Gut Instinct: Driven to Drink
Sweet heavens, I need booze, I whisper to my friend Angela on the phone.
Why?
I just spent 13 hours copyediting. And nowI look around the fluorescent-lit office, where red-eyed drones are minglingtheyre doing Jäger shots.
Thats horrible.
I know.
Come to Greenpoint, replies Angela, a perky Ohioan who toils at a medical-advertising firm. She sexes up rheumatoid arthritis medication. Were at the Diamond.
Oh, joyous jelly beans, The Diamond (43 Franklin St. betw. Calyer & Quay Sts, 718-383-5030; Bklyn)! This cute Greenpoint drinkery combines two of my passions: microbrew beer and grandpa-appropriate shuffleboard. When my retirement arrives, with liver spots and dementia, I will so kick AARP butt.
Ill be there in a jiffy, I say. Since my fellow wage earners are transfixed by liquor like snake-charmed serpents, I easily slither away and descend into the subway. F train. L train. Twelve minutes walking. Therethe neon diamond glows like a firefly.
Angela and I embrace. After utilizing words like exhausted and stab, I excuse myself to self-medicate. An older-skewing crowd rocking dark jeans, low-cut tops and button-downsand jobs that help em afford $6 brewskisthrongs the half-moon bar. The Diamonds chalkboard-written selections are separated into sessionslower alcoholand strong, sobriety-annihilators like my pick, the Smuttynose IPA. The New Hampshire beers floral notes meld with bold maltiness, creating a sipper that rapidly sands my rough edges.
I find Angela manning a picnic table outside. Weve been friends for nearly a decade. In our early NYC days, we hungrily explored dive bars and dirt-cheap dumpling stalls, staying out until the sun licked the horizon. My tastes have remained disreputable. Hers have molted into something fancier and increasingly foreign.
When are you going to buy an apartment? Angela asks.
Buy ?
You should get pre-approved for a mortgage. In late 2009, I think the markets going to bottom out.
My idea of bottoming out, I suppose, is far different from Angelas. I need another beer, I say. I buy a summery Southern Tier Hop Sun.
When did we start caring more about mortgage payments than partying till dawn? I ask.
Its inevitable.
Also inevitable is my next beer, a can of bitter, creamy Dales Pale Ale ($5). I try playing shuffleboard, but a bald man is combating a bra-less blonde.
Shoot again, he coos.
Tonight, its apparent, will bring zero pleasure. I cut my losses at Cinderella time and bid Angela good-bye. Like numerous New Yorkers, we make future plans well break. At a bodega I buy a 16-ounce Zywiec beerlight, Polish and a buck-fifty. I hail a car.
Wheres Crown Heights? the driver wonders. Today is my first day.
Wow, I mumble. Im oddly elated to take a cabbys virginity, before insolent passengers, costly gasoline and paltry pay wreck him. I crack my beer and get cracking. Take the next left.
Thank you, he says, following my instructions with Golden Retriever obedience.
So hows your first day? Small talk is one of my unavoidable tics, like biting fingernails or sniffing dirty socks.
Brooklyn, its big, he says, like someone in awe of a 6-foot meatball sub.
Where are you from?
Connecticut. I drove a car there.
So why come to New York?
Its a long story. He sighs and scratches his head.
We have time. Even a long-winded storys better than 1010 WINS news-radio blather.
Well, my wife and I had problems, and shes always wanted to move to New York, he starts, his voice trailing off. So she left me. And then moved in with her sister in Greenpoint.
So now youre living with her? I ask, hoping for a Hollywood ending.
No. Im with my cousin. My wife doesnt know Im here. I just came to New York three days ago. I want to get back together with her but I dont know how. Take a right?
No, a left. Silence. I sip my beer and chew his confession. Few men admit to weakness; even fewer admit to failure. Its a symptom of our haughty hubris, which never lets us ask for directions evenand especiallywhen were irreparably off-course. But my contrite driver is requesting a road map to redemption. Sadly, hes chosen the wrong cartographer. Just because my mouth functions doesnt mean the words work.
We arrive at my bedraggled brownstone. Nice work, I say, tipping him $3. It only gets easier.
He turns around. Our eyes connect. His are Hersheys brown and watery, filled with far-off longing. I hope so, he says. I nod and walk inside, eager to steal some dreamless sleep before tomorrows first harsh light.