2001-11-25


On the train heading south into the City, into the past. Over Hell's Gate, on the right, a skyline not seen since the late 1960s and the last gasps of the once bustling New Haven Railroad. Then into darkness and my stomach tightens. I arrive at Penn Station and begin to retrace Giant Steps that have left no footprints.

* * * * *

Alethea, my neighbor from East 7th, who I haven't seen in nearly 9 years is there to meet me among the Christmas shoppers, loafers and crooks...

... In January 1992, the nation's economy was just begining to sprout anew but I had already reached the crest of my own runaway bull market. One month earlier, my partner and I had decided to dissolve our lucrative enterprise, divide our revenue and seek new and separate ventures. While he headed off to Denmark, I set my sights on the city which had intrigued me since I was a little boy when I'd gaze out my westward facing bedroom window and imagine the the wonderful frenzy of activity occuring just over the curve of the horizon. As a headstrong 20 year old with a pile of money to burn, Manhattan seemed to be the only place commensurate with my capacity to wonder.

I squint at Alethea in an attempt to better resovle her features into a recognizable form. Her hair is short and businesslike and does not match my blurred recollections. She then breaks my confusion by jokingly chiding me on my own altered, comparatively mature and conservative appearance and I begin to remember...

* * * * *

In 1992, when I met Alethea, I thought she may have been Audrey Hepburn in another life. Her sense of style and old fashioned elegance was remarkable. Long dark hair, tailored dresses, cashmere sweaters, pointed leather shoes, pearls, scarves, nylons woven on machinery from the 1940s; the feminine embodiment of the City that Never Slept. An NYU student of 22 years, she had wealthy parents who provided her with an allowance and a rent controlled apartment in the East Village. We shared a fire escape on East 7th, and met one day while simultaneously sticking our heads out of our windows to breathe in the relatively pure January air. From the start we tested each others wits and soon found ourselves sipping Glenlivet, trading stories and becoming acquainted...

* * * * *

Standing among the throngs of Penn Station travelers, we decide to reacquaint over a nice aged scotch. Up onto the 1811 Grid, into the silver canyons and I struggle to possess and reassemble the fragments of a memory made opaque by the very moments that were memorable. Where to go? I laugh at the realization that I can no longer afford Le Cirque, so we decide to head down to the less pricey scene of so many fantastic opaque moments, the Gramercy Park Hotel Bar. I ask that we walk the distance in hopes of achieving total recall through once familiar surroundings. Down the Avenue of the Americas to 21st St., across 5th, Madison and Park. We reach Lexington and Gramercy Park looks like a 19th century London square. Inside the hotel, where at one time flushed and familiar faces abounded, endless rounds were bought and enormous tabs accumulated, I feel like a lost and lonely tourist. "Nobody is left", says Alethea as we settle into our seats. All have been claimed, be it by marriage, poverty or death. She reminisces about those glory days and I find that I cannot recall many of the episodes in her memories. I can only assume it all happened; I want to learn more about my past and I strain to make mental notations. After a long pause, she tells me how lucky I am to have left the city to carve out a simple and interesting life in a place where a person can see the stars beyond the urban facade and wreckage. She is well employed, but with the costs of city living, she is just able to get by, financially and emotionally. She is tired and wants to leave too. Neither of us could imagine entertaining such an attitude in energetic 1992. We toast to the misspent vitality of our youth.


* * * * *

Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth. Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that swings me back into the early 20s when we drank wood alcohol and everyday in every way grew better and better... And it seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensly about our surroundings anymore. -F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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