Meditating in Le Brooklyn

The view from my room in Brooklyn

Brooklyn. It's a great hood, in a great city. It's New York, baby. 

Manhattan from the promenade

I'd not been to New York since November 2009 and made the mistake of flying into La Guardia airport, which looks more like a building site than a functioning airstrip. My buddy in Brooklyn gave instructions to get into the city without using an Uber or a taxi: shuttle bus to Grand Central in Manhattan and jump on the Subway to Borough Hall. Unfortunately, he thought that I was arriving on Saturday and this was Thursday afternoon. "Dude," he said, "I'm gonna be out till 11pm." Don't worry, I chortled, I can keep myself busy till then. What an imposition. I'd be crashing at his house for four nights. And house guests are like fish. They go off after three days.

 

Local feature: pub I used to drink in. Crap now.

Nay bother. I exited Borough Hall station and wandered the hipster streets of Brooklyn looking for a fix of adventure. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Brooklyn was edgy, scuzzy, filthy and frayed. Not no more. I hardly recognized the spruced up hood and wandered aimlessly in the wrong direction until I came to a familiar spot: KOAP's street. KOAP is an old friend of the family. Unfortunately, he usually spends August in the Hamptons on Long Island's South Fork. The old coot's phone number was in a moleskin notebook at the bottom of the bag, and, rather than dig to the bottom and call, I took the chance and wrapped my knuckles on his door. KOAP's missus answered. The old dear didn't recognize me. Neither did KOAP. They had only just returned from the Hamptons and were awaiting the rest of the clan for dinner. Another imposition, I thought, better not stay for long. 

 

After a catch up with KOAP, I bogged off for a coffee and a wander round the locality. It was full of bearded men and women in baseball caps and plaid shirts. They might be able to tell one another apart but they all looked the same to me. And French people. Beaucoup frogs in le Brooklyn. Then the American friend called and asked where I was. He told me to jump on the Subway and meet at his restaurant on the Bowery. My adventure in New York was about to begin. 

 

After some directions from a dodgy Russian who dug my accent, I found my pal's joint, Vandal, an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant with a seven-figure turnover. Blimey. After a tour of the premises and a catch up at the bar, we were off to Stanton Social,  another gaff co-owned by my pal, and yet another swanky diner with a seven-figure profit margin. 

 

What a good chum to have. Food and drink was complimentary and it felt like I was back in civilization after 18 months of fried chicken and collared greens in Atlanta. I sent a pic to the wife. "I miss sophistication," she sighed via text.  

 

 

And Beef Wellington, an olde English fav, was on the menu. The Yanks round the table had never even heard of it. For clarity, I pulled up the menu at Simpson's-in-the-Strand back home in London via the iPhone. Beef Wellington for dinner in the gentrified Bowery. What an excellent start to my Big Apple trip.

 

My digs on Hicks Street in Brooklyn

After a late night sloshing down vino (for the first time in seven years) and puffing ganja in my pal's bijou apartment (with one toilet) until the wee hours (3am), I woke up the next day, bright and early, yet slightly worse for wear, and decided to take a walk across Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. 

 

 

However, on all my previous visits to Brooklyn, I had always been unable to find it. How I had longed to walk across its length and gaze out upon the city. "It's nearby," I remembered my generous host saying the night before, "you'll find it."

 

This time was different, along with two Slovakian flight attendants (female, fit,) I found the stairwell and walked up. It was full of annoying tourists with selfie sticks and zooming cyclists. I was hungover, for the first time in several years, and in dire need of a coffee. Would the walk across the bridge into Manhattan waken the senses? 

Meditating on the waterfront.

After a coffee and a sarnie, I immediately returned to Brooklyn and made for the promenade to meditate. Yes, meditate; I was overcome with the sudden urge and settled down to breathe. Five minutes in, a bombaclat rocked up with a ghetto blaster playing "here comes the hot stepper." I smiled and carried on for another 15 minutes. Boy, that song goes on for a long time. Or at least the remix on his boom box did. 

 

 

After meditation on the waterfront, I was overcome with another urge: to devour one of those thick-assed pastrami sandwiches that New York City is famous for. They became the stuff of breakfast, lunch and dinner for the entirety of my sojourn. Atlanta doesn't really do pastrami and the nearest joint that does is on the other side of Virginia Highland. Not very healthy, I know. But it had to be done. 

 

 

Friday night is a civilian night for a man about town. Ideally, you should party from Sunday to Wednesday after spending weekends in the country. Yes, I was a bit of a boring git that Friday night in Brooklyn. I could have gone out to a coke fueled bash with my pal in Manhattan but elected to stay indoors and re-read Bulldog Drummond for the third or fourth time. It really is an awful novel. Why do I do this to myself? That's a very good question.  

 

 

Some old habits die hard for an expatriate Liverpudlian. I woke up the next day with a Jamaican Woodbine and went for breakfast with my host in a local cafe. The dishes were thoroughly American and so I ordered some sourdough toast and two side orders of bacon to construct a bacon sarnie. My host thought this most eccentric. After a chat about the state of the world and how we could set things straight, we took a wander round his hood. 

 

 

 

My gracious host pointed out Truman Capote's old house on Columbia Heights. My pal loves the neighborhood. Originally from Long Island, he has been living in the city for yonks and searched a 10-block square radius to find his pied-à-terre. 

 

 

 

Down on the promenade, I spotted this lovely home on the waterfront. It reminded me of the red bricked houses of Mossley Hill Drive and Sefton Park back home in Liverpool. Yes, I'm in New York City. The most amazing city in the history of the world, nay, the greatest, and I am thinking about rundown Liverpool. Scousers. You can take 'em out of the Pool but you can't take the Pool out of them. No wonder my late American Dad hated us damn Liverpudlians. 

 

What was on the menu that Saturday evening in Brooklyn and Manhattan? Not Beef Wellington but another coke fueled party on the lower east side. "Everyone does blow in New York like it's going out of style," said my host. How much does it cost? "$60 a gram. It's a big market and there's a lot of competition." Oh dear, that's cheaper than London. Then he told me about the old doorman at his apartment block who had been selling coke on the job. "He'd been doing it for years and getting away with it," said my host.  I'd better stay indoors and finish Bulldog Drummond, instead.

 

 

What will I remember most from my brief trip to Brooklyn? Meditating on the waterfront. Better than a coke fueled bash in Manhattan any day.

Until next time...

The Male Trailing Spouse