I found myself in one of those late summer early autumn nights in New York City where anything seemed possible. The streets were alive and people had plans, it felt as if every corner of the city was flushed with magic just waiting to be harvested. The air was brimming with odors complex and misty, like the aftermath of a cascading revelation. There was an an orange glow surrounding everything, maybe it was simply from the streetlights. Or, perhaps it was the omnipresent aura of the city energizing everyone and everything through its sheer being.
The time was three in the morning and I was wandering the streets of Brooklyn with two girls I had just met at the hotel. We were too invigorated to stop just yet and set ourselves for a long walk towards Manhattan. By five we were at Times Square, finding the ceaseless city an immortal beacon. No one seemed to sleep. So we didn't either.
We were handed a flyer that proclaimed the Pope's event in Central Park and knew it. That was our destination. Where we had to be. And so we journeyed to find Nirvana, figuratively, and as we would find, literally as well.
When we finally arrived at the south west entrance of Central Park, we realized the park was closed until the Pope arrived. The police were everywhere and the barricades proved to be feeble. Streams of people just like us were yearning to get in, but all in vain.
And calling to us, almost as if by fate, was just behind us, the tallest building we had seen all night, the Central Park Tower. I looked at the girls and they looked right back, knowing we had to get up there.
The Central Park Tower is a highly esteemed venue, and with the great security and prestige surrounding it, it would be foolish to enter like we planned. So I guess we were pretty foolish.
The doorman was asleep, seemingly through the generous plan of destiny,but in a cruel twist of fate, we learned that we needed to get a key to enter, rendering the elevator useless.
One of the girls was complaining, her voice burgeoning louder and louder, disrupting the slumber of the doorman, and so in one last salvation to recapture the night that was fleeting by the moment I strode towards him, both girls in arm, and condoned him for his drowsiness and reciprocated with our demand in exchange to keep mum.
When we arrived on the roof, we were surprised to see a breathtaking setup. Lounge chairs, tables with umbrellas, and a view of Central Park that looked as if it came right out of Vogue.
One of the girls pulled out a bottle of Dom 95, not full of it of course, instead overflowing with Absinthe. And so we poured alcohol from a container too expensive, as poor teens in a setting too expensive, exploring a poor world that reigns all too expensive.
It was the beginning of many nights in the big apple. And I had just taken my first bite.
