I was somewhere around 35th and 2nd Avenue heading towards the East River when the brownie took hold. Dark swirling masses of humanity charging together towards some collective somewhere, focused and intent on going. The most beautiful women, the most handsome of men. Dapperness everywhere. A drag queen blond with a towering B52 in rosy sequins, strutting like a six foot two inch rhinestone reflective flower in the surging, flowing ocean of the sidewalk show. Many were seeming to talk to themselves, having conversations with the air, until I realized they were Bluetooth conferencing with somebody. Everyone looked important and busy. The traffic cops looking mid-century modern with the classic New York blues, white and black cap most often slightly cocked to one side after a long day shift of arm and shoulder movement waving cars past the intersections.
Like so often in NYC, the scene seemed deja vu of some movies that I had seen. I was starting to feel too happy and trying to stay focused on the time suddenly became difficult and worrisome. I had only thirty minutes to find the next Citibike Station somewhere along my intended general direction, which was basically to follow the other bicycles along 2nd Avenue’s dedicated green bicycle path heading south through the East Village to the Lower East Side and hopefully somewhere funky and away from Wall Street, Battery Park and back up 5th Avenue with the throngs of everyone from everywhere. I became intensely aware of how much of a tourist I was. New York has a basic tone of black that everyone plays off of with whatever they wear. And here I was on my rented blue Citibike with an orange helmet, surf shorts, a Hawaiian shirt not even close to matching anything and my faithful all-purpose Crocs. Nobody cared. But the effect of the brownie had me worried about that along with where and when the next station would come around.
Being stoned and riding a bicycle in Manhattan would qualify for high adventure and has a distinct feel that serious injury or death is a real possibility. There is just way too much going on everywhere you glance. But since 2000 there has been a decrease of 76 percent of serious accidents and fatalities due to the city’s push to install more and safer bicycle lanes. According to the NYC Department of Transportation, over 1 and a half million people who live in the city ride a bike. Of those over 770,000 ride at least a few times a month. Add to these statistics the number of tourists and you can see that the bicycle is now an important part of getting around the city. I was amazed and surprised by how well behaved most drivers are and especially the taxi drivers, famous around the world as daredevils in traffic. It was surprisingly quiet and the flow works.
Citibike is a bicycle sharing system that allows you to “rent” a bicycle for short half-hour blocks of time to get from point A to B. For twelve bucks for twenty hours. That is insanely cheap and after considering Uber options, the subway, walking or riding my skateboard, I could not pass up both the low cost as well as the tremendous potential for the adventures by the minute that NYC on a bicycle offered.
I had gotten a quick lesson at the first station where I had started at 5th Avenue and East 29th Street. A girl who must have been a model, quickly hopped off, popping the front tire into the automatic locking system of the station rack, this one capable of holding 56 bicycles, and starting past me. “Excuse me, tourist question?” Like I had to tell her with the Don Ho on acid look I had going. She smiled and was suddenly in no hurry, carefully explaining that all I had to do was touch the screen, follow the prompts and get my credit card ready. “There are plenty of stations all over the city, just you will need your card each time because that is how the system will be able to identify you as you go along. Have fun!” And smiling, she suddenly blended into the massive crowd and was off in her hurry along with the thousands of others. Touching the screen and going through the prompts, I went for the daily pass, not sure I would like it or survive. There was an option for a three-day pass for only $24, which in hindsight I would have gone for as I ended up having so much fun that riding the bike, people watching and finding little funky places became all I wanted to do.
I stood staring at the station touch screen when I suddenly heard behind me in a loud voice like he was announcing Broadway tickets for sale, “WEED!, WEED?!!” The usual shifty guy in crappy clothes with equally crappy backpack walking the crowd, looking you in the eye and announcing his product for sale. “No man, I’m good,” I politely returned, instantly pinning myself as the biggest tourist within a mile. “I have brownies, Dude,” he redirected his sales pitch looking me up and down “AND today is the first day of decriminalization in New York!” This caused me to hesitate and he saw the opening. I am not a pot smoker and like a drink or two, but just the thought and consideration of riding around the Big Apple stoned on a marijuana snack had me considering the options that would add to this adventure. I could just eat a bit, enough to put an edge on, and just stay in the bike lanes. Or maybe not. It will cost money that I don’t need to spend. “Ok, let me get one of the brownies,” came from the brain that talks for me, the one I often regret listening to. A quick exchange of a Green Jackson and I was suddenly the only one standing at the bike rack with a swinging ziplock and a brown blob inviting and daring me to go ask Alice, partake of the MaryJane, become another version of myself. I took a bite, put the rest in my backpack and swiped my Capital One card, the Citibike Station screen rewarding me with a special unlock code for any of the bicycles there at the stand and a button with “nearby stations” getting my attention. I printed the code, 3133 and pushed the station’s button to check out where I could get to in 30 minutes. There past Thompkins Square at East 2nd St & Avenue B.
I hopped on and headed down toward the east side of the island. The traffic flowed and marked on the road was a giant white rider on his/her bicycle indicating that this street allowed shared lanes. The drivers were extremely cool and considerate. I quickly came to a truck that was stopped, blocking the lane while the guy was making a delivery. I got off my bike and decided to return the favor of kindness to the drivers, walking it on the sidewalk. I was instantly met with a grim face of one of the traffic cops, shaking his head and pointing back to the road. “But,..” was all I got out of my argument before he countered with “warning or twenty bucks,” no change whatsoever in his facial expression. I wondered if it was my pseudo-Hawaiian thing I had going and then thought about the brownie. Back on the bike, behind the truck to wait for a lull in the traffic which came soon enough.
The instantly overwhelming thing is the interestingly confusing amount of choices that you can make for places to go, eat, listen to music, drink, hang out, play with dogs, paint, sing in the street and ride bicycles. I began to meander when I saw an interesting sign, such as the hot dog place called “Eat Me” or a bar called “Nowhere” that had a crowd of gay guys out front happily smoking cigarettes in their colorful, bulge and bun hugging “hot pants.” As I rode by I had the distinct impression that they were envious of my shirt and Crocs. I picked up the peddling pace a bit. Every block has eating places that represent every continent. Suddenly I had to overwhelming urges, starving hunger and the intense need to take a leak. I went down St. Mark’s Place past the hip boutiques, coffee places and a bar down the stairs of an apartment block covered entirely with aluminum, shining like some subterranean gaudy ornament on a permanent Christmas to alcoholics. It was blinding with the sun and I quickly moved past it. I took a right at Avenue A and found the first station right there the next block down.
I jammed the front tire into the lock stand. Twenty minutes. “Damn, that was a long way in a short time!” I thought to myself. “Wow, I am living at the back of my eyeballs right now.” thoughts coming quick and then suddenly gone, ADHD stoner. “Man, I am hungry.” ” I hear music.” “Jazz.” ” Hey, a cop.” I looked across the street to Tompkins Square, calling it a park is like calling the Ramones “folk singers.” Everything about it oozes funk except the gorgeous Puerto Rican policewoman who was leaning against her car with the door open to hear the radio for any calls. She was fresh, smiling and looking like some advertisement for makeup. “Maybe she just got back from vacation?” Everywhere else were dudes sleeping on the beat iron benches, the slats paint peeled black, rust and crusty. She had a welcoming look to her and I felt comfortable enough to ask about bathrooms. “Yes, right there.” She pointed down the path. “Where do you all go?” I asked for future reference. “Oh, the bars and restaurants will let you go. Just ask.” I thought “Thank God I won’t have to look for trees where people relieve their dogs.” I had gotten to that desperate point and nodding a thank you to her, walked on to the restroom. It was surrounded by a few guys who looked desperately bored and who possibly lived in the Square at night. I could hear the jazz nearer and stood in my dayglow fabric fashion monument to tacky tourists everywhere next to a guy shaving over the urinal while another guy in a button-down with a jacket and matching pants stood staring, nodding me to go ahead of him at the piss pot.
For those of you not male, I will let you in on one of our most distinct fears. Stepping up to a urinal, unzipping and then just hanging and holding for an extended time while surrounded by others and nothing happening is a soul shaming embarrassment like no other. Everyone else in the room may as well be sitting in bleachers eating popcorn and drinking beer watching you. And as bad as I had to go, as hurried as I had been and desperate only minutes before, I froze and tried not to panic while I stood in shame. The guy shaving kind of hesitating in his routine for a moment and the other guy shuffled his trashed office looking shoes. I had to close my eyes and go into imagination mode. Suddenly I was mentally transported to my favorite place to pee, standing by a softly flowing, twinkling steam under the protection of a big tree with a slight drizzle of rain happening. Mind over matter. And the flow began and the guys relaxed and went back to behaving like they had when I entered. I let out a sigh of relief for many reasons, most of all that I could leave soon. I left them to whatever they had been talking about before I interrupted them, past the small group outside and was surprised that no one had hassled me for money or smokes or whatever.
I headed back ambling along the dirt paths, past the bench boys and a few girls smiling and taking pictures of the guys playing old school jazz ahead. Suddenly I heard multiple, staccato whistles and looked to see a guy on a multicolored, thrift shop mountain bike come pounding full speed through the crowd, making the sounds with upper teeth bared and pulled across the bottom lip. “Fsssssittt! Fssssshhhttitt!” He was glancing left and right. And he seemed to have custom made goggles that had wide ski goggle straps attached to star-shaped eyecups that reflected the sunlight. “Fssssittt, fsssitttt!” Suddenly he was gone like some two-wheeled pirate parrot, taking briefly the attention of everyone from the jazz band. I laughed. Nobody else did. Suddenly I felt very, very stoned and the paranoia of aloneness came to me. I hurried on to the next bike station. “Where to now?” Swiping my card at the 7th and A station, I pulled out and decided to just keep on heading south on Avenue A. The greatest thing about the bike was being able to check things out and stop. My next 30 minutes had me at Essex and Canal on the Lower East Side.
I had been here in 1980 for a couple of nights when some college friends had decided to form a band called Certain General and live as squatters in one of the derelict tenements in the area. Cars were propped in smoking streets, dimly lit and full of shady characters then. It felt distinctly dangerous and that seemed fun when I was twenty-one. This neighborhood has changed very drastically from those days. There are some cool places to go and I was starving by now. The luxury apartment buildings everywhere were a very distinct contrast to the days Parker and Joe shared that beat-up apartment, living on the floor and having to board over the window because the crazy guy a floor above would swing in at night when they were out practicing to steal what little food they had in the “kitchen.” The streets are dotted with wall murals and I decided to head into a place called Kopitiam because “what the hell does that mean?”
I found out it was a Malaysian restaurant which was perfect. Actually turned out to be even more specialized when I talked to the lady behind the counter. It was Nyonya, a culture I had never heard of and the food that is a hybrid of Chinese and Malay flavors. Never had that and now I was feeling like my stomach was beginning to eat itself. This place smelled so wonderfully pungent and spicy with a hint of seashore. Stir fry spicy duck tongue seemed pretty radical for a white boy and then I saw fried oyster omelet and the spicy grilled stingray. I noticed that my brownie buzz had dissipated, but not enough to venture into challenging my taste buds to go where they had not gone before. It reminded me of that time I spent picking my teeth with chicken toenails after nibbling on them when a Chinese friend suggested I try them in my soup. Just too much funk for now. More of a thing you try after opening the mind with lots of alcohol. The vanishing weed remains were suggesting to me a big “no!” I also try to steer clear of national dishes, this one having a boiled egg in it. I went with the Pulut Panggang, a bowl of grilled sticky rice with shrimp all cooked in a banana leaf and topped with a spicy sauce. I love any kind of heat and this one is unique, tongue-numbing and tasty. Called sambal belachan, it is a combination of red chilies, shrimp paste, and lime juice. I can see making this at home with any kind of seafood or rice dish.
For dessert, they had some incredible choices. I decided on another bite of my brownie and ordered a white coffee because after asking about it, I was told that it is unique to that restaurant. They were the only cafe in the States that carried it imported from Malaysia. It was very different from most coffee and she poured it several times back and forth from one cup to another from a great arm length to build the flavor and a natural froth as well. It was tasty, not so much a coffee as a unique drink. I felt impressed that I had stumbled into this spot even though I stayed well away from the real deal meals.
Back at the bike station, I was lucky to score the last bicycle. I guess the commuters were getting out of work as it was getting later in the day. I am sure that any station goes through the bicycles and a short wait would be required before one eventually turned up with a nearby rider. I decided to stay on the east side and not venture into what would surely be insane traffic and massive crowds heading west through Chinatown and over towards One World Center, especially as traffic was now noticeably thicker and the honking of horns and the distant waaaa of sirens going off was almost constant in the background noise. I was starting to feel the happy, carefreeness coming on again and decided to head to the nearest park that was on the water. The map on the Citibike station showed the close by East River Park, literally just maybe a meandering ten minute ride away with another station at Stanton and Mangin Streets. This place turned out to be an absolute find and perfect for spending time enjoying the buzz and thoughts that came from watching people with their kids in the Lower Side Water Park and then on to the benches under the Williamsburg Bridge to watch the sunset shine off of the massive skyscrapers of downtown.
As dark settled in, I walked back west into the city to find another station at Avenue D and East 8th Street. I decided to just meander and went up streets in the wrong direction and down streets that had paths, not really worried about where I was going. Enjoying just being in New York City. You kind of find yourself saying “I am in New York City” quite a bit and you get a giddy kind of feeling. Something about the energy, the buildings, the history, the absolute aliveness of the place. I ended up by Thompkins Square again and rode past, feeling that it was time to check in again. I walked past “The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop.” Yep. Try that in most other places. I was curious if they had different flavors, suddenly finding myself laughing hysterically while going the wrong way again down 7th Street.
I parked the bike back at D and 8th, thinking it might be better to walk.
Sleep on Sand 