboy, a tall, dark, savagely handsome kid from Brooklyn via Haiti. He still had a thick Haitian accent that only added to his mystique and pulling power - often drifting into mock Jamaican patois to impress girls who didn’t care or know the difference. His tall, athletic frame was wiry and explosive, and clothes hung well on him. He was my main partner for early morning bleary eyed dancing sessions, when the DJ’s would spin Ska and Reggae for us at the end of the night. As much as I loved to dance, Leo’s manic, blurry limbed skanking style was unrivalled, and he was famous for it.
We exchanged an elaborate set of handshakes, finishing off with our index fingers aimed at each other; each saying ‘Guns for hire!’ Everything we did, every gesture and nuance was colored by our Rude Boy style and mentality. We lived it religiously, even as we made it up going along; cobbled together from British Mod and Ska bands, Reggae, Quadrophenia, The Face magazine, 2 Tone and our own Downtown street sensibilities.
‘Who’r the bundles?’ Asked Leo, as he grabbed my quart and took a sumptuous pull from it, slyly eyeing the three girls on the stoop. His impossibly long eyelashes and deep set brown eyes, in combination with thick black eyebrows created a fierce quality to his gaze, but at the last moment it was softened by a god-given twinkle that made him seem vulnerable.
‘I don’t know’ I answered, ‘but they bought the brews’. I winked at him as he handed me back the cannibalized quart. ‘They go to Music and Art’ I informed him, ‘the short one’s not bad. You can have the big one’.
He quickly ogled the girls, and we both noticed that Renzo was already chatting up the short one with the orange mini – intuitively knowing which one had cash. We smiled at each other and started talking about who was out. I hadn’t seen any of the boys so far, I told him. I was feeling jumpy from the speed, and needed another beer, so I went back to the same girl and asked her what her name was. She said it was Deena, and I started to introduce myself, but just then Leo said ‘Fifteena!’ And neither Renzo or myself could hold in our laughter. The poor girl just sat there looking confused as we cracked up, but one of her pals, a thin girl with a large, tell-tale nose and paper white skin said ‘She’s not fifteen…we’re all eighteen!’
‘Yeah hello!’ I said, and we all started cracking up again. Leo raised his considerable eyebrows in mock surprise, to convey an exaggerated innocence that didn’t exist. The girls now started to get up from the stoop, and the short one said ‘We’re going inside if you guys wanna come’. Even in their humiliation they were determined to find out what was going on. These were definitely Manhattan girls. As they got up we all noticed that they weren’t bad at all, and Renzo made a move to follow them inside the Holiday, but Leo and I wanted to hang outside and gas, so we let him go in alone. Leo lit a cigarette and we sat down on the stoop on pieces of cardboard so as not to mess up our suits.
Leo wanted to catch up with me so he went around the corner to another Polish hole in the wall to find Dmitri, a Ukranian kid who sold decent black beauties for two bucks a pill. I sat there with a newly replenished quart looking out onto the street, thinking how many girls had suddenly gotten names like Deena, Sheena, Neena - as if New York girls didn’t have exotic enough names as it was. But it had been in vogue ever since The Ramones did Sheena is a Punk Rocker, and there was no turning back now.
Inside the Holiday the three girls, Renzo and two more of our boys were all crammed into a small red and white booth. In the center was a red Formica table littered with bottles, glasses and smoldering ash trays. Everything was dingy and cracking, but it was a design job that had come back around into retro vogue. A drab nicotine patina created by decades of smoke left a chiaroscuro effect on everything in the Holiday, and no amount of daily bleach could get through it. The air was so dense that I decided to have a cigarette so I wouldn’t be bothered by it. The girls had just bought a round and we were too late, so I pushed my way through the bottle blondes in push up dresses, the quiffed rockers with their thick soled shoes and dangling key chains, and the black sweater and sunglasses art refugees - until I finally made it to the bar. Every seat at the bar was occupied by Ukranian old-timers. This was their neighborhood bar after all, and most of them looked like they had been there all day. They knew that by ten o’clock the bar would be overrun by this youthful freak show, but by then they didn’t care. Silently befuddled from potato vodka and beer chasers, it was amusing to them, and Stefan the owner was making good money from us.
I decided to get an Irish whiskey, as it was the same price as a beer, and I knew Stefan well enough to give him a cheeky wink and he would hold the bottle an extra second over the glass, pouring me a solid drink. I was a regular by now. One thing about the Polish and Ukranians in the East Village; they liked to drink and were not stingy inn keepers. From the bar I perused the hazy, fluorescent room. There was a guy with an enormous jet black pompadour who was trying to put quarters in the juke box, but Leo was harassing him to play something else when I walked over and handed him his whiskey. ‘Dude…Penguin head…just play the Higsons song dude, please!’ Leo said with his loopy accent. The guy looked confused. Leo had said please but his whole demeanor was arrogant and comical. Leo was smiling at him and seemed to be winking, cajoling him to join us. He was in fact reacting to the Dexedrine synapses popping off on the inside of his skull. Then the pompadour started going on about how it was his money so he would choose, and we could put our own money in later. ‘C’mon Pengweee’ I implored, ‘don’t be stingy my brother, hook us up with one song yo!’ And he seemed to consider it for a second before Leo involuntarily spewed the contents of his mouth out onto the guy’s shirt and the juke box glass, laughing. The pompadour took his handful of quarters and turned away, hissing, ‘Assholes!’
The second black beauty I had eaten was just starting to rumble around behind my eye sockets, and I wanted to get outside, out of the brown brume of smoke. We were just polishing off our whiskies when Renzo walked over with a cunning glint in his eye. He leaned in conspiratorially and said, ‘Yo, I know of a new bar opening tonight, it’s open bar and lots of honeys…but just us, OK?’ He waited until the full effect of the news sunk in, and then said with a smirk, ‘Lets beat this pop stand!’ And we barged out the door, drunk and bugging out on speed…I started running ahead, singing a favorite Rude Boy anthem, ‘Stop you’re messing around, better think of your future, time you straighten right out, creating problems in town!’ Then Leo and Renzo ran after me trying to catch up and at the corner of Second Avenue I kicked over a garbage can as hard as I could, sending trash flying out into the street. ‘You dick!’ Leo yelled as he caught up and grabbed my hat off my head, and then he kicked over the next can. We were laughing and pushing each other, fighting over my hat, while Renzo just stood there laughing.
The bar was upstairs on the second floor somewhere on Ninth Street near Third Avenue, and it was called Lucky Strikes. I never really knew where it was and I never went back there again. It was a typical poser bar, the kind that were starting to pop up more and more recently with the gentrification of the East Village. The crowd was kind of post-New Wave downtown hipsters, slightly arty. I didn’t really feel comfortable but we were down for the free drinks, and besides with Leo and Renzo there it was sure to be a laugh. Immediately Leo appeared with six cold, dripping beers; three in each hand. We had just caught the tail end of the open bar so he got as much as he could hold. I went over to do the same, and was given a shitty look from the jaded bartender who I didn’t tip. We got some real estate at a standing table and started drinking and sizing up the scene. It was the usual film students, artists, gallery owners, musicians and other assorted scenesters who dressed in black and looked like middle class junkies. I saw Joey Ramone in the corner holding court with some people who looked like Andy Warhol but weren’t; so the place was officially anointed. The DJ was playing some electro-pop dance music from the UK, and the prerequisite girls with flouncy dyed wedge cuts and lots of mascara were bucking and vaulting across the small dance floor. I didn’t see anything special, and was quite content to drink and enjoy the pulsing eroticism of the chemical and alcohol mashup romping through my body.
Leo, who could never keep still, ventured out on the floor and instantly was rubbing up salaciously against a large blonde girl in white overalls and a French sailor’s shirt with the neck cut out enough to expose one shoulder and most of her black brassiere. Initially lured by his athletic algebra; a combination of gyrations and jerky head faints, she soon realized that she couldn’t keep up. What’s more, he was circling her faster than she could turn, and when he would get behind her he would envelop her in his saurian arms and move in for a hit and run dry hump. I was cracking up and enjoying the show when I realized that Renzo was no where to be seen. I was loath to leave the drinks unguarded, but my sixth sense told me that he would be found near the bathrooms doing something that I wanted in on, whatever it was. Just then Leo came back to the table, drenched from the dancing and dragging the big girl with him. Winking at him absurdly, I cracked open a beer and said I had to hit the head.
The bathrooms were up a few steps and into a small side room where there was a jittery, urgent vibe and a whole different crowd of people hanging around. Everyone was talking animatedly, and the feeling was darker and intense. Just as I figured out where the unisex toilets were I saw Renzo slipping into one of them with what looked to be a very attractive woman. I got to the door and knocked, but only heard a muffled ‘busy’ from the other side. ‘Dude, it’s me’ I said, knocking again a bit more insistently this time. Then the door opened a crack and he looked at me like I owed him money (I probably did, but that was beside the point). I just got my loafer wedged in the door as he said, ‘Dude, I’ll be right out…just gimme a few minutes.’ But it was too late, I saw the woman behind him who saw me and smiled. ‘Is this one of your friends you mentioned?’ She asked. And he was forced to open the door and let me in.
Renzo introduced me to Patricia like I was his third cousin from Staten Island, but she was cool and gave me a big, crooked smile. She had a wide, lavish mouth and faultless white teeth that her slender lips couldn’t quite contain. She was carefully groomed, tanned and shone like money. She was clearly slumming it, but her whole look – a New Wave Lauren Hutton – was working, even as it gave her away. Renzo then produced a small brown vial of coke and shot me a defeated look that said this wasn’t meant for you. This I understood implicitly, but I also knew he couldn’t appear to be stingy with his boy right now in front of this hot older woman with a killer rack and a crazy smile. I was sure he had already represented himself as some kind of downtown player and that would kill it. So I was in, and he put a big spoonful of the powder on the V of my hand between thumb and index finger. I looked at it, steadying it under my right nostril and sniffed it up into my head, feeling its sting. I immediately held out my fist again, ‘Don’t make my left side jealous’. I said, giving him a bullying nod. ‘Right, no left’ he answered, Abbott to my Costello. But he dutifully placed another, slightly smaller spoonful on my hand and sighed, smiling at me like the weight of the world. We did a couple more blows each before people outside started banging on the door, wanting it themselves for their reasons.
Now I was soaring…the alcohol, the speed and the coke all coming together in a cosmic dropkick that enveloped my whole body, working its way down to my brogue loafers and back up to the very ends of my electric buzz cut. We got back to the table and I grabbed a beer and sucked it down greedily, until I spewed it onto my sweater and the table. I was high voltage and I needed to move, but the feeling was so good I just rocked back and forth in place. I heard myself saying to Patricia, ‘Yo, that’s how we do it downtown baby…strictly Rude Boy stylee!’ If she had asked me any question before that I had no idea. I was grinding and gnashing; talking to make sure it was me feeling this good. Then the music changed, and ‘Rock the Casbah’ by the Clash came crashing through the system and I looked over and saw Leo pointing at the DJ so I jumped up and yelled, ‘This is my shit!’ I grabbed Patricia by the wrist and pulled her out onto the dance floor, skating and shimmying around her spastically with my arms moving in sync to the beat, but my legs going sideways, shuffling in and out, feeling the rhythm teeming deep down inside my soul. The DJ, now intimidated by us dancing up to the booth and gurning at him menacingly, ended up playing a tight set of Pop Reggae and then destroyed it with ‘One Step Beyond’ by Madness which drove us over the top, forming a skanking circle that Renzo smashed in on and we basically cleared the floor with our nutty, synchronized palpitations.
It was still early, not even one a.m. and I was already soaked through to my sweater. Leo’s entire suit jacket was visibly drenched, and perspiration was dripping off his brow and nose. We were laughing at something, feeling better after bugging out like that. My head started to level a bit and I looked down and saw I had another whiskey in my hand. Raising my eyes I saw that Patricia had bought a round of drinks, and she had actually gotten somebody to bring them over to the table. This chick has class, I thought to myself stupidly, as if I would have known. Leo was chatting up the big blonde in the overalls and leering over at me with big, lurid winks – not knowing or caring if she saw. He was in anyway, something he was doing on the dance floor – some primal rubbing and bumping – had worked, and now she was part of our party. I was vaguely wondering whether Patricia was going to end up with Renzo or me.
The club was rammed now, and people were surging in and out in waves. I didn’t know what time it was or where we were going, but my belly started to nag, and I wanted more blow. The speed high was a constant low hum; a jet engine on a runway, but I wanted to take off and fly again. I was also drunk, and things were getting a little wobbly. I reached for a beer and miscalculated, and suddenly was surrounded by an aggrieved, bitchy group of gay goblins in skinny ties and plaid trousers. I had a long chat with the bouncer, who I knew. The bartender was shooting me angry looks. I staggered over to the bathroom again wondering where Renzo and Patricia were. I knocked until some gap-toothed Rockabilly brother with a high flat top and a sharkskin suit opened the door violently and asked me what the fuck I wanted. Where was Renzo? Just then I saw him come out of the other bathroom with Patricia, and he looked at me cautiously and took me to the side. ‘Yo, Patricia wants to buy some blow and she has cash…you know anyone here holding?’ My mind started swirling around at the thought of this, one of my favorite scenarios. We lived for people coming into the city looking for drugs; it was easy to get it, easy to overcharge, and easy to cut if you had enough time. Renzo knew me well enough to know that if she gave me cash I would come back with something at least, and that’s all he cared about right now. He wasn’t full time like Leo and I were, so he didn’t really know where to get street drugs. We walked over to where Patricia was standing and I said I knew where to get it and she gave me that crazy lizard smile as she pressed two new hundred dollar bills in my hand. ‘I want two grams, ok?’
The action focused me now, and filled me with a hungry energy. I knew where to go and my mind was a chess match in fast forward. Promising I’d be right back I left them clutching their beers and Leo clutching his girl - bounding down the stairs towards the Colombians on Eleventh Street. They had recently muscled in and were doing crazy deals to spread the word. If I could find my people I could get an eight ball for one fifty, and that would leave me with fifty bucks profit and an extra gram and a half. I had done this before, hanging around the bathroom at the Holiday waiting for bridge and tunnel kids who looked hungry. I ambled down the block full of false confidence, knowing that the neighborhood had eyes. I walked by a few buildings that I knew were hot, and the invisible lookouts were yelling ‘bajando’ and ‘tanto bien!’ But I didn’t see my guys out on their stoop. There were two Spanish mamis there instead, so I kept walking but I slowed when they called out to me. I turned and asked, ‘Where’s Pablito at?’ They said they were with him, and what did I need? I looked at the bigger one and sneered, like I was some junkie instead of a punk kid copping blow. She was heavy set, with curly ringlets that shone like wet bronze under the streetlight. Her dangling earrings were cheap gold and the size of onion rings, rattling as she moved her head. Her light grey eyes just smiled at me and asked me what I needed again. I thought: well if she says she has to go somewhere to get it I’ll walk. So I asked if an eight was still one fifty and she said, ‘You know the price ain’t changed Papi’. So I said, ‘Where’s it at?’ And she jerked her head back slightly over her shoulder, jangling the earrings once more. I handed her the two crisp bills and said, ‘Hurry up yo, I can’t be hanging around here all night’.
Crouching in the tiny vestibule of an East Village cold water flat, I was wide awake now; triumphant as I excitedly transferred almost half the contents of a small pink plastic bag onto a folded dollar bill. I had the blow and the cash, and I hadn’t been gone even fifteen minutes. Sometimes life was just too good to you. In a flash of largesse I poured a little back into the plastic bag, ruminating on my success. I didn’t want to be greedy, because who knew where this night was heading. I took out my apartment keys and shoveled two large mounds up into my nose and snorted it back, tasting it in the back of my throat. I licked the key and walked out into the blurry night. My soul was twanging, alive with a pulsating confidence that rendered me fearsome, invincible and above the law. Walking quickly, hardly able to contain my spirit, I broke into a jog and ran up behind a dreary Goth couple and turned around in their faces, yelling, ‘What’s up Drac!’ As they jerked away, startled and annoyed I laughed and did a few air punches. I ran all the way back the club feeling no fear and no pain.
Back in the club I was exulting in Patricia’s glow. Having scored for her she now focused all her attention on me – I was the man now. But I was too high and crazy to dwell on it. I wanted to play the big man and get high, so I took Leo into the bathroom to gloat on my windfall and wake him up with some lines. We were sniffing and laughing hysterically as I told him the details; and I was filled with a magnetic happiness that was contagious. I took out a wide tipped marker and started tagging Fiend 1 on the bathroom door. It was a new club and nobody had gotten up in the bathroom yet. As I was focusing my attention on the fresh new surface, Leo was holding the bill and helping himself liberally, when he suddenly stopped and disapprovingly said, ‘You douche’ with his novelty accent and we both broke into charged laughter.
Outside the place was overcrowded with every type of Downtown flotsam imaginable; all falling over each other, drinking, smoking, sniffing, popping and dancing. Leo and I were back on the dance floor, juiced up and kinetic, and soon I had soaked through my suit. A girl with half her head shaved and the other half dyed blonde in a perfect little bob came over to me and mouthed something to me with full, pouty pink lips, and I stopped dancing. ‘What?’ I asked her. She pushed her lips together again, blew me an air kiss and moved towards the bar, and I followed her. Remembering I had money in my pocket I bought us each a beer, and the next moment we were wildly making out at the bar. I had my tongue deep down in her mouth and she was pressing her burning hard body up against me, gyrating and squirming like a slinky new wave ferret. Her mini dress was made of plastic and I was so hot and sweaty I kept slipping as I tried to feel her compact curves. People were bumping into us from every angle, and I felt lost and hot and alive with this girl slipping her warm tongue in my ear and down my neck.
At some point Renzo appeared in front of me and said ‘Dude, let’s flip flop…Patricia wants to go somewhere else’. I looked around me and the ferret had vanished. I had an empty glass in my hand, and I was smoking a cigarette. Renzo was insistent, as if this night depended on his next move, but I was dazed and looking for the little half blonde girl. I asked him if he’d noticed her, but from the intent sparkle in his eyes I could tell he’d been sequestered in the bathrooms helping Patricia get acquainted with the downtown scene. He shook his head gravely again and said, ‘If we leave now we can go back to her hotel and party’. We were moved along in the current towards the door, pushing against an oncoming flow of bodies trying to get in before last call; nobody knew if this place would turn into after hours or not. I suddenly realized that Leo wasn’t with us and was looking for him as I instinctively felt in my pockets for my money and coke. It all seemed to be there, but then I remembered handing something to the ferret. Then I saw Leo’s angular brown face and pork pie hat bobbing above the smoke and heads, a cigarette jammed into the corner of his mouth. He squinted at me exaggeratedly and yelled, ‘You dick!’ and I reached out and grabbed him. I wasn’t sure whether Renzo wanted him along or not, but he was coming.

II

Floating along under the amorphous, pre-dawn street lights, the grey haired cabbie was immune to our shenanigans. Leo was in the front seat talking to him in a mangled coke monologue: ‘My brother, you from Brooklyn and I’m also from Flatbush…’ Looking at him from the back seat I could see steam rising off his suit jacket. I was helping myself to a spoonful of Patricia’s blow while she slouched between Renzo and me with a hand on each of our legs. I looked over and he was licking her neck and trying to grope her tits while she giggled and elbowed him away playfully. It had never occurred to me that it was going to be this kind of party, and I suddenly felt flushed, and wasn’t sure what to do. I lamely put my hand on hers and she laughed and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was soaked through my suit and the hair at the base of my neck was just starting to dry. All I could think of was getting to where we were going and doing some more coke. We stopped somewhere on Central Park West, and Patricia gave me ten bucks and told me to go in the deli and buy beer. The first omen of dawn was emerging, purple and blue through the mist as I looked north and realized that we weren’t far from 110th street and the top of the park.
Upstairs the apartment – her friend’s she said – looked unlived in, and was basically a hotel style studio with a high king sized bed, kitchenette and a bathroom. It was like the set of The Odd Couple, Seventies grandeur, and there were no colors in the room; the heavy floor to ceiling curtains were a dingy brown. I pulled them back to look outside at the ghostly silhouettes of the trees taking shape in the park below. I wondered what street we were on. Leo was in the kitchenette slurping a Budweiser tall boy and smoking a cigarette that had coke in it, and I could taste the sweet chemicals in the air. I went over and took a big drag and held it in as long as I could. My eyes bulged and my chest billowed, as the drug went through my lungs, blood and into my head. I opened a beer and whispered to Leo ‘Are we all gonna throw down with this chick or what?’ His eyes widened and he flashed his crack tooth smile and flicked his thick eyebrow at me, but he didn’t know either.
We were standing in the kitchen, filled with adrenaline and uncertainty, sipping our beers now, while Renzo had slipped into the bathroom with Patricia. I walked over to the bathroom door and tried to listen, half expecting to hear animal grunts and perfume bottles toppling over in hasty lust. Instead I heard low murmuring and then I knocked on the door and there was silence. ‘What’s up dude?’ I asked. Then there was some whispering and Patricia said, ‘Be right out baby, don’t worry.’ I looked over to Leo and he gave me a quizzical look. Then the door opened and Renzo came out and said, ‘OK who wants to get down first?’ I looked at him and he had his shirt sleeve rolled up and a proud look on his face where his smirk usually was. I asked what was up, since I saw no sign of sex at all. He looked at me and said in a low tone, ‘Patricia likes to bang it’, and pointed to his arm. I didn’t get it at first, my mind still stuck in a porn theatre on 42nd Street somewhere. Then I saw the thin rivulet of blood at the crease of his elbow as he theatrically clenched and unclenched his fist. ‘C’mon baby’, Patricia said to me, as I tried to understand. I moved toward the bathroom without a question, not knowing what I was doing. Once inside the dimly lit room I saw her shake the pink bag I had gotten from the Columbians another lifetime ago, and pour the white powder into the spoon and stir it around in water she slowly sprayed from a clear syringe with a blue tip. The water became glassy as the coke dissolved into it, and she then sucked it all back up into the needle and gave me her serpentine look. ‘Give me your arm baby’, she said, and I stood and slowly took my suit jacket off and hung it neatly on the peg of the door. I pushed my sweater up to my bicep and surrendered. ‘You never banged it before did you?’ She asked.
She pressed my thick vein with her slender, well manicured finger and I noticed the sleek, silvery pink of her nail polish. It was an adult shade, and it looked experienced. She pulled her finger away and my vein jumped out, throbbing from the pressure. Patricia poised the needle over my arm and I was mesmerized by a single drop hanging off the tip. I looked up at her face, full of concentration and purpose, and then felt the tiny flash as the surgical steel entered my skin and found the main line. A cold, sucking feeling tickled my throat and I felt a moment of queasiness, but I just stared ahead as she drew a little of my inky red blood back into the syringe and then with deft little movement pushed the mixture back into my arm. Then it was all warm, and I felt the back of my throat quiver as the drug raced towards my heart and brain. She slid the needle out of my arm and quickly started cleaning it out by filling it and re-filling it from tap water in a small hotel glass. She asked me how I felt, and I was speechless. I wanted to savor it and remember it, but it was elusive by nature and I knew that. I finally opened my eyes as she was preparing another shot for herself. I watched her go through the ritual again, and again I was impressed by her intensity and skill. Her face had changed; she was engrossed now, and the corners of her mouth hardened with concentration and purpose. I noticed little cracks at the corners of her eyes, caked with expensive, night old foundation, and the eyeliner she wore was smudged below her left eye. As she pushed back the multiple black bracelets and bangles of her hairless arm and prepared the shot I understood she was not a young woman.
Leo was afraid and didn’t shoot any, but Renzo and I each went again and finally it was the four of us all smoking and chatting in the tiny kitchenette as the day pushed through the heavy curtains. Swarming dust swirled in the laser rays of early dawn light as I pulled them to one side to peek out before I went down again for beer and now it was bright morning, but I was afraid to look at it and I just scurried back upstairs like a rat with the six pack and cigarettes. I half expected to find them all fooling around on that big high bed, but they were right where I left them. We drank more beer and smoked cigarettes and then the coke started to wear off and it became uncomfortable, since nobody seemed to know what to do next. Patricia was standing against the kitchen counter and looking at me with that viperous look again. I leered at her stupidly; we were all waiting to see if she had any more drugs to keep the party going. Many nights ended this way, in a Mexican standoff between the people holding and the freeloaders. But she wasn’t saying anything except blah, blah, blah New York clubs are so much cooler than L.A. clubs…and that she knew Belinda Carlisle, and partied with the Go-Go’s. The sun was fighting its way through the cracks around the air conditioner, and creeping behind the glowing drapes.
‘OK guys, it’s time to go’, Patricia suddenly announced. ‘I need my beauty sleep and I have to catch a flight back to the coast tonight’. Almost relieved, we all just looked at each other and shrugged. Then she turned to me and said, ‘Except you’. I was too wasted to react so I just smiled and nodded at Leo and Renzo – especially Renzo. My brain was trying to confirm what she just said, but my body knew. It was abstract, spiritual. I couldn’t comprehend this crazy science any better than they could. Renzo looked at me like I had just won the lottery with his ticket. Leo said ‘Oh really?’ and shook his head in comic disbelief. It happened quickly, and then Patricia was hustling them into their coats and walking them out the door to the elevator. Not knowing what to do, I took off my jacket, kicked my loafers off and sat on the bed trying to look rico suave. The moment was delicious, and I wanted to keep it forever.
The door opened and Patricia looked at me sitting on the bed like a naughty schoolboy. I had taken my hat off and my freshly buzzed suedehead made me look even younger. I suddenly had the urge to put it back on. She looked me up and down and then started to snicker, realizing what I was thinking. ‘C’mon baby, put your shoes back on’, she said. I was confused now, and patted the bed next to me and smiled at her grotesquely. Surely this isn’t going to end here, I thought. She laughed out loud now, and said, ‘I know you’re a cute baby, and maybe we can try something later if you’re good…but right now I need you to get us some more stuff’. My mind rewound to the word ‘Baby’ and tried to make sense of what was happening by focusing on that. Then I found the word ‘Cute’ and I put them together, trying to understand this scene and its two actors. I looked at her imploringly for a clue, but she was going into her purse counting tens and twenties. ‘Can we get an eightball baby?’ She said. I looked at my watch and noticed a few spots of moisture inside the crystal. It was 9:45 a.m. What day is it today? I wondered. ‘You really want me to put my shoes back on? I asked, incredulous now. And she was serious as cancer, her face continuing its decline into cracks and creases – the face of a junkie.
I realized I wouldn’t go all the way downtown now, my heart wasn’t in it. I felt the harsh sun outside the window and knew I had to face it; to get across the park to my Godmother’s place. I told her I didn’t know anyone to call now, and she was not pleased, but I didn’t care. As I stood up to slip back into my loafers she hissed at me, ‘I fucked up…I thought you had the connection!’ Her dirty blonde hair fell in clumpy faded curls across her face and I saw the alligator skin of her tanned neck. She handed me my jacket and then went into her black leather purse and produced a business card. She handed it to me and said, ‘In case you change your mind. I’m really not leaving until Sunday’. It read L.A. ANGELS ‘For the Discerning Gentleman’ with L.A. and N.Y. numbers, but I wouldn’t understand that until later. I slipped it into my breast pocket and said, ‘Sure’. But I knew I would never see her again.

III

Outside in the dazzling sun I crossed Central Park West and headed toward the reservoir. I realized I was near the apartment I lived in as a kid, and I knew these benches and walkways well. The trees were shedding huge brown and yellow leaves, and I watched them floating down in the hazy morning air, crunching an acorn under my shoe. I was still buzzing from everything and walking erratically, and it occurred to me that it was perfect football weather. A few joggers passed me when I got to the track around the reservoir, giving me quick guarded New York looks. I laughed out loud so they could hear, thinking how ridiculous they were. I felt tired, and wondered if my Godmother would be home when I got back.

To Be Un-Fab in a Fabulous City

I am not a fabulous person. In fact there is nothing ‘fab’ about me at all. I don’t smoke or drink, I don’t do drugs and I don’t even hang out in bars and night clubs. I’m so un-fab that I may even be lame by now, or corny, or even worse…old. To be fair, I may have been fab once (or even twice), but that was a long time ago when being fab would have meant much more.
I live in Hong Kong these days, a city of scandalous Canto-Popstars, Maserati millionaires and hot tip traders who all like to pay to play. They coalesce around the fab haunts found halfway up a steep hill in Central Hong Kong; a place called Lan Kwai Fong. On any weekend night you can see a glittering galaxy of international beauties in tight cocktail dresses and spiky heels, and constellations of shooting star short sellers and financial fireballs; spending, sipping, gulping, sniffing, slipping and staggering around like there’s no 2012. Yes, LKF (as it’s cleverly called) is the place to see and be seen if you’re fab in Hong Kong.
But as I mentioned I am decidedly un-fab. A few years ago when I was a DJ and still fab-ish, I was invited to Hong Kong (I lived in Bangkok at the time) to play music on a Friday night at a club in LKF. Pretty fab you’re thinking…right? I have two unfading memories of that night. The first is two English guys in vomit smattered business suits at around midnight, silk neckties wrapped around their foreheads (Samurai yuppie!), insultingly but evidently hilariously, karate chopping random people in the crowded street while they did bad Bruce Lee voiceovers: What can I do for you Mr. Braithwaite? Chop! Whaaaaaaaaaaa! Chop Chop! The second was a girl of indiscriminate nationality (possibly Australian, but hard to tell from the slurring and hiccupping) who had it in her muddled mind that since I was the DJ I was either holding cocaine or knew where to get it. The first time she asked I laughed out loud, since I have been drug free for a long time now (which, come to think of it, could definitely be contributing to my un-fabability). I calmly informed her that I wasn’t from Hong Kong and had no idea where to find blow. Now it’s quite possible that she forgot she had harangued me for drugs previously - such was her ardent state – but back she came at least five times during the course of my set, each time leaning in conspiratorially and saying things like, C’mon I know you must have some shit…you’re a DJ! I’ll let you in on a little secret: DJ’s often have no idea where to get drugs at all, despite the folklore. Some don’t even do drugs. How un-fab is that?
Another hotspot for the city’s movers and shakers is the seedier, less fab (but more functional) round the clock red light zone, Wanchai. Admittedly this place is a bit nearer and dearer to my heart, but mainly because it is more shall we say, down to earth. It’s hard to be haughty when you’re chatting up a five foot Filipina bar girl wearing saran wrap and stilettos. Yes in the realm of Men prostitution is the great equalizer, and the price is the same for taxi driver and CEO alike. This Wanchai is a democratic land of blinking neon and horrible music, where earnest English teachers, pencil pushing clerks, and power boating playboys alike can stand outside of a loud bar blaring Hotel California or atonal techno (who cares?) and feel superior. It’s good that way. Happy hour on Lockhart Road is where you can find everyone from budget backpackers to financial kingpins enjoying a quiet baker’s dozen of pints – all bonding over a heady combination of football, bargirls, beer and brio.
My favorite Thai restaurant is on Lockhart Road; a little arctic-chilled hole in the wall, with a sliding front door called Thai Farmer. But it’s good and it’s real; the owners are from Isaan Province in Thailand, and so is the clientele – mainly the savvy girls who come over on month-long tourist visas to work the bars of Wanchai. It’s a cozy, cheery little spot (how could it be otherwise when run by Thai people?) with exceptional crab curry and mango and sticky rice dessert. But is it in any way fab? Absolutely not.
My other favorite place on Lockhart Road is the Sunny Paradise sauna. Sunny P (as my friends and I like to call it) is at least thirty years old, and to be frank has seen better days. But what it lacks in sparkle and snap, it makes up for in slightly threadbare charm, and fawning yet familiar old school Hong Kong style service. The staff is friendly and nonchalant; the towel guys are hilariously churlish, fluent in Pidgin English, and used to a worldly consortium of customers, most over the age of forty. For this reason we also call it the ‘old man sauna’. The whole vibe in Sunny Paradise is pre-handover, as it should be since the place was definitely built well before 1997. Until recently smoking was keenly encouraged in the resting (i.e. sleeping) room, with its enveloping easy chairs, crumpled local newspapers and tinny televisions showing news and soap operas. Between each chair were great canisters of loose cigarettes and complimentary lighters, along with the Q tips and toothpicks. Now they have signs up that read No Smoking, but try telling that to the local businessmen and retirees puffing away between pork noodles and glasses of strong tea. I once saw an old codger riding the stationary bike in the antique fitness room (think medicine balls and jump ropes) huffing and wheezing away, a cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth. Now that’s old school, and very un-fab.
Recently a friend who’s fairly fab invited me to go to the beach with him here in Hong Kong. It was a shimmering Sunday morning and I had just had my iced coffee and local gai mei bao coconut bun. It would have been more fab to go up the hill to Pacific Coffee on Bonham Road, but it was feverous outside and I couldn’t be bothered. I had never been to the beach in Hong Kong, but I have flown over the archipelago enough times to realize that there is serious uncut nature everywhere, and that includes some post card sandy beaches. He proposed going to Big Wave Bay, in the breathtaking but kooky sounding district called Shek-O. I wasn’t sure…it was already past eleven, and going to the beach seemed like something we should have planned much earlier. But my friend assured me that the subway would take us half an hour and then another ten minutes on the minibus, and chop-chop, we’d be at the beach. Eyebrow cocked I jumped in the shower, and as much to prove him wrong than anything else I was soon out the door and on my way to Sheung Wan station.
Almost exactly thirty minutes later we emerged from the bustling, urban hoopla of Shau Kei Wan station, out into blinking sunlight, exhaust and traffic. But literally ten steps away was a local minibus waiting to take people to Shek-O Beach, and the smaller, less popular Big Wave Bay. The driver was a madman naturally (all Hong Kong minibus drivers are psychos) and soon we were careening around rock-walled hairpin turns, tires pealing at fifty miles per hour, barely missing his equally maniacal counterparts coming from the other direction. But the views! As we climbed up into the verdant jungle, with its acacias, banyans and bauhinias crowding the narrow road, the air became clear, and cooler by a few degrees. Looking over to one side (a sheer drop off that made my heart flutter) I saw an undulating vista of exotic emerald; dark shadows and hills, a drastic and inscrutable landscape that had long ago gained the nickname Dragon’s Back.
Walking down the shady lane to the beach, un-intense merchants offered everything from swim trunks to sunscreen and inflatable rafts. The rustic little huts had an easy, well-worn charm, and nobody was hawking – like so many other things in Hong Kong it just worked, and everybody accepted the logic and pace of it. We rented wooden beach chairs, and soon came around a final bend to an idyllic sandy beach between two overgrown cliffs of granite. There were quite a few people there (it was Sunday) but it still felt agreeable, with an unexpected indolence. We decided to set up shop down close to the water, and as we passed through groups of slender tattooed teenagers under large umbrellas, I noticed they were drinking beer and playing current U.S. hip hop and RnB from radios – but not loudly, and nobody was being territorial. I saw a sign that said no smoking on the beach, and from what I saw nobody was. That’s another thing about Hong Kong; people here generally follow the rules.
I don’t know whether Big Wave Bay is fab or not. I suspect it’s not. There are bigger, more crowded beaches in Hong Kong, with hotter people to look at and more of a scene. But the water at Big Wave Bay was nice, and refreshingly cool once you got out past the wooing waders and splashing rafters. I liked the families and large groups of school friends playing their endless varieties of beach games. As I swam further out I gained a view of the whole bay, and noticed another cove off to one side that I went to explore later, as the sun dipped behind one of the dragon’s humps. I didn’t see any waves to speak of at Big Wave Bay, but evidently they appear during typhoons. I don’t surf anyway, so what do I care? Surfing is definitely fab.

Ghost Season

The acrid smell of burning paper stung my nose immediately as I exited my building in Sai Ying Pun. Directly in front of me were my neighbors – people I pass daily with a polite nod – bent down, and fishing around in a large plastic bag for what looked like gold bars and throwing them onto a small street fire. They lit them from a row of slim red candles that resembled bottle rockets, or votive candles in a church. Into the flames went more gold bars, and what looked like a paper Louis Vuitton handbag and paper money; lots of money.
The middle of July heralds the beginning of ghost season in Chinese culture I would later find out, and sure enough, as I walked around the neighborhood that night every building was busy solemnly burning their material offerings to the dead. For reasons left largely unexplained, this time of year brings out lost souls wandering around in Hong Kong’s version of purgatory, and they roam the streets at night looking for warm bodies to enter – most unwelcome news for a night owl like myself. As I walked down the hill towards the earthier districts below Queen’s Road West, the fires got bigger and the offerings gaudier. Outside of a cheap home furnishings shop on Center Street an old couple had a real bonfire going, and I’m sure I saw a ‘Mercedes Benz’ and a cardboard McMansion get tossed into the blaze along with all the counterfeit cash. Turning up her nose at such a display (the admiration engraved on her face), a woman who owns the bake shop next door pulled down the iron gates to close early for the night, or maybe just to block out the smoke.
Later, after finishing off a voluptuous mound of ‘duck ricey’ (pidgin English for barbeque duck with sour plum sauce, rice and a side of dark green choy sum) at a favorite local restaurant, I washed it all down with a tall iced lemon tea. No place in the world does either of these things better than Hong Kong. Sated, I decided to take an evening constitutional around the neighborhood as I am wont to do. I was amazed at the fires burning simply everywhere. It’s not uncommon to see people burning paper money at any hour of the day in Hong Kong for a variety of reasons, but this was unprecedented. There were people queuing up outside buildings, waiting to make their ersatz material offerings - to keep their ancestors happy, and on that side of the material world. As a result the air was thick with smoke, and security guards were standing by, intently looking on with buckets and squeeze bottles of water. The look of spiritual fervor on people’s faces reminded me that this was only part superstition.
By ten o’clock I found myself walking through King George V Park under its august Banyan trees, with their sinewy arms and overhanging rainforest boughs. As a New Yorker I appreciate the nocturnal habits of Hong Kongers, and usually the park would still be bustling at that time, but the usual soccer match wasn’t happening, and the last of the joggers and chatty walkers had left already. I was suddenly alone with a ragtag pride of street cats that often follows me on my walks, looking to mooch a meal. I sometimes bring them treats from one of the many pet shops in the area, amused by their motley patchwork of inbred patterns and colors. As I exited the park on Eastern Street I noticed that indeed, almost everyone was off the streets. There was one group of people still burning a large pile of paper tithes on High Street and I walked over to them and watched the silent ceremony. Nobody seemed to notice me as I pulled out my phone and surreptitiously snapped a few blurry shots of the flames, as high as the people now, flickering into the Hong Kong sky. I wanted to ask someone a few questions about it all, but the intensity on their faces rendered me suddenly shy; an intruder in their ritual.
Walking home along the quiet, hilly streets I started thinking about all the ghosts from my own past; relatives, friends, classmates...people who were, and no longer were. In the West we never think of having a real connection to them once they’re gone, and they are called memories; it would never occur to us to try and appease them or make them happier in their next life. We visit the graves occasionally and place flowers there, maybe. We certainly wouldn’t worry about being seized on the street during a certain season of the year, with all of its attendant horror film connotations. But I do remember hearing ‘ghost stories’ at summer camp, and even dressing up as a ghost for my first Halloween night, all in good fun though, and not really scary. As a kid camping with my father and uncles, the truly scary story was the one about an escaped murderer from the local penitentiary who was at large in the area – as they jerked around and whispered ‘What’s that!’ every time there was a noise in the woods, and then laughed as the kids all shrieked and jumped out of our skins. I couldn’t sleep at all that night and every noise in the forest was the maniac coming to kill us. But it was real people we were afraid of in our world, not ghosts.
Creeping down the steep slope of Center Street towards Victoria Harbor, I was once again struck by the similarities between Hong Kong and New York; half the street was torn up from road work, and on the other side was construction where they are building a new subway station. This provides a daily urban cacophony that I am somehow conditioned to accept and ignore. Just beyond the future subway entrance stands a row of derelict Chinese shop houses that sit back on an old disused lane. They were slated for demolition ages ago but have been hanging on, housing some of the construction gear now. A few weeks earlier I had tried to get up there for a closer look into the lane, but was blocked by the site manager.
I was surprised the first time I noticed them sitting there, halfway up the hill between two roads, with high rises on every side – they are a moldy, rotting piece of old Hong Kong. The sides are lumpy whitewashed plaster, with exposed wooden beam studs jutting out in a few places; they look like they will fall in at any moment. There are small trees and moss growing out from every opportunity: the cracks in the wall, the crooked window frames, and from beneath the buckling old-style Chinese tile roof. Some of the houses in the row once had small balconies in front, with weather beaten doors and windows in warped, twisted traditional patterns – most of the glass long since gone. Some have been torn off altogether over the years, replaced with more functional iron grates and other makeshift improvements like bricked up windows and fiberglass awnings. The house in the middle even has a small rooftop widows walk, adding a bit of dilapidated dash to the place.
Now as I passed the row houses’ weedy, toothed silhouette I noticed a small entryway along the side of the construction site that I hadn’t noticed before. I cautiously ventured up the steps into the narrow alleyway, and to my surprise I saw that it ran all the way back behind a high rise apartment to the old houses. I crept along in the shadows, past clothes lines and discarded easy chairs; behind one house was a tiny patio of chipped tiles and cracked cement with a faded mahjong table in its center. All the lights were out on the ground floor, but light came filtering down from apartments above. I looked up at the shadowy shop houses and was filled with a strange melancholy. Who had lived there, I wondered? Were they poor, hard working people who lived in cramped conditions, or were these once the homes of proud Cantonese people who had money, as the misplaced widows walk would suggest? I wanted to take a photo now that I was up close, but somehow the idea of the flash seemed obscene. Maybe subconsciously I didn’t want to upset the spirits that surely had resided here for so long. Then I smiled as I realized I was looking at a haunted house during ghost season.

The Long Way Home

Christmas was very cold this year in my hometown. I had forgotten how quickly the wind could whip up off the lake and fill you with regret that you hadn’t worn a hat. Luckily for me I was only in town for Christmas Eve, and the next day would head back to New York, so we stayed inside most of the time. I hadn’t seen my old friend and his family for many years, and his brother’s kids I’d never even met. His parents had gotten smaller and greyer; tottering around the house searching for glasses, and scolding each other long after the other had left the room.
It was strange to be back in the town after so long. Driving through the main street it looked the same, but the names had all changed. The University was still there, a gothic silhouette frozen in time against the prism colors of the sunset. The old theatre was now a bank, and the Woolworth’s space must have changed hands five times since I last lived there. Driving past the Methodist church I remembered the Reverend hiring us to shovel snow after a big storm, and years later vandalizing it on mischief night and getting arrested by one of my coaches, who was also a cop.
Time moves slowly in these towns, and likewise we slowed to a crawl as we drove past the High School’s naked sycamores casting their twisted shadows on the ground; and the town square, a miniature version of itself to my prodigal eyes. Gone were the family names of proprietors who had served University students for generations. Gone were the family run taverns that quietly served underage students (and enterprising locals) for years. Some of those names had been around since my grandfather was a student there himself. And in their place I saw catalogue names and chains; a Starbucks version of a corner diner. Economic pressure and evolution had homogenized the old place.
But the stone tigers were still there, proud gatekeepers of tradition; the stoic sentinels of a history intertwined with that of the country itself. Rolling past, I wondered at the times I climbed and played on them as a kid. They loomed larger than any sphinx then, and represented something I could never quite grasp; a legacy that did not include me, for I was neither bearer nor heritor of this estate.
The warmth of my old friend’s house – the same one I’d met him in four decades ago – was a salve on the last of my scabby wounds. I found myself asking questions about phantoms from our past, amazed to hear that many of them still lived in the area. A former wise-cracking tormentor was now a solid citizen with four kids, two of them in college, and the beloved, civic-minded gym teacher - a man I deeply resented growing up - was still alive and active in the community. I suddenly laughed out loud, realizing how absurd it was to keep this resentment against a perfectly good man who just happened to represent the community. After all, had he ever given me a second thought after I left?
After dinner on Christmas Eve we drove out to see my second oldest friend at his condominium. I was surprised to see a well lived-in house, crowded with years full of music, books and family photos. A fire was dancing in the hearth. On the mantelpiece was an original figurine of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, cracked and discolored like my memories of that time so long ago, when we first met. A few more spirits of Christmas past stopped in unexpectedly and told me how good it was to see me after so long. We drank tea I’d brought from China and I smiled back at them. It was good to see them too, but as I laughed at dredged up memories I quietly wondered who they were. Later, as the night wore on I went into the bathroom; a small gallery of framed photographs, flyers and my friend’s artwork. Scanning the walls for any clues to my past I finally looked right in front of me, and there we were: sitting on a bench in front of the High School, and I recognized the conditional smile, a half-sneer I have often wondered at when I look at family photographs. My mother used to say I was unnatural in front of the camera. But it was definitely me, although I had to move a step closer to make sure. I recognized the watchband and the demeanor; a mixture of arrogance, self-confidence and abject fear.
Christmas day was a hurly-burly of eggs, chocolate smeared faces, hastily explored stockings, torn wrapping paper, wild excitement, frowns, pleading and a hysteria that only this day can produce in children. After all was said and done I produced a bag of goodies from the exotic Far East that largely failed to impress compared to the battery powered Heavy Metal guitar, skateboard, dolls, clothes and art sets. I looked at my friend and his brother, two middle aged men with their families, and identified equally with the kids. The grandparents seemed heroically tolerant to me, smiling as we were interrupted over and over again by the palpitating kids. I kept wondering when someone was going to tell them to shut up while the grownups were talking.
That afternoon we had a few hours to kill before I would catch my train back to the city. I wanted to walk up to the local park where we spent endless idle hours in our youth. I remembered it in oft-recalled dreams, and was impatient to match my mind’s eye with reality. Borrowing a warm hat, I walked out into the back yard and waited for my friend while he made explanations to his family on Christmas day. The yard seemed wrong-sized in the daylight, and the driveway too narrow; the rim had long since fallen off the rotted backboard where we used to shoot hoops. The garage where we once explored ourselves and made oaths of allegiance was now a rustic wooden shed. Breathing in the cold air I looked around again at this gnome’s world of overgrown shrubs and shabby trees and I knew it was my own.
As we entered the park I could see that much had changed. Gone were the wading pool and the sandboxes where we once drank beer and wrestled. Gone was the chain link backstop, and in fact the softball diamond seemed to be gone too, under the patchy snow. The basketball court was still there, but many of the towering pine trees had been cut down, and this filled me with an unreasonable melancholy. One thing I always loved about that park was how dark and cool it was under the pines on a hot summer’s day.
We had intended only a quick walk up to the park, but now coming out on the other end of it I found I wanted to walk the old streets, and begged my friend to keep going. There was once a transitional neighborhood there, solidly working class and proud of it; but everything now shone under a patina of upward mobility. Where my memory placed a broken down car or a rusted bike frame in a yard, now there was a soccer ball and a multi-colored flag that seemed frivolous. A shingled working garage had been converted into a studio apartment with a shiny red door and a brass plate letting you know who lived inside.
We made a left and headed down towards the lake, walking through progressively larger lawns and bigger homes; Tudors, Colonials, Georgians and an old Victorian corner house that filled me with dread as a kid. I looked at it and tried to recall the feeling, but it was too clean now with its new paint job and shiny shutters. We had breached the University’s realm, and found ourselves walking past professors’ housing. Bikes leaned against the sides of stucco and clapboard walls, and a precisely constructed tree fort rested in a giant elm tree in one front yard. Everything seemed so much more orderly now, and I began to doubt the sepia images of my mind.
Finally we crossed into the former community playing fields, and I realized we were not far from my old house, a place I had almost erased from memory. I knew then why we were walking this way, and I felt a force of history was pulling me towards the lake. Urging my friend on I quickened the pace, suddenly excited to claim ownership of this long banished dreamscape. Here was the field where I broke my finger sliding into second base; where I spent stolen hours playing hooky with my mother one spring day; where I flew my first kite. Now as we walked behind the field into a small copse of woods that hadn’t changed in all these years, I remembered the bountiful jungle it once seemed. Here was the trickle of a stream where I looked for turtles and swung on thick vines and talked my neighbor into showing me hers if I showed her mine. It was all still here. And I was drawn along, just as the water beneath me was drawn down to the lake below.
As we came out of the woods I saw the fields behind my old house where I set up a bicycle jump when I first moved in, mistakenly doing a flip that resulted in blood and stitches and the grudging admiration of the neighborhood kids. My friend reminded me of the time we found spray paint and wrote peace signs, Love and Bill Cosby on the neighbor’s wall and sports car. That got me spanked with my mother’s hairbrush, grounded, and cemented my reputation at school. Yes it was here on this same ground that I played, fought, cursed and laughed with an ardor and fury that went unrequited. It was here that I discovered the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and the Jackson 5; here that I read my first books; here that I discovered the escape world of art. As much as I connived for so long to dismiss it, this was my story.
Coming up past my former neighbors’ back yard, the house looked eerily the same. I remembered the day we were moving out, and I was taking a last look at the woods and the baseball diamond we’d made. There was my neighbor’s father, a quiet man with red rimmed, watery eyes who never said much to us kids, sitting in a folding chair with a can of beer in his hand looking out into the distance. ‘We’re moving today’, I told him. He turned to me slowly, as if he hadn’t quite heard me, and I was just about to repeat myself when he said, ‘you’re gonna miss these fields’.