November 11, 1985
Unless you have ever sat on the freezing streets of New York in November, starving and thirsty and desperate for company, you probably do not know how I feel right now.
Exactly seven days ago, I fled Scarsdale to escape my parents. Now, my first week in New York, I'm almost wishing I was back there. Sure, it's great to film stuff and see people with neon-colored hair, but when one is starving in the fucking freezing weather, it's more important to consider the essentials, like food, a heater, and a girlfriend.
So, seeing no recourse from the cold but to go inside somewhere, I spot a bar. Satisfied, I enter, settle on a stool, and finger the ninety-two cents in my pocket. It isn't enough for anything, not even a Bud, so I had just better hope I meet someone tonight who's willing to buy me a drink. When it appears not to be happening, I turn towards the door.
It isn't destiny, or anything, when I turn to face the entrance. I just want to see what asshole was letting the cold air in. So I begin swiveling around on my barstool, watching people enter and exit, feeling like a kid in a barber shop with a great liking for his long hair and the looming threat of a buzz-cut.
Then she walks in.
She's alone, that's the first thing I notice – that gorgeous, and alone! Confident and sexy and looking almost sad beneath her self-assured expression, she saunters up to the bar. I just can't take my eyes off her leather skirt, which might actually be vinyl because it doesn't make those weird noises.
Realizing that there are no barstools devoid of people apart from the one next to me, I shove my camera bag and coat into my lap from their former location on the stool. Now I'm less comfortable, but I can't think about that – just about her. "Go ahead," I offer, trying to look poised but suspecting that I really just look stupid. With a stony face but unwavering, gorgeous eyes, the girl settles herself on my former stool, legs crossed over one another, the triangle of her crotch in the best possible angle for me to zoom in. But my camera is in my bag, and telling or showing people what I do for a living seems too much like pouring my soul out to them, and I can't stand the thought of doing that. It's personal.
"Name?" she asks, voice unwavering, and I double-take. That is completely not a Manhattan accent. Most people don't notice these things, but I've observed enough people to know that this girl comes from Long Island. Suburbia. "I'm Maureen Johnson."
I manage to respond, "Mark Cohen."
She grins. "Westchester, huh?"
Ah. Perceptive. Most people in Scarsdale are completely oblivious to accents – at least, nearly imperceptible ones like these. Then again, maybe the city is different.
"Yeah, and how was Long Island?" I shoot back.
She looks delighted, although dramatically winces at the mention of her former home. I grin. "I won't tell if you don't," I tell her conspiratorially, and if I sound at all seductive, it's entirely unintentional, because I already know that I have no chance in the world with this girl.
She turns to the bartender. "A whiskey sour, please," she says, and then amends herself after a quick glance at me, "Two whiskey sours."
"I've never – "
She laughs. "I'm nineteen," she tells me softly, "and even I have."
"Twenty," I tell her quietly. "I'm twenty."
The bartender sets our drinks on the counter, and Maureen giggles. "You think I'm paying for these?" she teases him. "Come on, Collins, you know me better than that."
"Sure do," he responds, and digs out a wallet from his apron pocket. Aghast, I gape at them, and the bartender (Collins?) merely laughs. "Be careful with your new meat, Maureen, he looks greener than the grass they just planted over in Tompson Square."
I must look flat-out horrified, because Maureen turns to me and giggles. "Don't worry, Marky, I have a boyfriend," she says, which either crushes me or relieves me or both.
"I know your pain," Collins tells me somberly. "She's hot. I know that. And I'm gay."
I feel like I'm watching a ping-pong match, just the way I did earlier today when a homeless man accosted this teenage girl with huge sunglasses on the street earlier, demanding that he give her one of the many fifty-dollar bills in her purse. (The girl complied, of course, handing him the bill and dashing away to thoroughly cleanse her hands.) I found it incredibly amusing then, however, and now it is less entertaining, considering the fact that I'm actually involved, socializing this time. It's harder to socialize than to observe.
"What's his name?" I inquire casually.
Simultaneously, Maureen and Collins respond, "Roger."
"Roger," I repeat, rolling it around on my tongue. "Roger."
Our abandoned drinks on the bar tempt me, so I cautiously reach out for one. Maureen, catching the hint, takes her own and lifts it up. "To New York!" she chirps, and takes a long sip. I follow shortly afterward, and to my horror, discover that alchohol is far from the poison Mom and Dad always claimed it was; in fact, it's awesome. I down the entire glass in a single gulp, then turn to Collins.
"Could I get away with not paying?" I ask, drumming my fingers on the bar. Already, Maureen inspires me to attempt deeds I would never even consider back home.
With a grumble, Collins disappears behind a drink machine and returns again with my drink. "Did you spit in it?" I ask cautiously. He smirks.
"You'll never know if I did, would you?"
I suggest, hiding revulsion, that my drink looks pinker than last time, and did he put in anything – like blood, maybe? Maureen and Collins exchange a quick glance, which of course I notice, but nothing is said.
After maybe twenty-five minutes of conversation, a shrill buzz rings through the room. With a loud sigh, Collins throws his apron off of him, only pausing to remove his wallet from it, and then hoists himself over the bar. "Out tonight, Mo, or back to the loft?" he asks, directing it, of course, at Maureen.
Maureen gives me a sudden look, considering something. She murmurs something to Collins, and even though I am typically able to read lips, she isn't facing me and the bar is far too loud for me to hear a single word. Collins shrugs in response to whatever it is Maureen said, and the two of them turn to me, surveying me as though I were a zoo exhibit.
"Go ahead," Collins says at last, and turns to Maureen.
"You just moved here, right?" she asks me. I nod, and have the tiniest suspicion of what she might ask me. "You got a place to stay yet?"
I merely shake my head, unless the alleyways count as a place to stay. It isn't the most pleasant thing in the world, sleeping in an alley, but at least it's not the actual sidewalk. If it ever comes to that, I'll go back to Scarsdale.
"Collins and I live with Roger and this guy Benny over in an apartment on Eleventh between A and B," she tells me. "If you can find some way to pay a sixth of the rent, you can stay."
I grin. "And how much would that be?"
Mentally calculating, it takes Maureen a minute before she responds, "Ninety a month. Gets a lot cheaper when it's not just one person, I guess, but I've never lived alone."
"Neither have I," I tell her, and she looks taken aback.
Collins just swings an arm over my shoulder. "You'll fit in great with us," he tells me. "Me, Maureen, and Roger just graduated in June."
"No shit."
"Yeah," Maureen says brightly. "Oh, fuck," she says, as if only just now realizing something. "You okay sleeping on the couch?"
Collins interjects, "We'll alternate." He explains to me, "I sleep on the couch every night Benny's not out with some girl, but we can switch off. Every other night kind of thing."
I nod. All I can think about now is the fact that I've never shared an apartment with anyone before – never even lived in one, actually, as Scarsdale is an upper-middle class suburb, and there aren't apartment buildings there – especially a girl as pretty as Maureen, who probably isn't modest enough not to walk around in these kinds of vinyl skirts.
Before I know it, we're already at this apartment, and there are six flights of stairs before we reach what must be Maureen's apartment. She slides the door open to reveal a pair of guys my age, sitting at a table without shirts on, playing what must be poker.
Oh. One of them isn't wearing pants.
"Hey, Rog," Maureen says brightly, and leans over to kiss a bleached-blonde on the lips. When they break apart, she gestures to me and says, "This is Mark. Rent's down to ninety now, guys."
Roger looks up, puzzled. "It was one-thirty-five this morning."
"This morning we didn't have Mark living with us," Maureen says, as if it settles the matter, kicking off her heels. They land on a couch that is laden with hundreds of other objects, one of which looks like a dildo from my location all the way across the room. Oh, god, what have I gotten myself into?
Roger, who is clad only in a pair of socks with ducks on them, approaches me. "Roger Davis," he says. "I guess I'm your new roommate."
"Yeah," I mumble. "Mark Cohen."
"So I've heard," he replies. "Oh, and this is Benny, by the way," he adds, gesturing to the black guy seated across from him at the table.
"Hey," we say in unison. I turn towards the couch and glance at Collins.
With a deep, exaggerated sigh, my new roommate gestures to it. "Go for it, Mark," he says tiredly. "I'm probably gonna play a round with you guys, too," he informs Benny and Roger, who merely make space for him at the table.
"Me too," says Maureen, and before I know it, I'm seated among them as well, squeezed between Maureen and Roger.
I've only just met her, but I can tell that there's nobody like her in Scarsdale, or maybe anywhere else, either.