Member-only story
I Was Right
And I wish I wasn’t
There was this almost cinematically perfect night in August 2001 when I took the A train from where I shared an apartment in Inwood down to the plaza between the Trades. There was a free concert starring John Gorka. I stretched out on one of the massive stone benches and gazed up at the Trades. There was no fog like there is in this photo.
It was a sublimely beautiful summer night and two perfect pink rimmed clouds drifted between the towers.
I had done it. I had successfully broken the gravitational hold of my home state and moved to New York City. I found work. I found a place to live I could afford. I had friends. I watched those clouds and wanted the moment to last a thousand years.
But you know how well those wishes work.
The concert ended and I made my way back down to the platform to take the A train back uptown. If it was mild and delectable above ground, it was stifling and breathless down below waiting for the train. And on that stinky, hot subway platform a slender young woman with blonde hair was playing a violin.
I had about seventy dollars to my name at that point, but I had to give her a buck. And then the train came and I went back to my corner bedroom at the end of Park Terrace East to go to bed and listen to the…
