Gimme Shelter One mans decent into Hell

New York City was like a tomb. An ancient megalithic structure whose purpose was unknown and could only be speculated upon. The Bronx was even worse. With its decaying buildings and burned out neighborhoods, its environs seemed unreal. Moonlight always made the streets look surrealistic, particularly in the fall when the fog rolled in.  It felt like being on the set of some b-grade horror film, the dark and gloomy gothic structures seemed to want to spawn gargoyles and demons straight out of some waking nightmare, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting traveler.  In the end, the only demons that walked with me were always my own and the only creatures that came out of the darkness and the fog were the drunks and junkies that wandered the lonely streets at night in pursuit of demons far greater than my own.

Greenwich Village was always a haven for me. Amongst its heterogeneous denizens tuned out to be the perfect place to hide in plain sight. I especially liked the outdoor cafes, particularly in the springtime when the city was just coming back to life. It was then that the streets began to fill with the sights and sounds that made the village unique. Like a stage play the scenes would unfold before your eyes and like the theater, you could observe and be a part of the action without actually being a participant. Anonymity, it’s the best place to be without being there. The people would hustle or meander by, each with their own story to tell. I would sit for hours, observing them through the fish eyed lens that was the bottom of my glass, my imagination fleshing out the details of a hundred stories I would never hear. My chair was a throne, sitting behind a table that was my own personal kingdom, eighteen square inches that kept me apart from the rest of the world. The ever growing array of empty beer bottles and glasses of spent drinks, ice cubes still melting on their bottoms, building the battlements and crenellations of the wall that kept me safe from the masses just outside arms reach. I would always order my drinks two at a time, and would never let them remove existing debris, partly because of my impatience and partly to get a leg up on the walls construction. Waitresses and barmaids usually found this behavior odd, but what the hell, I usually found them odd as well. Sometimes it would provoke conversation from them and my mood would usually dictate whether or not I would engage. Most of the time I saw them as costumed characters holding bit parts in the grand scheme of things, that vast theatrical production of which I was always an observer but never really a part of. Sometimes they would make note of the aggressive construction of my defensive perimeter and I would be forced to abandon my hitherto fortress of fermentation for parts unknown. The trick was to never stay in one place too long or to frequent one location too often. Thus anonymity could be preserved. God forbid someone would call me by name, thus shattering the fortress of solitude that I had painstakingly endeavored to build. But, there again, the Village came to my rescue. With its eclectic variety of cafes, bars and dives. I was assured of a continual front row seat in that Salvatore Dahli-esque unreality that had become my existence. The people were plentiful and diverse, unlike other parts of the city, or even my own neighborhood, whose endless parade of human debris blew in and out of my mind like some macabre plot twist in a story already so bizarre it defied reality.