West Village, 1999
Every time it snows, I think about New York.
Back in college, I would take the Amtrak up from DC to Penn Station just so I could wander around the West Village on my own. Christopher Street was my playground; I would walk along the narrow brick buildings, staring up into apartments and imagine what it was like to live there. I would spend hours in the Factory Café for the price of cup of coffee, feverishly writing in my notebook, surrounded by men who were always willing to share their secrets. One night, I got bold enough to enter one of the gay bars and hid in the corner. I didn’t talk to anyone out of fear they would throw me out. Eventually, the bartender told me, “Go home, baby, before someone gobbles you up.” But wasn’t that the point? I would have let him consume me down to the bone.
This was the late 90’s, back before the advent of September 11th, back when the Village was still mostly queer, the rents still cheap, and the Twin Towers still stood sentinel on the skyline. I want you know the city was different back then, that I was a different sort of creature.
But here’s the morning I want to tell you about: it was snowing and the West Village was covered with a thin layer of white fluffiness that made Christopher Street look almost ethereal. It was so cold and there was a haze that turned red bricks into the color of mud; footprints disappeared after a few steps. I sat in the Factory Café, watching the snowflakes through the front window. All I had on me was my wallet, a Discman, and a notebook full of writing that was supposed to mean something. I was waiting for something, something to happen, anything, and I was willing to wait forever for it.
The man next to me had moved seats twice and I wanted to believe I was the goal. He was a charming fellow with a smile that could unhinge and swallow people whole. He was an actor, of course. With charm like that, what else could he be? His claim to fame: he had played one of the lifeguards in the film Jaws. I was spellbound and I wanted him to know it. “So, you were an extra,” I said, not realizing this was the worst thing to say. How quickly his smile vanished from his face. No, he was certainly not an extra. He was a character actor. He had a speaking line. He was the lifeguard who yelled “Shark!”
Perhaps, if I had said the right things, this would be a different story.
I met another man shortly after, who beckoned me to his table. I do not remember his name, but I can still picture him clearly in my mind: the sheer size of him, the way he hunched over made his belly look like a compressed barrel. His grisly face, his kind eyes; he carried himself in such a way that suggested he’d given up trying to be one of the “pretty ones” long ago and was actually happier for it. I liked him immediately and felt that we were both there for the same reasons.
“Let’s go out and look at the moon,” he said.
“It’s two in the afternoon,” I replied. “But, ok.”
Outside, the snow was still falling as we walked side-by-side, his body towering over me. There was no destination, just the urge to move against the wind. We stopped briefly in a convenience store where he bought a pack of smokes and two porno magazines and offered one to me as a gift, but I didn’t accept it. I was nineteen and already an expert at saying no to things I secretly wanted.I wanted him.
I do not remember all the things we talked about, but we must have covered entire years of our lives. I remember his deep Sopranos voice, the light scent of smoke on his coat, the way he held my shivering hands to keep them warm. In a diner, we ate over steaming cups of coffee as he told me about Staten Island. Had I ever been, he asked. Did I want to see the neighborhood he grew up in? We could take the ferry and find a bar that didn’t check IDs. We could go look at the moon.
I was in love with by then, in the way young people often fall innocently in love with strangers who show them kindness. I wanted that afternoon in the diner to go on forever, to hear his stories, to answer his questions, to think of all the fun things we could do together. I wanted him to hold me tight, tight enough so I could sink inside him, nestled in his chest, to be protected from the coldness of the city.
I also knew I couldn’t go with him. My friend in Jersey City was waiting for me – I was due back at her apartment in time for dinner. If I did not show up, she would be so worried. And Staten Island was so far away. These are the things that go through your head when you are young and inexperienced and have never wandered farther than the East Village. How would we get there? And if we got separated, would I be able to find my way back? I didn’t own a cellphone or a credit card; no one knew where I was.
I remember his smile, his solemn nod, the way he understood all of this without me having to say a word. He did not pressure, he did not push. He was nothing but kind. “It’s all right,” he said as he paid our bill. “Another time.”
At the Path Train, I lingered by the turnstile, dollar in hand, before I quickly rushed back up to the street. I was fickle back then, good at changing my mind when it was no longer possible. It was suddenly so important that I go to Staten Island, that a chance like this would never present itself again. As I retraced my steps back to the diner, I clung to this dim hope that the man was still there waiting for me. He was not. I returned to Christopher Street, pacing up and down, wondering if he was in one of those bar windows looking out for me. The snow had stopped by then and the streets were filling up and the cafés were so full, there was no place left to sit. Evening comes early in winter. As the streets darkened, I knew it was time to move on. So, I returned to the warmth of the Path Train and let him fade into those apparitions of other missed opportunities.
But did it really happen like that? Even as I type these words, I wonder how many memories I’ve blended together to form this one.
Now that I think about it, the Jaws actor was wearing summer clothes. I remember his beefy legs sticking out of jean shorts and his large feet in flip flops. He couldn’t have been there. And was it the Staten Island man who offered to buy me the porn magazine or was that someone else? I don’t think anyone has ever asked me to go look at the moon.
I left out the part when the man from Staten Island offered to take me to the peep shows, down in those hidden cellars where you could gain access to a private booth for the price of a token. Even if I didn’t go, I worried that by mentioning it, you would think this was a dirty story, that you would see this man differently. I didn’t want to do that to him. I choose to remember him fondly, as that gentle giant who kindly walked with me in the snow.
Can I admit that I might not have been in college yet? That, maybe, I was still in high school, during those delirious two years when my family lived in New Jersey, when I started to realize a few things about myself. I had felt my queerness growing inside me like a weed and was growing weary of having to pluck out the leafy parts that showed. I went to New York because I was lonely and curious and desperate to escape the watchful eyes of the military base and the church. For years, I thought that city would save me.
Or is this the version I keep telling myself?
Here is what I know: it was snowing in the West Village and my chest tingled as if I were walking on sacred ground; that when I was younger, I was easily dazzled and could only see the beauty in other people. For years, I kept returning to the city, hoping to relive the experience. But nothing stayed the same. A plague of confusion has followed me ever since.
Jonathan Harper is the author of the short story collection, Daydreamers (Lethe Press, 2015) and the novel You Don’t Belong Here (Lethe Press, 2023). His writing can be found in such places as The Rumpus, The Rappahannock Review, The East Jasmine Review, and in numerous anthologies including Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader and The Best Gay Stories series.