Taking the Train

 S.E. Schaible

I started ditching school and riding the train into Manhattan when I was in 8th grade, in the days when I could forge my mother’s cursive just well enough to deliver a passable excuse to the front office the day before. My go-to reason was seeing another orthopedic specialist about my pigeon toes, a condition everyone knew that I had, making it a lock. I was always a Ferris Bueller type, friendly with jocks, burnouts, nerds and – as a drummer – all the kids who played in bands. This made it easy to cut school with random friends on different occasions, because if the same kids in a small tight group were absent on the same day, even Mr. Grady would divine a pattern and begin making calls home. The drinking age in New York City may have been 18 but in fact wasn’t determined by the date on a driver’s license, or the laminated NYU or Fordham student ID cards that all the Jersey kids purchased at Playland in Times Square; it resided in the poise of those who could order a round of beers and have the sense to leave a proper tip and remember the bartender’s name from a prior session. On a return visit to one of the several midtown McCann’s Bars near Madison Square Garden, before his eyes peered up from the sports section, I would enter like the nephew of a regular at 10:00am and lead with a calm and collected greeting. “Hey Lou! Let’s have three Schaefers and a Rheingold for that degenerate Mets fan on the end there.” It was never about getting drunk, more about catching a buzz; just having some fun and acting like our older siblings in a dive bar for a few hours. It was dress rehearsal – cosplay of our future selves, complete with a shared corned beef sandwich to keep from getting too hammered. With barely $10 each we could ride the train from Summit or Millburn, drink a few beers, and be home around the time school ended.

During college summers and holiday breaks, these New York days and nights became more frequent since many older college friends graduated and took jobs on Wall Street. One of my favorite bar and restaurant circuits of the late 1980s was a collection of colorful places on the Lower East Side. My crew would start at Telephone Bar, where a 21-year-old Julia Roberts – fresh off the set of Mystic Pizza – was dating one of the bartenders. Sometimes we would arrive to find her sitting on the seat of his motorcycle out front, getting some air before anyone knew she was about to become someone famous. We would then walk a few blocks to Sugar Reef, which was always hip and happy with Caribbean drinks and food, although trained professionals knew to skip the Mai Tais and stick with bourbon or vodka for the duration. A favorite server at Sugar, a lovable man named Herbie, was one of the first people I knew with HIV, and he would tag along on nights when his shift ended early and he was feeling well enough. Sometimes there would be a pitstop for Indian Food on 6th Street, but always – starting in the 90s – late nights were all about Kastro Lounge. Occasionally we would creep into Two Boots Pizza on Avenue A for a change of scenery, a nightcap or a 2:00am pie. The possibility of being shaken down by junkies residing in dark stairwells was always real, but walking as a group helped reduce the odds of being jumped.

Some nights I would make the rounds without drinking – I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease following emergency surgery weeks before starting college, and alcohol was not my friend during a flareup. Even during those painful nights when I would wince just to take a proper breath, I would still enjoy the company of a bar crawl over solitude. I swapped out cocktails for bitters and soda, sneaking a toke from my one-hitter on the street between stops. A normal Crohn’s patient would spend the weekend in bed during a flareup, but I felt better being out with friends than being alone in my drafty Hoboken apartment. During one such night in 1993, a few months before I moved to Colorado, I was in considerable pain but making the best of it. My good friend Philippe and I left The Village Idiot and decided to check out a new place called Coyote Ugly on 1st Avenue. It was packed with a cornucopia of New Yorkers: suits, models, finance bros, neighborhood drunks and Upper West Siders slumming it. We worked our way through the crowd and found just enough space to lean against the bar. The music was too loud and suddenly one of the bartenders was up on the bar, prancing in short cutoffs and cowboy boots and pouring shots from a bottle right into open mouths like a mother bird feeding eager fledglings. A moment later I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned, and craned my neck skyward to find the bartender motioning for me to open my mouth.

I tried to indicate for her to pass me by, but she didn’t understand (or she did and wasn’t taking “No” for an answer) and knelt down to get closer to me. “Hey, open up,” she said. “No thank you, I’m not feeling like a shot tonight,” I shouted toward her dangly Shrinky Dink Penelope Pitstop earring, a sweaty cigarette tucked over her ear. In an instant the music was muted, and she barked into a microphone that simply appeared out of nowhere. “Listen up everybody – this freaking pussy just said he’s not in the mood for a shot of tequila!” The crowd booed and hissed and turned their thumbs down at me like a Roman mob helping a maniacal Caesar decide the fate of some poor fool. She kneeled with a smirk, the microphone tilting toward me as she rested it on her thigh. The air reeked like smoke and bleach. Like a rat in a cage, I blurted out the one thing I could think to save myself: “No! What I said was, be sure to make it a double!” The crowd roared with approval. I tilted my head back as she grasped a handful of my hair and poured until the rank tequila was flowing down my neck, then she snatched a 10-spot from my fingers and continued down the bar. When we left the joint, several firemen were coming in the door, and we wondered if it was a crowd size violation call or if they were there to resuscitate someone.

I said goodnight to Phil and just like in my teenage days, I realized that I only had a few crumbled singles in cash – not enough for cab fare to get to the Cristopher Street PATH station, so I set off on a slow jog toward the West Village. I kept a Port Authority token on a black leather necklace so even if I ended the night penniless, I could at least get on the train without the risk of being arrested for jumping the turnstile. The tequila sloshing about from running was incompatible with the blockage in my lower bowel; I paused for a moment to throw up between cars on 7th Street just down from McSorley’s, checked my watch, and saw that I had about 20 minutes to trek a mile to catch the last train to Hoboken. I made it with 5 minutes to spare. The warm subterranean air hit me as I quickly descended the stairs, gripping a sticky railing I would never have touched under normal circumstances, but needing support because I was so weak and feverish. Sweating from the pace, with an open fire in my gut, I regained my composure and tried my best not to look vulnerable. Just like I learned how to grease the bartenders, I also knew how to put on the mask that would convey to anyone casing the platform or train car that I was a hard case. Wallet safe in a front jeans pocket, my switchblade a comfortable ballast inside my jacket, I was just a kid heading back to New Jersey like I’d done a hundred times starting a dozen years prior. The only difference on nights like this was that I was alone. I folded my arms across my chest and switched my demeanor from affable to leave-me-the-fuck-alone. Back on across the Hudson River, I bought a Coke on Washington Street and sipped it slowly as I made my way to my studio apartment on Garden Street, where I fell asleep in my clothes without turning on the lights. This way, I could secure a few hours of vital sleep without thinking about the cockroaches I would have seen.

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