Our Reunion in The City That Never Sleeps

I wrote down the directions as Chris explained them to me: 17 N, away from New Jersey and towards New York; 287 E to the Tappan Zee Bridge to 87 S to Exit 11. “Make a right onto Broadway. Turn left at the first light. Turn right at the next light, McDonalds should be on the corner. Turn left and my apartment will be on the right.”

Two hours later I am in the heart of the Bronx; Chris and Deanna, my friends, are standing on the corner, waiting for me, smiling; I am smiling so much my cheeks hurt. I missed my friends. We used to spend so much time together. We would eat dinner together and watch movies together and play in the snow together. We’d stay up late into the night trying to figure out the meaning of life and why stars shine so bright and why bad things happen to good people; we’d drink cheap wine that we’d buy from the convenience store down the street. Everything was happy and everything was calm and everything was fine when we were together.

I missed my friends dearly.

Chris cooks us our dinner: spaghetti with tomato sauce and canned corned; we wash it down with warm red wine that numbs our veins and loosens our tongues. We talk and talk and talk; we laugh about the past, excitedly asking over and over, “Oh, oh, remember that time? Man, that was a great day. I was really happy then.”

After dinner Bob Dylan is on the stereo, singing about the love he lost; on the couch, it’s Chris and Deanna, tangled together -- they are lovers that never want to be torn apart. I stand on the balcony and stare south to the Manhattan skyline, cigarette in one hand, bottle of wine in the other. I am in love with life.

“Which way is Yankee Stadium?” I call to Chris; but he doesn’t hear me. I just smile to myself and let the New York City night engulf my body.

We go to the liquor store and buy three more bottles of cheap red wine. We come back to Chris’ apartment and I play my guitar, and Chris plays his harmonica and we sing and we drink and we smoke a joint. We talk and talk and talk about everything: about religion and why the world turns and The American Dream and why stars shine so bright. My head is clouded and blurry with a million thoughts; I just smile at my friends; I missed my friends.

“I missed you guys so much,” I say over and over; Chris and Deanna are two of the most genuine people I have ever known.

They agree; they say, “We missed you too Jason; we missed you too.”

The next morning I wake up at 9, my head is hazy and heavy. I am boiling hot; I had passed out with all my clothes on. I was too wasted to even take my jacket off before I fell into the black.

Looking back, I vaguely remember thinking that some fresh air would clear all the blurriness that was running circles around my head; I vaguely remember walking around the back streets of the Bronx; it was cold out. I don’t remember much after that except almost knocking the TV off its perch on the dresser and snapping picture after pointless picture with my digital camera. Then I vaguely remember laying in a foreign bed, wishing that my head would stop spinning like a carousel, round and round. Then black.

I shake my head back and fourth trying to get the heaviness to go away; I need to get out; I need some fresh, cold air to clear my head.

Chris and Deanna are still asleep; my friends are wrapped together in each others arms under the covers. I don’t want to wake them; they looked to peaceful.

I walk down the street to the McDonalds; the sky is clear blue and the sun is smiling brightly. I order three Egg McMuffins: one for me and one for each of my friends. I walk to the convenience store up the street and buy a bottle of orange juice; I want to drown my veins with a more positive drink.

“We must adventure this afternoon,” I explain to my friends, taking a bite of my delicious sandwich. Chris and Deanna agree. We must see this city together; adventure the streets of The City That Never Sleeps.

“You almost knocked the TV over last night,” Deanna tells me with a laugh, taking a bite of her sandwich: sausage, egg and cheese wedged between two fried biscuits.

I laugh too. “I vaguely remember that,” I say.

We pack our lunch: a stale loaf of bread, a ginger ale bottle filled with stale red wine and a half a pack of Marlboro reds. We have our provisions and we are ready to adventure: my friends and I.

We pay the $2 fee and board the train. We rush along the tracks south, away from the Bronx and towards Manhattan. By the time we reach downtown, our train is with crowded with people. Every kind of person you can imagine; Americans speaking English and Europeans and Asians and Latinos speaking languages I couldn't understand. To the right, a family of eight on vacation is toting a video camera, documenting their ride through the subways of New York. To the left two Mexican men, one on a nylon stringed guitar, the other on an accordion, play a Spanish samba; a Mexican woman collects change in a cowboy hat for her musicians. “Gratias,” she says, forcing a smile as I drop a quarter in her hat.

There is no music in Pittsburgh; the homeless are so jaded and unoriginal. There is no music in Washington, D.C.; the politicians keep the homeless off the streets.

The three of us get off somewhere downtown and head towards our first destination: the Brooklyn Bridge.

We walk along, amongst all the tourists, joggers and bikers; high above us the sky is a clear blue and the sun is shining. Halfway across the bridge we stop and stare: there are tug boats slowly swimming in the greenish, brownish Hudson River; to the west is the Empire State building, standing high and proud above everything else; to the east in the Statue of Liberty, declaring that America is The Land of the Free. I break off a chunk of stale bread, take a bite and wash it down with the wine. I break off another piece and drop it on the bridge; immediately the pigeons swarm.

Everything is calm and everything is beautiful. I snap off a picture of Chris and Deanna kissing; Brooklyn’s buildings stretching to the heavens are the backdrop. I’m convinced that I could sell the picture as a postcard; I’d obviously call it “Lovers Kissing on the Brooklyn Bridge.”

We walk south towards Bleeker Street; we talk and reminisce about our time together in Washington and where we’ll be this summer and about how we have to spend a lot of time together this summer. We’re in search of French bakery where we can buy a new, not so stale loaf of bread; I’m in search of a record store where I can buy used Springsteen LP’s.

We walk and walk and walk through the cold, March afternoon. We find a fancy, luxurious French bakery somewhere on the way and we all order food; I get a $.75 loaf of sesame bread; I find a man selling records on a random street somewhere in south Manhattan; I buy “Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey” for $4.

Hours later, our stomachs filled with red wine and bread, our bodies cold from being out in the cold for so long, ours souls content with our exploration, we decide to head north again, back towards where we came from. We pay $2 and board a train headed for Times Square where we will transfer to another train that will take us back to the Bronx. While we are waiting for our train, a black man is handing out literature, screaming over and over “JESUS IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD!”; a quartet of a violin player, a cello player, a pianist and a bass player that belong in Carnegie Hall, not a subway, play the theme music.

“Stop and listen,” Chris says; the three of us stop and listen.

No one ever screams about the love of Christ in Pittsburgh; no classical musicians even played the Metro in Washington, D.C. This is New York City; this is America; this is The Dream.

Rushing along the tracks north, away from Manhattan and towards the Bronx I hear Deanna telling Chris about the time she went to a Yankees game and sat on her father’s lap for all nine innings; surrounding us are sullen looking individuals on their way home from a long, sad day at work. I don’t say anything; I only feel and reflect and feel the happiness that’s tingling in my bones.

At Chris’ apartment, Chris and Deanna get comfortable on the couch and I drink a cup of black coffee and eat a chocolate flavored doughnut; I want to be aware and awake for my one hour drive back towards home.

“Goodbye,” I say to Chris and Deanna, hugging them both. “This summer,” I say with a smile on my face and a hope somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. "This summer." Chris and Deanna agree -- this summer we will rekindle our friendship on a more regular basis we tell each other; we mean it when we say it, 100 percent.

“Goodbye,” I say to my friends. “Goodbye,” they say to me.

When I am driving north once again, away from New York and towards New Jersey, everything is happy and everything was calm and everything was fine.

I missed my friends dearly.

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