Short Story: Welcome

August 2, 2007

The door swung open slowly and slammed against the adjacent wall; We were officially New Yorkers. The heat hit us almost instantly, a powerful gust of humidity smashing against us, but that couldn't stop us from pressing in. The walls still smelled of fresh paint, the hardwood floors gleamed in their vacancy. The powerful lights illuminated from across the street and glowed through the windows. Reflections of "Joe's Pizza" and the ever so dominant "Red Curry Restaurant" sign painted the back wall. I was free. Free from the small town blues, free from being a helpless casualty of public transit, free from the late night tiptoes into bed with my girlfriend praying that the dogs didn't bark, free to conquer the city I grew up just a sling shot away from. In those brief moments I felt a little wiser, as if I had just aged twenty years walking up that flight of stairs. I knew right then and there that if I took one solitary, echoing step, one stride forward, it would be the first of a new chapter, the opening scene, the night it all began.

I stood holding my box fan, TJ had a Cosco economy size pack of flavored Icees tucked under his arm (absolute necessities during the dead of summer in New York.) We didn't speak, nor cheer nor even slap five. We didn't hurry downstairs to grab the rest of our belongings just yet either. Nope, instead, I calmly rested the fan down on the floor as did TJ with his icees. Without a word I went into one corner of the apartment and got as far away from my new roommate as was physically possible (about 20 feet.) Maybe it was the rhythm of the loud jack hammers drilling the street below, or maybe it was the Spanish music being blasted from one of the construction trucks, I'm not quite sure, but almost uncontrollably and without any coherent thought, the only thing I could think of doing, the only thing that made complete sense to me amidst the vast amount of inner turmoil and overwhelming excitement .....was to break dance.

I started with a little two-step arm shake, then my legs followed. The next thing I knew I was gliding across one of the empty bedrooms like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, sneakers squeaking against the freshly shined floor, pulling out moves I didn't even know I had in me! I did a little robot, a little bit of the wheelchair hustle, the funky rufy, the invisible basketball, 'crazy legs', pretty much everything in a sober white kid's grab bag of dance that has ever been attempted. This lasted a good three minutes without pause. My t-shirt was soaked almost instantly. When I caught myself and subsequently caught my breath, (which had barely survived in the sweltering heat,) I emerged from the bedroom a little embarrassed, ready to collect my thoughts and continue moving the rest of my items in, when I noticed something in the other bedroom. I peered in, wiping the sweat from around my eyes that blurred my surroundings, and there was TJ, also not speaking or making a sound, busting out a near flawless imitation of a Michael Jackson dance. I never knew he could moonwalk until that evening. Mid-arm raise, crotch grab and Jackson-esque "Eeeh!" he saw me and instantly stopped. He pretended to be saying "eeeeh, I spilled something." He quickly straightened his posture, and began pretending that he was just dusting off his pants. I withheld my laughter and shot him a reassuring look to suggest that in any other circumstances in the world this would be an all-time great piece of dirt to hold above him, however tonight, I completely understood.

We had to be moved in by 10 pm before the other tenants could legally report us for noise violation, so time was of the essence. I struck this rule as a bit odd considering the countless number of trucks and machines that littered our street that night. Workers spoke loudly with boisterous laughter as they drudged up the street with child-like delight. Weeks before a manhole had exploded through the gravel on 41st and Lex, devouring half the block in its wake, leaving one dead and twelve injured in the process. After the city declared the stretch of Lexington between 41st and 38th a disaster site, they were given the go-ahead to take as much time as they needed to assess the problem. They were also given the okay to work at any time of day, at any level of volume, using any type of machinery to do the job. My father, the storyteller, suggested that I look at the whole ordeal as a metaphor for the repairs and new starts of my own life. I on the other hand, merely chalked it up as my best pal: bums luck.

When you know a moment will be memorable even before it passes, and that you will probably be telling that story when you're old and grey and down to one joke, two teeth and three blurry but legendary tales, like the afternoon Lieutenant Seidenberg came home from work early to find his eldest daughter and yours truly losing our respective virginities on his $3,000 leather sofa, you tend to want to take in the scenery before its gone. Walking towards the east wing bedroom window however, (I like to refer to the bedrooms as wings to create the illusion of an apartment bigger than what it truly was: a glorified shoebox with a sink,) I couldn't help but think about that fucking Red Curry sign across the street. When I had signed the lease a month before, it wasn't there. If it were, I would have never stepped foot into the apartment. Two weeks after I signed I was scoping out the neighborhood on my lunch break when I saw them putting up the sign. They put the huge red blocks up one by one. "Maybe it will be an Italian Restaurant!" "Maybe even Mexican!" I thought to myself. I read the letters aloud like an episode of Sesame Street as they raised them on the cranes.

R-E....

Regenals Pizza? No, Rezarrios Restaurante! Ready Set Mexican?

R-E-D

Red O'Neals Irish pub?? Red Pepper? Red Fish Blue Fish 1 Fish 2 Fish?

The word Curry came on one solitary block of text. When they raised it into place beside the accompanying letters, my heart sank, my throat dried and I swallowed hard. It may as well have been spelling "Go back to Jersey fuck face!" The sign dwarfed the street. It wasn't like some small little Bodega, no, it was more like the main attraction of our small little world, like the Hollywood sign over the hills in California. And it stayed lit, 24 hours a day, without fail. I pictured people for generations to come giving directions to my street. "Hey Joey, I'll meet you on 38th and Red Curry!"

Two beautiful blondes stood outside our apartment building smoking cigarettes as we flew down the steps to grab the rest of our belongings. I flashed them a suave smile, a "hey what up neighbors?" type smile. They turned their heads away quickly, as if they had just walked in on a sibling changing. Shrugging off the rejection, I went into TJs truck and grabbed my night table. Before I headed back upstairs, I paused for a second. Something struck me as a bit odd. The jack hammers had stopped, the construction trucks weren’t running, the bright lights had been turned off. For a brief moment, there was silence in the big city. We could hear our footsteps hit the dim lit street below and our heavy breathing became a soundtrack for the block. I started looking around some of the trucks to see where the workers had gone, but there was no one to be found. It was like a ghost town.

Heading back up the stairs for the second time, the excitement continued to build. The staircases smelled of garbage from the Chinese restaurant below us. The banister and front doors were painted a grotesque shade of yellow, dim and lifeless. Tenants left umbrellas outside of every apartment. A dog barked loudly from one of the rooms upstairs. It all was beginning to feel like home. Our place, Apartment 1F was on the second floor, a prime spot for carrying heavy furniture. A few minutes later, TJ and I would embark on one of the most epic games of Rocks Papers Scissors ever played to decide which bedrooms we would take. I lost, by a landslide, but ended up getting the room that suited me much better. It may have been smaller with one less window, may not have shared the same French door entrance as his, and may have been defined by the giant pole awkwardly placed in the back right corner by the window, but I felt a euphoric sense of calmness when I first stepped foot into it, and that was enough to justify my loss.

Looking out my window once again, I was now able to take a second to breathe it all in. I started thinking about growing up. I thought about how easily change can fall under the radar. You go to bed one night in feet pajamas and wake up late for a meeting with the VP of Marketing. Your voice is deeper, your chest hairier, your father's bald spot wider. And suddenly it hit me as hard as that heat when that door first creaked open: as long as the ball was rolling I never had the clarity to draw lines between those changes, like an endless chapter in desperate need of some closure. In that brief moment though, standing before the dominant Red Curry Restaurant, I could for the first time see myself waving back in the rear view mirror.

How do I begin? I thought. Should I go grab some beer and commemorate this evening with some drunken nostalgia? Should I go hit the town and check out the neighborhood bars? Maybe just stay in and plan out where to put the couch and TV? Life has a funny way of deciding things for you sometimes, because before I could make the appropriate choice of action, the giant spotlight in the street that oversaw construction shot back on, the truck engines roared once and the jack hammers returned to their rhythm. When I looked down I saw eight construction workers right below me in an equal line gazing up at me through the window. Could they see me up here? I wondered. I looked down a bit puzzled and gave a slight little wave. When “Just Beat It” began to blast from one of the trucks I should have known what was going on, but it wasn’t until they collectively broke out into all too familiar break dance moves:: The robot, The wheelchair hustle, The funky roofy, the robot and “crazy legs,” that I realized what was going on. When their laughter subsided a good 43 minutes later, I turned from the window ashamed and took a single solitary step forward towards the common area, took a deep breath, and began my new chapter, my new journey, my new life, the night it all began.