worry over all the things you don’t know, when there are obviously so many more important things that you do? That a T-shirt with the words, “Second Base” would be capital! That underwear featuring the words, “Bad Ass” could go with it! And the great thing about T-shirts is you don’t even need to know how to sew! The really great thing is you don’t need to know anything! All you need is one good idea.... Staring into the window, at a T-shirt just visible behind my own reflection, I discovered I had many.
4
T-shirts were just the beginning. Justin, Shawn, and Richie wanted to do music, film, to build a hip-hop empire! “It’s all about who you know,” they had told the reporter in the New York Magazine article, which I read half of later that night, after I finally arrived home.
May and Felix were there when I walked in. Felix was on the couch, using my copy of This Side of Paradise to roll a joint, while May was at the stereo, turning up the volume and yelling over it. I sat down on the other end of the sofa and took out my magazine, but after a few pages, I gave in to the sway of them. Accepting the joint from Felix, I stuck the magazine, most of it unread, under the cushion of our collapsing couch. I took a long drag. Who you know, who you know . . . How I knew Justin, Shawn, and Richie, as Rudyard Kipling might say, is another story....
I confess I haven’t actually read any Rudyard Kipling, but I did read this book of Edwardian erotica by Anonymous, which featured a narrator—a perverted “uncle”—who invited two curious schoolgirls he’d met onboard a transatlantic steamer to a French brothel where he was a regular, who used this phrase to great effect. But what has Rudyard Kipling or the prolific Anonymous to do with me? Absolutely nothing! Which is why I’m going to tell my story, with all its twists and turns, right now.
II
1
Some say New York in summer is a wonderful town and cite the many free activities available all season. Film festivals in Bryant Park! Opera on the Great Lawn!
“There’s also a truck in the East Village that gives free food to the homeless every Sunday. Maybe we should go there for brunch,” Lex said over the hum of the air conditioner.
“What about Tuesday? They’re showing La Traviata in Central Park,” I said, looking up from The Voice .
“If I want to see the opera, I’ll buy a ticket. Summer Stage is for poor people. It’s the rich man’s concession to the worker who can’t afford to leave town. They think if they distract us with free shit, we’re less likely to rob them while they’re away. Direct the poor man’s attention toward the stage, so he doesn’t notice the darkened windows of the apartments lining Central Park. Give us opera so we don’t go mad, throw a brick through the window, and haul off with their tea settings. It’s insulting.”
“But it’s fun to picnic in Bryant Park. They’re showing His Girl Friday next week!”
“You know who else picnics? Homeless people. They love picnics. During the Depression, people picnicked in the park all year round; they called it Tent City.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “What do you want to do then?”
It was June of 1999, the summer before my senior year. Classes had ended in late May and within a week all my friends disappeared, leaving the city suddenly quiet. Quiet in that noisy way, when you look around and see crowds of people talking, just none of them to you.
Up until then, I’d enjoyed a full schedule of dates and parties; college was turning out to be an education more sentimental than academic. Lectures and seminars were few and far between, leaving plenty of time to go out. And I did, constantly, working at my social life the way others worked at their résumés. To leave Manhattan then, to trade in my hard-won glamour for over a month in the suburbs, was out of the question.
“ You Can’t Go Home Again ,” I’d said, during my father’s birthday dinner weeks