The adrenaline kicked in, I lit a cigarette and practiced the spin, fire into the eye and run plan in my mind. 

It had been following me for ten minutes, every turn I made the shadow figure would make with me. I could feel its ominous presence and yet it always stayed several feet behind me, just enough distance to confuse the animal inside and frustrate it into not knowing if it was about to fight to the death (AHHHHH) or burn an old lady (Ah fuck)… 

I had a sickening feeling in my stomach, this was my first time alone in New York and I was being followed around the backstreets by this shadowy sewer demon before I even got to my hostel. 

I continued on the route I knew would get me to the hostel the quickest, a route of dimly lit back alleys and side streets. 

I was preparing for the worst but I had my plan – spin, fire into the eye, run! 

I emerged from the last dark, narrow street with the follower the length of my shadow behind me. 

My hostel was now within sight, whoever or whatever it was wouldn’t be able to mug me or put a knife into me now I reassured myself. 

The adrenaline finally drained away at the safety of the hostel entrance. I could finally turn around to see who or what had been stalking me and making my walk through the Upper West Side such a miserable one. 

“No fucking way!” he said with his mouth cartoonishly wide open. 

“It’s you!” I said. 

We continued to stare at each other, still processing the image. Both stunned by a ghost. 

“What have you been up to…? Fucking?” said the German. 

One of the audience members from the fiasco in DC had followed me all the way to New York. 

We checked in and went our separate ways, avoiding each other for the next two weeks. I would see him about to get in the elevator and knowing I was coming he’d skip it and take the stairs. It was probably best that way. We wouldn’t have gotten along even if an awkward encounter hadn’t been our first meeting. He was a stiff sort with the general persona of a very serious tax official. 

The hostel, the largest in North America, was a maze of long corridors and large open common areas. It felt more like a mental asylum than a place to meet other travellers. I knew early on that it wouldn’t be the best place for my time in New York. 

It wasn’t my first time in the big apple, I had been to the city once before with my dad on a trip to visit relatives when I was 15. I didn’t get much out of the city on that trip, I enjoyed our time in Rhode Island and Boston more and we only stayed for a few days. I was new to what New York was really all about. 

The first two weeks were frustratingly dull. I had done nothing more than eat fast food and walk around the Upper West Side alone. 

The drug of New York was in me but it just hadn’t kicked in yet and taken hold. 

I had the ENERGY 

I had the BUZZ 

…but something was missing. 

Every now and then a feeling of real excitement would hit me out of nowhere but I couldn’t grab it, couldn’t put that feeling in my pocket. I couldn’t make the moments of magic my own. 

I had the skyscrapers, the bodegas, Broadway, Central Park and the Hudson River but where was the fucking action? 

I felt like I was just doing recon. I was growing frustrated. I wanted the action to begin.                       

ERGHHH. a cold wind. clik clik clik. ERGHHH. a droplet of gutter juice splashes on my cheek. a worker bee drops their disposable coffee cup to the concrete. erghhhhhhh… I spin around on my heels… I gotta get some fucking action! 

I knew I had to get out of the mental asylum hostel and find a place to launch my New York adventure but I had already paid for a full two weeks. I had to bide my time until that adventure could begin. 

I decided to use this lull to do something that seemed like a great idea at the time. 

I would encrypt my laptop hard drive and back everything up onto disks. If I ever lost her, nobody would have access to all of my data and plans for world domination. Made sense. Made sense until I lost the passcode years later. I’ll tell you more about that when we get to Canada… 

I bought a pack of blank cds and downloaded an uncrackable encryption program. I spent days backing up and encrypting everything while laying in my bottom bunk. 

A few South American guys noticing I rarely left the large dorm approached me cautiously one day and invited me out. I turned them down, focused solely on the mission, no fun was going to get in my way. 

After the top level encryption was done I made the switch to a new hostel called Jazz on the Park, just a stone’s throw away from a very frozen February Central Park. 

I started meeting all kinds of weirdos in the tiny smoking area at the back of the building, this was the place to shake off the last two weeks of nothing. 

I had a good feeling in Jazz. I was meeting people here and there but I was still looking for those special people I could explore New York with. 

A few days into my stay, while playing on my laptop in bed, two of them walked through the door. 

They struggled into the room speaking fast Spanish and each yielding several large suitcases. 

I had one eye on my laptop and the other on one of the dark haired South American ladies. 

They claimed the bunk bed across the room and started arranging their suitcases which now took up a good third of the living space. 

While they unpacked, the friend of the girl I had my eye on tried to start a conversation with me. 

I have a way of coming across disinterested in people at first, and that’s because usually I am disinterested. 

Rarely though, I am interested, but it takes a great amount of effort for me to show it. I just have that kind of face, even my happy face looks insidious. It’s a fuck off I’m doing something very important here kinda face. 

In this case I was very interested. 

“Leave him alone, he’s busy.” my new love instructed her friend. 

“No, I’m not!” I yelled, realising how I was being perceived. 

I jumped up off the bed and into a new character, Charismatic Brad! 

My new love was Dulce from Buenos Aires and her friend was Rosaline. Dulce was my type, but then again my type was always changing. 

Dulce was about five foot, one inch, with long dark hair, an oval face and expressive eyes. Her body was slim with the perfect proportions. 

She was nurturing, kind and intelligent. 

She was the kind of girl I could imagine ending up with one day, that type of type. It was probably the reason I fell for her as quickly as I did. 

We spent the mornings eating disgusting American breakfasts together, the days out ice skating and running around toy stores and the nights in her friend Fría’s SoHo handbag store after dark. 

The stage of New York made the romance even more special. It’s a great stage for love to dance. 

I savoured the grease and the syrup dripping from our fingers as we started the day, the long Spanish lessons on benches outside Central Park, the gift of her borrowed scarf and gloves. 

We became a little old couple. 

I wasn’t expecting it, I was expecting drunken hedonistic nights, not focusing my time on one girl. Love throws off all well laid plans. 

The hedonistic nights were not going to escape me though, there would be plenty of time for hedonism after a similarly special bromance took flight. 

My memory of this time in New York is incredibly chaotic, from all the nights of love and cider and cigarettes only three stories are still completely intact. 

Therefore the rest of this chapter will hold three individual stories instead of being an absentmindedly melded together mess. 

The Snow Storm 

I was taking refuge in the basement as one of the worst snow storms to hit New York in years raged outside. I was laying on the sofa in the darkened room daydreaming when _____ appeared. 

_____ was a young black doctor whose name now escapes me. We had briefly met before in the smoking area where he came across as an awkward and shy person but nonetheless there was something about him I liked, he had an awkward jittery warmth. 

“Me and this Korean guy I met are going out tonight, do you want to come along?” he asked. 

“Yeah, I’m up for it.” I replied, exiting my daydream. I got up off the sofa and we went to find that Korean guy. 

That Korean guy was Jeff, a Berkeley student in town for a political conference. 

We found Jeff as he ran down the hostel staircase. He wore grubby jeans and a plaid shirt. We only exchanged a few words on the staircase but I could tell he was over analytical in everything he did. I liked him instantly. 

We left the hostel as the snow was still falling, outside the streets were emptied of people and it felt like one of the greatest cities in the world was open just for us and the few New Yorkers who had the same idea of seeking alcohol during a category 97 blizzard. 

It was just the kind of self-indulgent pleasure-seeking New York adventure I had been craving. It would be the first night of many nights of debauchery and chaos. 

It turned out to be the city’s worst snow storm in years. Hurricane winds and snow combined to shut down most of New York City but we were still determined to make it to Greenwich Village. 

Making our way through several feet of snow we found the last refuge from the storm and the only place anything seemed to be happening, a small bar in a backstreet. 

We stood there staring at it from a safe distance. The internet told us it was a lesbian bar but to us it was the only option left. 

March after march up and down Greenwich Village’s snowy streets and our fingers had started to ask questions. We were all hoping that frostbite wouldn’t become a thing. 

So an Englishman, a Korean and a Black guy walk into a lesbian bar in New York City. 

We realized that this wasn’t exactly catering to us. 

Inside we found a new world, an enchanted world of soft glowing auburn lights, warmth, alcohol and every lesbian you could think of when that word comes to mind. Everyone was happy and so were our fingers. 

Jeff and _____ got a table and I went to order at the bar. I sat down on a stool awaiting my order, a moment later a young, short haired woman strangely wearing summer clothes snuck up behind me, “Is this your seat?” I asked, getting up to let her sit down. 

“That’s okay, I’ll just sit on your lap!” she said with a wide grin, before planting herself on top of me. 

I talked to her for a minute but suddenly became uneasy, ‘This is all too good to be true!’ I thought as I turned my head to see Jeff and _____ awkwardly standing around in the corner, ‘What happened to their seats?’ 

“I’ve got to get back to my friends.” I told this magical summer fairy as I lifted her ass off me. 

“Okay sure, go ahead.” she grumbled, a little bit disappointed. 

After talking to Jeff and _____ about my first great lesbian bar experience, I went outside and gathered another. 

I opened the door of the bar and a bright faced girl introduced herself, “I’m Megan!” she beamed, extending her hand. 

“He’s cuuuute!!!” her friend said before quickly disappearing inside. I can imagine the wink she gave Megan as she did so.  

The snow came down in rationed sprinkles as we talked, “We didn’t know this was a lesbian bar.” I said, lying completely. 

“Well I’m not a lesbian, I am bisexual, I have a few friends who come here.” 

I tried the hardest anyone has ever tried not to smile. We continued flirting as we smoked our respective cigarettes, constantly hit by freezing snowflakes. 

She gave me her number and I learnt a lesson unique to 21st century dating. I pulled my phone out, opening the notes app and Megan didn’t like me as much anymore. 

“That’s all I get!? Notes.” she looked crushed. Back inside she flew off into the ether. 

I may have won and lost a pretty bisexual in the space of ten minutes but I still came to the conclusion that lesbian bars were kind to straight men, this one was to me anyway. 

Jeff and _____ looked like they disagreed, they were now pleading with me to bail on the place. 

I finished my drink and vowed to visit more lesbian bars in the future. 

We exited my new favourite place in the world and reentered the streets of snow. 

We finishing off some more drinks in another – less lesbian – bar to resist the cold outside and then for no real reason went looking for New Jersey. 

We found the state laying low on the other side of the Hudson River. Peering across at us with a menacing, deranged look. 

This was clearly the kinda state that drove a white van with blood stains in the back. 

The kinda state that took loud shits in public bathrooms. 

The kinda state that put the cereal in after the milk. 

We weren’t scared of it. We were drunk. 

We took turns screaming insults across the void of the river. 

We contemplated crossing the frozen gap and challenging it to a real snow fight but quickly came to our senses. We were drunk but we weren’t appear on the news as the three idiots that drowned in the Hudson River during the blizzard while challenging a geographic and political entity to a fight drunk. Nah. Not that drunk. 

It was the perfect end to the night, the perfect end to any night. 

Tiny Dancer 

I did a rare thing for me and invited myself. 

I hadn’t seen Dulce or Rosaline for a couple of days when I ran into them back in the dorm at Jazz. They would sometimes spend the nights huddled in the handbag store instead of returning uptown to sleep in the hostel. 

I had started to think that the romance with Dulce was done. The balance between playing with Jeff and pursuing Dulce had been off and now I had a chance to correct it, I wanted to. 

The last time that I had chosen a night with her over a night out with Jeff, Dulce had given me a romantic blowjob in my bed. 

Romantic? Yes, romantic! 

It was late and for some reason Fría, who would usually sleep in a little nook above the handbag store, was staying over in our dorm room. 

The arrangement meant Dulce would be either squished up with one of her friends or sleeping in my bed. She chose my bed. 

Rosaline, Fría and the three other guests in the room went to sleep while me and Dulce headed for the smoking area for some pre-bed nicotine and booze. 

Cigarette after cigarette 

beer after beer 

 a shower of floating snowflakes 

 the cold, dark skies 

February 

New York City. 

We sneeeaaaked back into the dorm room and climbed into my bottom bunk. 

We kissed and cuddled and before long Dulce was pleasuring me with her mouth. I tried to block out any thoughts of the other five people in the room hearing the GLUCK GLUCK GLUCKS. 

It felt great but I couldn’t cum. 

The more I thought about the fact that I couldn’t cum, the more impossible it became to cum. 

After thirty minutes of solid work from Dulce, I had to change things up. 

I slipped my dick out from between her lips and suggested we go outside for some nicotine. 

It’s still, so far, the only blowjob I’ve ever taken a smoke break from. 

We walked to the smoking area and smoked a few cigarettes, kissing between drags. 

Back in bed and much more relaxed I finally got there. 

I took my cock out of Dulce’s mouth and repainted the dorm room’s wall. 

We fell asleep in a warm pool of cum and spit. 

Romantic. 

… Anyway, I missed her. 

So I took the opportunity and invited myself with them to the Brooklyn Bridge. 

When we arrived I realised they had a lot more planned than just a stroll across the iconic landmark. First we would have to spend a solid hour in a grocery store as Dulce took an uninterrupted video, walking each aisle amazed at the variety of American junk food. 

‘Maybe they don’t have grocery stores in Argentina.’ crossed my mind before I realised how ridiculous the thought was. 

We ate Latin cuisine in the backyard of a dirty restaurant, went shoe shopping and then finally walked along the Brooklyn Bridge after sunset. The skyscrapers of Manhattan lit up and standing guard on the other side of the river. 

The image deserved to be in an ornate frame. I mentally put it in one and then hung it on a wall in my mind. Beautiful. 

I was still talking to Dulce and Rosaline but I couldn’t hear what any of us were saying. 

‘New York is truly fucking magnificent!’ I thought to myself, ‘I really fucking love it.’ or something like that, I thought something like that. 

Later that night we headed to the handbag store to pick up Fría and then on to a dive bar nearby. 

                _

She approached me with a swagger, wearing a tight red dress, she looked 30 but without the caked on makeup that number would have risen by a decade or so. 

“Heyyy, do you know how we can book a slot to play the beer pong, hmm…” 

Before the word pong ended and the teasing hmm began her lips had floated to a centimetre away from my own. She landed the kiss with such ease that it would have been wrong not to respond with my tongue. 

A good three seconds passed before I realised Dulce was standing mere metres away from me. 

I instantly felt bad and began my excuses. 

Dulce’s friends pulled me away and sat guard either side of me. They were understanding and blamed Red Dress. Dulce of course was not. 

The night was coming to an end and I was running out of time to turn it around, I still felt confident that I could. 

The number of women you can go through in one life can be – if you want it to be – a large number, but some for some strange reason are special very quickly and Dulce was special very quickly. 

During a smoke break from the packed bar I grabbed the opportunity to win her back over. I tried everything, every charming noise and facial expression in my locker but none of it was breaking through. 

Then the first notes of Tiny Dancer leaked through the door and into the street. A certain defeat became a convincing victory. 

Brad and Jeff’s Valentines Day 

It was another night of heavy drinking and the night before Valentine’s Day. 

We were at The Thirteenth Step which had become our local and as usual were drinking an unhealthy amount of $1 cider, which was actually $2 cider thanks to America’s shitty tipping system. 

I chose the woman who looked like she didn’t belong in the bar. I could see her with her friends on either side of her, she wasn’t here to pick up guys. I told Jeff to go and talk to her for some practice and he did. 

The conversation became a rambling roulette wheel of topics before coming to a stop, to the fact that she had children and this was her first night out in a long time. 

Then Jeff pulled the trigger on a gun that should have been kept far away from him. 

“Why are you not at home with your kids?” 

Ouch. 

A misplaced neg was the only explanation I could think of for the brutal line, but it wasn’t a slight put down of her clothing or hair, it was a shot to her core. The words hit her in the chest, detonating all over her maternal instinct. 

I sensed the mood change instantly. Slightly drunk people getting to know each other in a bar to slightly drunk people now in a standoff, the tension a preamble to smashed glass and bloody faces. 

Her eyes opened wider, she leaned her body back on the bar stool then swung forward, she grabbed her stall with one hand and raised her other hand into the air. 

“YOU DO NOT WANT TO INSULT A MOTHER IN A NEW YORK CITY BAR!” 

She screamed the statement into Jeff’s face with an enraged conviction. 

Her friends pulled her back attempting to cool her down, “He’s not worth it,” her male friend told her, “don’t let him ruin your mood.” counselling her back from the brink. 

They moved her further away from the evil red faced blushing Korean, who was now shaking and trying to apologise. The way they looked at him said enough, they were choosing limbs to cut. 

A few moments later, probably a few moments later than I should have, I was pushing a very confused Jeff to the exit. Head on a swivel, gasping for air, he was still figuring out why it had offended her so much. 

We were good at creating painful situations and fleeing. 

Further down the same street I challenged a bouncer to fight me.

“Fight me!” I proclaimed or something like that. 

He was seven feet tall and had the face of someone who knew he was seven feet tall. Jeff diffused the situation by kindly asking where McDonald’s was and my stomach won out over my drunken head which was intent on dropping him. 

It’s something about New York… I thought I could leave him a pile of mess on the pavement without even bruising a knuckle, New York brings that out in me. 

The night ended at some cheap diner off Times Square. Me and Jeff eating breakfast as the neon lights of the strip clubs and adult stores across the street reminded me it was Valentines Day. 

I said happy Valentine’s Day to Jeff and he said happy Valentine’s Day to me and then we went back to our room in Chelsea to sleep. Not together of course, we had bunk beds. 

_ 

Jeff left a few days after our Valentines. I returned to Jazz from the crappy hotel in Chelsea we had moved to and got to know a few new people. I hooked up with a Korean girl out of nowhere, hung out with my new Brazilian friend Thalis and tried to find Dulce, who had now disappeared. 

My mood had turned, without Dulce and Jeff New York wasn’t the same and I reluctantly started thinking of my next destination. 

The Dulce issue was the more pressing thing on my mind.

It was bothering me, I knew the date she was leaving and as the day approached I debated with myself what I should do. 

On the day she was set to fly out I still hadn’t made a decision. 

I had a dream of rushing down to SoHo, bursting out of Spring Street station, charging into the handbag store and giving her a proper goodbye. 

As I was contemplating what to do on the day she was set to leave, a sticker stuck to a drain pipe in the smoking area of the hostel gave me the final push for what I knew I should do. 

Chase your dreams read the sticker, a sentiment I’d always wholly agreed with but it was nice at that moment on that day to have a reminder. 

I smoked up the remainder of my stick, left the hostel immediately and charged south towards the handbag store. 

We had one last kiss. 

Now that Jeff was gone and Dulce was gone, it was time I went too. 

It was time to leave New York.