Times Square

The first time I came into the city alone I was fifteen. I walked to the bus stop at eleven at night and got to the subway at almost midnight.

I got to Times Square forty-five minutes later. That was back when it was dirty and cruel. The smell of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume and hotdogs and stale sweat.

I remember being amazed at how few people looked twice at a kid walking around at one in the morning. Then again I had a hoodie on and baggy jeans and work boots. I could have been anybody.

I walked up and down Broadway like I had somewhere to be. I just watches people. Well dressed couples drunk on after theater cocktails. Wide eyed tourists, be they Midwestern, Japanese, or European. Pretty girls in high heels and short skirts. Shady men with shifty eyes and gold chains.

It was alive in a way I didn’t understand. So close to where I lived and in a way full of the same characters, but there was a raw energy everywhere. The lights so bright it was almost daytime. The traffic and the commerse. Guys selling drugs on the corner. Woman eying business men and their eyes speaking in secret codes.

And there was laughter in the streets and music and people were high or drunk or in love or just horny. I could see it all.

I went back a lot. Snuck out of my house and took the train in. I would sit in shadowy corners and just watch the drama of the night. Fights and arguments and seductions and who knows what.

Those nights are when I learned what watching the world was like. I try not to get like that much these days, I try to be present, but in weird midnight hours at some sex party or bar or what have you, I’m that kid again. Taking it all in. Watching the wild world.