LSD on PTO

30 miles to understanding

Just as each unhappy family is unhappy in their own fashion, each unhappy middle aged man has their mid-life crisis in their own fashion. There is no such thing as ever lasting happiness in middle age. While people may say fuck me like I just got out prison, they usually don’t say fuck me like we’ve been married for twenty years.

Some dudes decide to get a car, some to date someone that is wildly age inappropriate, get tattoos, go do their own stunts (and strain their own calves) in far off lands. Others choose to take 2 hits of acid on a gorgeous summer Friday. In Manhattan.

I’m the 2 hits of acid guy. On PTO. I’m the one that wants to see from one side of the island to another. Essex street by the Williamsburg Bridge to 135th street and the Greenway. And back again. Needless to say when the day was over, I looked like I had been walking and sweating for hours. But let’s not skip to the end of the crisis just yet. We’ve only just begun.

This trip started with me trying to find myself, the medicine and whatever I was reading had other plans.

Instead of finding myself, I found myself saying goodbye to my mom. She had passed away the summer before, and grief is a never ending process, it comes in waves and you don’t really have that much control over it. I was reading a book about the Conde Nast empire, the glitz, the glamour, the high culture. My mom dreamt of that world but as an immigrant working retail at some of the nicest stores, she was always on the outside looking in. There is always a trigger to your subconscious.

The medicine guided me up some of the nicest retail areas in New York, up Madison and Fifth Avenue leading up to Central Park. By Dior, by Saks. By her store, Tiffany’s where she had spent almost 10 years of her career. The medicine, the book and a heavy heart was moving my legs, and tears mixed with sadness and joy filled my eyes. This was my mom’s world and I was fully alive to experience it.

It was time to rest. The medicine was saying sit down, it’s time to let go. So I sat. I’m not one to argue with the wisdom of the ages, or at least of the hour. Or whatever my artist friend sold to me 10 years ago. I picked a place, or rather the medicine did. It was Melania and Donald’s bench from Mark Burnett, on the day that I thought Trump was going to give away Ukraine in Alaska for a trinket

I sat dumbfounded for a little bit. I’m originally from the Ukraine, from Kharkiv/kov depending on when you ask. My dad definitely made the right choice in getting us out of there. Here I was 50 years old, sweating, tired, trying to hydrate literally on Trump’s bench. Of all things. Last time I sat on a bench in the same condition, it was Allen Ginsburg’s bench in Tompkins Square park. Same need for a bench, different vibe, different trip. Both were exactly right for the time.

Back to the bench.

I just had to laugh for a bit. Not, I’m tripping balls, rolling around in Millennial park laughing so hard I throw up. That’s cool on a Sunday in your early 30’s. Maybe. When you’re full dad age, you can’t do that shit without someone justifiably calling the cops. But enough laughing that it turned those sad tears into just a knowing disbelief. The medicine had performed its healing power again. In that moment on the bench I just had to laugh at even thinking I had problems. I am also glad I did not piss my pants. At least this time.

My dad at 50 was busting his ass driving a limo so that I could dream what I dreamt. And many of those dreams fortunately came true. Because of his hard work, a little bit of mine and a whole lot of luck. The luck that brought me to the bench, to that moment. To that moment when I said goodbye to my mom and insecurities that I had about had I done enough with my life. I was also feeling thirsty, wondering if I was hydrated enough for my social class?

Let’s be honest, every mid-life crisis is essentially a panicked form of taking stock. Counting life’s tally, seeing how much more is owed, how much you left on the table, and how far you’ve come. At 50 you know who you are, who you’ve become, the demons you hold and some you’ve contained, the people that you love and they love you back. You’re not looking for runways, you’re looking to keep walking without ligament damage. To keep dancing just when your feet have figured out the rhythm, more so than in the days of weaselly knees and the carefrees. Dude, don’t give me that look. You never went to a frat party in college? You come home on time at this point, not smelling of the night before. You promptly answer your wife’s texts. They start to come in at 11 or before, not 1am anymore.

Ok, back to the bench and continuing the goodbye procession to my mom. Now it was time to go up the Upper West Side. Or essentially sophisticated, classy, intellectual Jew (I’m Jewish before anyone gets any ideas) heaven. My mom wanted me to become a lawyer. A partner in a fancy firm. The type that lives on the UWS. The one who may have friends below 14th street, but would never live there. Too bohemian, too many drugs. They don’t take themselves seriously enough.

For the record, I own in Bushwick. Also for the record, I once got Philip Roth to admit Saul Bellow’s a better writer. All below 14th street. That’s my version of getting busy in a Burger King bathroom. Also, also for the record, I have a record.

Back to UWS. You make it to Dakota, Lennon, Natural Museum, up Columbus. The neighborhood and bodegas are pristine. This gives way at 100th and the Frederick Douglass Houses. 99th abruptly gives way to a 100th. The vibe shifts and you’re in Morningside Heights soon to be West Harlem. Where the real intellectuals hang out. Or students protest, from the river to the deli. Until you’re past BBQ Jr and have neither the legs or appetite to get to the Cloisters.

This is when 50 starts to assert itself. 20 would have ended up in the Bronx looking for Dwight Gooden. 30 would have ended up in the Cloisters. 40 at Malecon before the Cloisters. 50 turned back. The Bronx would have to wait for another day. Now it was time to go back, and over east. The other side of the striving.

The east side of Manhattan is the much more WASPY side. The Conde Nast side. Or at least Tina and Anna side. Si, sure he was on the east side, but his Dad wasn’t.

Before that there is the heroin side of Park Avenue. The side the Gilded Age did not touch, but Lou Reed did. You crossover a little west back and continue on 5th avenue, the Gilded Age certainly appears in all its Guggenheim glory before too long.

The park is ever present walking down Fifth Ave, but so are the monuments to cleanse the Gilded Age’s sins. After all, what is philanthropy for if not to cleanse your sins and turn damnation into worship. Money turns swine into opulence. And opulence’s beauty makes one forget the destruction that paid for it. Carnegie Hall has made everyone forget all the misery imposed in an over 80 hr mandatory week of breaking your body in a factory.

This is about when you start to settle into a rhythm, going down east. You can see the finish line, when you start hitting Grand Central. I’ve always liked to observe the office crowd when hopped up on medicine, to see the resignation and determination in people’s faces, racing to get their salads to eat at their desks. Isn’t it great to be an American, where we live to work and work is merely fuel for more work. Europe is different, some things I guess are more important than GDP. But not too many things.

Now I start getting close to the East Village. Home turf so to speak. This is when I test out if I’m ready for public consumption by going to some quiet dive bar, more coffee shop than place to drink. It’s the one I end up with in this situation, I was here 10 years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this place sober. Not sure what draws me in, but it works. Probably the coffee shop for alcoholics vibe. I’m here for water, not beer. I’ve walked over 20 miles at this point and look like it. I finish my water and depart, back out into the day. I’m not ready yet for public discourse. I keep walking.

After talking on the phone for a while and walking around that no man’s land between Chinatown and the LES, I’m ready to go home. Pack it in. Refreshed and tired. I get on the train, mind my own business and realize I lost my sweat towel. See I’m middle aged, I’m prepared or so I thought. At this point I just have to use my shirt, I’m caked with dirt in places from that no man’s land, my eyes are bloodshot, clothes soaked in sweat. I look like an in-shape homeless dude. I walk 70 miles a week, it shows. I’ve been walking on 2 hits of LSD, it also shows. This woman gives me that ick stare when I use my shirt. I just have to laugh. Sure I look homeless, or at the very least careless. Not marriage material, not someone worth their time. The revulsion. It makes sense. Fellow travelers recognize each other. There was no recognition. The trip had ended.

It was time to go home. Take a shower. Take stock. Be glad for the person I share a home with who has been a fellow traveler since we both hated the club we were at on Cinco de Mayo. She did also find me disgusting when I got home and demanded I take a shower right away. I happily obliged and retired to watching movies and ordering food. I was famished. I was lighter than ever. I had said goodbye, I had said hello, I had come back home. All in the span of 30 miles.