Prologue
July sixteenth, 1995. Nine PM, Eastern Standard Time, I thought to myself. I stood alone on the fire escape of my East Village Loft. The ominous stormy breezes of a mid-July thunderstorm blew through my spiky blond hair like wind through a cornfield. Gale-force winds plastered rain against my face and water-droplets against my glasses, making it impossible to see. I grasped the slippery railing with my life and breathed in the dense humidity of New York smog mixed with acid rain. I've always enjoyed the rain. There's something so refreshing yet so depressing that clears my mind in rain. I know a lot of people who hate that about rain—they claim it makes them sad. But it makes me happy. And I certainly needed that at this moment.
You see, I'm about to turn thirty. I have no wife, no girlfriend, no kids, no steady job, no friends that will be alive in another five years, no family, no attachment to this earth. And… that's the way I like it. That's the way it's always been. Ever since I was a kid. And I think back to my childhood, to the defining moments. To the moments that made me who I am today. And I wonder where the time has gone. What ever happened to the eighties, to the seventies, to the sixties. To R.E.M., to the Beatles, to Vietnam, to Watergate, to drive-in movie theaters, to lemonade stands, to blondes with side ponytails, to real glass Coke bottles, to everything I have known up until this point in time. And I look back on it, and I remember as I stand on the fire escape, soaked in this city's rain.