Ode to an Unforgotten Night in the City

We spent our paychecks on three dollar bottles of wine that tasted like burgundy Crayola. We reeled in her Tinder matches until one promising catch invited us to a concert. We spent three hours, drunk and delightful, trying on each other’s clothes and jewelry. Laughter abounded. We barely remembered to bring our subway cards. At the station, the faces glared at the brackish chuckling faeries as we snorted about sex and men. The thing about New York that everyone should get to try, is the abundance of reactions from faces that you’ll never see again. So we didn’t care. Nor did we care that the concert we were so cordially invited to started over an hour ago. Or that our train came and went on the platform above us as we stood waiting for a train that was never coming. We stumbled back up the stairs to correct our mistake. We took the next train. Still lost in all of our catching up, we rode it several stops past the platform that might have led to a forgettable evening with forgettable strangers.

We got off at the 9/11 memorial and drunkenly mourned the losses with the weight of their mothers, in the arms of each other. As artists worked to paint a mural inside the neighboring building, my artist spoke to the cute one who cast an eye. Uprooted from the floor of the Oculus almost as quickly as we had been planted, we banded together like strapboot soldiers and marched to the nearest bathroom. To glance at our drip-dried makeup that no longer portrayed the fire inside of our devilish bodies. It still showed through the veil of our eyes and coursed through the cover of skin until it shattered the mirror into a thousand gems. “You ready?” A nod and we were back into the world’s most familiar town. We tumbled into the dimly lit wine bar to order the most repulsively expensive tasting glasses of wine that neither of us finished as the glares of the private party made us overly aware that our presence at the watering hole this late into the night was hardly appreciated. My artist decided to leave them a signature piece and projectiled her night onto the sidewalk. Impeccably placed, curated to a fastidious degree, left for all comers and goers to see this live review of the world’s worst wine, illumined by the dimly lit neon red sign.

We were cold. We were far from home. We had run a one way marathon. And then the rain. Not piercing to the bone like some torrentials. But a stubborn trickle that soaks into the skin, until you wake up two weeks later with hypothermia. We couldn’t walk, not a moment longer. Another dimly lit New Yorker came to our rescue, spending his night making up the hours that he couldn't at work. Away from his wife’s bed, away from his children, to serve as a saviour to wandering women walking late in the night without an umbrella. He insisted I have his, insisted I take it. My artist said I shouldn't, how could I, we couldn’t. But his eyes knew the love he had for his daughters, knew the nights they would walk with their friends at late hours, knew the rain would come down on their heads and a gift so small was an investment in Karma. Who was I to deny his deposit? Our absurdly short ride to the next block gave the relief of hours. We dripped up the stairs and we dressed for sleep. Taking off the night with every blanket we heaped. And I left in the morning. Left my artist in the city, with a terrible hangover. And a night I wish we could both forget. But one that I never do. We were free in a place so immensely entraping. Gloriously unglamourous. We ate up time and made a bigger mess of a knot already too tied. We might never have a night like that again, and I could say I am relieved, but in the safe sobriety of the country, I miss that hazy wasted night.