YEAH, NO FUCKIN' SHIT, PAL!
my first hurricane was in new york. sandy. i was blessed to only lose internet but keep electricity and be living with a close friend. i had torrented a buncha movies and tv shows. we hung out. we were in our early 20s. we walked to manhattan from sunset park one night. why not!? a third of Manhattan was completely dark. you could see the odd cab out driving around and one drove passed us into the dark part. we watched it go and go and go for forever, like when you glitch through a wall in a video game and can see various sprites animation cycles that don't require narrative sense, just mechanics.
we made it to the light part and saw an improv show (again: early 20s) then walked to our bar just on the dark side of the border. we hung out by candle light and sung weezer songs and everyone just felt this energy of "we will remember this forever." we walked back through the dark territory all the way home. again, incredibly blessed. lucky to have had one of the best nights of our lives.
hurricane season has just started down here. the first year i was pretty nervous about it. partially, yeah, we live on the first floor, we have a cat, that kinda stuff. but i think the big thing was, we had cars. what if our cars get smashed by a tree or whatever. too much of the last 5 years and change has been spent worrying about cars.
once again, blessed only to lose internet. i had gotten some dvds from teh library just in case. at 3am, pouring outside, i threw on The Lighthouse and vibed out. i got 2 or 3 paid days off because of hurricanes that year. and maybe 1 the next year but there hasn't been one since. i waste my wishes on getting paid days off for hurricanes because there's no way, weird communal experiences born out of disaster are remotely in the cards for me down here. walking anywhere, hurricane or no, is already too much of an ordeal and where the hell would i go?
i got called back to work about a month into covid. afraid to say no, afraid to not have a job when it "all blew over" i sheepishly agreed.
it was scary. i think the single most scared i have ever been in my life, like, accepting my DEATH type of fear, was a midsummer night during the curfew, walking from my job in murray hill to bryant park to catch the D train around 11pm. not a single other person the entire walk and those fireworks that were going off that summer, well, one must've been set off a block behind me because i felt in vibrate through me, the ground shake like i've never experienced before. i kept walking against my conscious will, like the time i thought about The Exorcist (inspired episode of Celebrity Deathmatch) walking home from Aaron Buschman's house Halloween night 1999, faster than I have ever walked in my life, briefly disassociating as I believed the Klamp building from Gremlins 2 was falling behind me. It wasn't. It was nothing. I had spoken to god in a foxhole for nothing.
Look, maybe doesn't translate to a tumblr post but it was real in the moment. And what was especially fucked was I was in NYC but I didn't get to have the communal experience with strangers where we look around and then to each other, shrug, sigh and/or smile and keep moving. As far as I could tell I was the only person on the island of Manhattan.
All I want is to return to that moment. the bone rattling sound that made me feel like the dinosaurs must've when then asteroid hit was undeniable, big, booming, random and temporary. The sounds that have been quietly killing me since 2022 are inconsistent, quiet and portend much worse things, financially, physically and spiritually. too much of the last 5 years and change has been spent worrying about cars.
If subway takes has taught me anything, it's that I'm not a New Yorker and never will be. I wasn't there for the Summer of Sam or 9/11, I only know a post-Giuliani New York. I've made peace with this. I'm a poser and a phony. that's fine. the title is not what i need.
i started to think about leaving the city when all i had was an empty island to myself and a job that didn't care about me. i should've stuck it out and found another job but a year of being in a new york that didn't resemble new york and not because my haunts turned into banks or whatver but because, there were no people around anymore, it got to me. a year of me cursing under my breath about people who fled or "got to" stay home and then what does my stupid ass do? leave. moron.
in april of 2022, i came into work to see a tv playing the news. a shooting had taken place at the 36th st station in sunset park. my station from november 2011 to november 2021. everyone around me treated it like we all unfortunately treat these things when not tethered to our personal history, as background noise or at best a "damn shame" footnote while grabbing something from a nearby fridge. i stepped into a bathroom and washed the tears from my face and caught my breath. the only real cohesive thought i was having was "i should be there." not in a mark wahlberg way, where i thought i coulda done something and not in a suicide ideation way. i don't know i still can't totally explain it. that's my stop. i should've been there. as is the job, i put on a brave face and got to work putting smiles on faces and tried to put it passed me.
tonight, i sat at work with a window open on my computer showing the score of the game. each comment or question or phone call headed my way sending me into a quiet rage because despite not giving a shit about sports, i needed the knicks to win. i didn't know why. the knicks won, then i knew why. my feed was flooded with footage of people in the streets, in restaurants, in bars, in subway cars going NUTS. i once again welled up with tears. i should be there. that's my city. i should be there.
i texted my wife who was in a lyft home with a driver from queens that the knicks won. the driver started going 100mph, rolled down the windows and screamed with joy. i sat there looking at my phone with wet eyes and a jealous heart, alone at work, once again.
maybe i'm just a lonely jealous person who will be that no matter where i am. but i made this poor poor decision on those same streets when no one was on them. and who knows when i'll get to be among that mass of people, that energy in a meaningful way again but i will say my tears weren't purely out of envy. i am happy for the people in the streets, i am happy that there ARE people in the streets. i am happy that new yorkers, even if only for a night, are happy.
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