Fool for the City, Part 3

* About freakin’ time.

As were heading back into town after our airborne adventure the city seems even more alive to me now than before. The adrenaline is still flowing and my senses are on full alert. We are marching east on 44th. Destination Broadway and the Shubert Theatre. Bob seems to think it’s worth taking a chance in the cancellation line for tickets to Spamalot. As we get further from West Side Highway it starts to quiet down a little. This part of 44th is primarily brownstones so I’m not paying a whole lot of attention to my surroundings. We pass what I think is a church out of the corner of my eye, but Bob stops and says, “Didn’t you see that?” “See what?” He points behind me, “That’s the Actor’s Studio.”

I turn around and examine the building more closely. Sure enough, there’s the big “A” in a blue circle on the front. The gates in front are closed. It looks abandoned. There are no cars on the street in front, so I can only assume that James Lipton has the day off. As we near Broadway you can hear it.

About a block or two from the Shubert I can see the marquee. One of them anyway. Already there’s an enormous line of ticket holders waiting for the doors to open. We join the comparatively tiny knot of optimists in the cancellation line. Bob says Vlad is supposed to meet us here, so he’s going to look for him while I hold our place.

As I’m standing in line I observe the queue of ticket holders. It’s an eclectic mix of pie-eyed tourists and locals. A couple, who I assume to be locals, breaks out of the line of ticket holders and approaches the expectant crowd in the cancellation queue. “We’ve got a couple of spares for the balcony if anyone wants them.” A disjointed chorus of , “How much?” is the response. They want $50 a piece. Or maybe it’s more, I’m too far away to tell for sure.

It doesn’t matter, though. In a matter of seconds two people agree to buy them and step out of line to join the privileged masses. A couple of minutes later a lone scalper approaches us, obviously emboldened by the previous sale. Unfortunately for him a theatre district cop (yep they have cops just for the theatre district) appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and pulls him up short. His objections of “But, but they . . .” are met with a talk-to-the-hand gesture and a terse suggestion to move along.

I see Bob has located a very tired looking Vlad and is headed my way. It’s about this time a stage hand comes out to break the news that there are only two seats left in the entire house and neither is together. That’s all we need to hear. We leave the line and head for Broadway.

As we head south we pass a bakery that has piles of chocolate dipped croissants in the window. I begin to salivate. I haven’t had breakfast yet and the smell emanating from the doorway is positively captivating. It’s about this time Bob realizes he needs to go back to the Shubert to get a poster from the gift shop for one of his girls. I bravely volunteer to wait for him by the bakery. He disappears around the corner and I pass through the doorway of croissant heaven.

After ignoring me for a good two minutes or so, one of the guys behind the counter gives up pretending he can’t see me and asks what I want. I almost don’t need to point. He follows my hungry gaze to the blessed plethora of chocolate dipped pastry in the window. $2.50 later I’m back out on Broadway blissfully munching away. Tourists, necks craned skyward, pass by. Street hustlers (not that kind) pass out brochures for a wide variety of tourist attractions and guided tours. Cabs whoosh by. The sun is out and the sky is blue. It's a beautiful day in Gotham and I am at peace.

Not long after I finish the croissant, Bob and Vlad reappear and we grab a cab to head down to the Village. Destination—The White Horse Tavern. Founded in 1880 it is NYC’s 2nd oldest bar and the place where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. The poet’s bloodshot visage adorns just about every wall. This was also one of the first places Bob took me on my first visit to the City. It looks very much as I imagine it did in 1880. Lots of oak paneling and a decorative tin ceiling. Bob ran into Giuliani here once. It was during Rudy’s run for the senate against the distinguished carpet bagger from Arkansas.

Rudy was strategizing with a rather fetching campaign manager. Or at least that’s what Bob thought at the time. Turns out he was really just lunching with his mistress. Bob was with his brother Joe, an avowed atheist/anarchist and certainly no fan of Rudy. When Joe got up to use the john, Bob happened to catch the mayor’s eye as he and his date got up to leave. The mayor smiled at him and said hi. Bob smiled back and said, “Kick her ass.” Bob said Rudy beamed and strode over to shake his hand. When his brother Joe returned from the loo and saw him hobnobbing with the evil arch-Republican, Bob said Joe adopted an icy indifference and pretended to not even notice Rudy. Bob said Rudy picked up on this immediately, thanked Bob for his support and left. I got this whole story via e-mail shortly after it happened. It ended with “Only in NY my cousin. Only in NY.”

No celebrities appear to be in attendance this day. We are seated at a table right in the middle of traffic. People bustle back and forth between the main bar and dining room and brush past my chair. It doesn’t bother me though. It’s a lazy spring-like day in the Village and the three of us are happy to just kick back with a beer and take it in. We each get a cheeseburger and fries. Afterwards we stroll west through the Village back toward the river.

At about 6 we make our way to Chumley’s. Buried deep in the West Village, Chumley’s was once a speakeasy during Prohibition. As such it has no sign marking either of its entrances. You simply walk down Bedford street among the brownstones and ancient apartments looking for a lone door with an air conditioning unit above it. There are no windows either.

Like the White Horse, Chumley’s is a time machine. It feels like a pre-WWII English pub. The smell from the wood burning fireplace mingled with that of beer only makes the illusion stronger. According to one online guide, this was one of Hemingway and Fitzgerald’s favorite haunts. It’s easy to imagine that it still is. Still full from lunch, we opt to have a couple of beers and rest our dogs. Bob’s had us walking like men possessed all day. The warmth of the fire and the fine ale are a welcome respite.

After Chumley’s Vlad takes his leave of us and departs for Queens. He’s been running on empty all day and I let him know how much I appreciate his steadfastness. It’ll probably be another 2 or 3 years before I see him again. I hope not, but reality bites.

Bob and I head back to the hotel and wait for Angel. We’re going to go throw darts again tonight. Angel arrives and we head to a place called Tempest that is supposed to have a pretty good dart board. As we near the place we can feel the ground thumping from the bass. A line of Abecrombie and Fitch disciples (the REALLY young ones) is waiting to get in. We opt to move along.

The next stop is a REAL bar somewhere in midtown. As we enter I’m immediately reminded of Esquire back home. It’s a little more crowded and narrow, but the same cool mix of people is here. And the jukebox is background music, not the main attraction. All the way in the back is the dartboard. As we negotiate our way through the crowd Angel spots an old dart throwing buddy. I gather his name is Jim or some such thing. Had there been more light I might have been able to verify his name on the numerous dart championship plaques that adorn the wall behind the bar.

This guy is good. As it turns out a bunch of guys Angel used to throw darts with are here and they’re all better than us. Oh well, it’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. Even so, Jim and company play to win. One of the guys is an Irish guy named Garrett. He’s about 6’ 3”, lanky and a fast talker. During a game with Garrett, Hannah, a girl that appears to be attached to one of Garrett’s fellow dart sharks, discovers I’m from Champaign. She’s from Crystal Lake. While waiting my turn, I chat with her and her boyfriend about all things Midwest. It’s not long though before Garrett’s Irish lilt is in my ear, “Hey country folk, ye can chat later. We’ve got darts to throw here.” These guys are serious.

While Angel and I don’t get totally skunked every game we’ve yet to win one. It isn’t until much later in the evening that we begin to hit them well and eventually take a game, much to my astonishment and that of our hosts. But it’s all in fun and there are no hard feelings. Before I know it it’s 2 a.m. and time to go. As we leave, we receive a hearty goodbye from our opponents and an invitation to come back and play anytime.

Weary, but in good spirits, we traipse back through an eerily deserted Times Square and part ways with Angel at 5th Ave. Bob and I grab a cab back down to 32nd and our hotel. We collapse in our beds as soon as we’re in the door. It has been a very, very full day.

Sunday morning comes and it’s time to go home. We have breakfast with Angel at a diner just up the street from his apartment building. After saying goodbye to him we decide to spend what little time we have left on a tram ride over to Roosevlet Island, followed by a visit to the recently remodeled Strand. One last coffee in a café overlooking Herald Square and it’s really time to go. Bob grabs a train back to Jersey and I a cab back to La Guardia.

At the airport I manage to finagle my way onto an earlier flight. This will allow me to get into Midway and down to Laurie’s folks’ place at a much more civil hour. As I sit at the gate waiting to board I can see the silhouette of Manhattan slowly melting into the darkness. I’ll be back. As sure as Gray’s makes the best hot dog on planet Earth, I will be back.