“Lemme have some of that.”
It was an order. Owen gave him the bottle, and the punk joined us.
“You play?” he asked Owen, indicating his guitar. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that Owen had been carrying a guitar since we left school. I don’t know how I missed it; it was in a big black case slung over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Owen said, unsnapping the case. “I found this on the street a couple months ago. I think it’s, like, from the sixties.”
“You have an amp?”
“Yeah. A little one.”
“Okay, well, my name’s Aeneas.”
Maybe I heard it wrong. Owen told me afterward that the guy had said, “Neevis.” But I still like to think of him as Aeneas, Homeless Greek Warrior. He told us he was a runaway from Groton, Connecticut, living off Domino’s Pizza “back orders.”* He needed money, and he said the best way to get it was to be a street musician. Owen, Aeneas, and I trudged over to a nearby stoop and plunked down among the gum stains.
“Okay,” Aeneas said. “Owen, you just play chords on the guitar. You”—he never got my name—“slap your knees to keep the beat. I’ll sing.”
We played.
Owen strummed E, A, B over and over while Aeneas crooned, “I got no money / It isn’t funny / I need some money today / Because I run-ied away.”
He was actually a good singer. Whenever someone passed by, Aeneas incorporated the person into his song: “Hey lady / Nice sweater / I need some money / If that man you’re with abuses you / You don’t have to take it / Leave him / Leave him.” Whenever a remotely Hispanic-looking person approached, he belted, “No tengo el dinero / No tengo el dinero.” He sang in Spanish to a lot of Asians and black people; evidently, anyone who wasn’t punk-cadaver-white was Spanish to Aeneas.
People loved us. They tossed us dimes and quarters. Whenever a really attractive woman passed by, Aeneas would walk with her for a few blocks, serenading, and return with three or four bucks. At some point, Owen turned to me and said with intensity, “You know, dude, we’re really helping out the poor.” I nodded.
At 8:00 P.M., it began to get dark. We stopped. Aeneas thanked us and left for a local supermarket, claiming the chicken there was easy to steal. I went home.
I entered the apartment at 9:00, right at my curfew, not considering—even for a minute—that my parents would notice I was drunk. I didn’t smell, and I wasn’t drooling—I just looked a little tired. I proceeded directly to the bathroom.
“Where’ve you been, honey?” Mom asked from the kitchen.
“With Owen,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Helping the poor.” I’d reached the bathroom door; it was locked. My brother was in there.
“Daniel, get out!”
“Why?”
“Because I need to take a bath!” I suddenly had this urge for a warm bath.
Mom came by, cocked her eyebrows, and said, “You were helping the poor?”
“Well, sort of,” I smiled. “I tried my hand at being a street musician.”
“Oookay. You’re a complete lunatic, you know,” Mom said, walking into her room. “But I love you, and you’re home on time, which is nice. How was school?”
“Fine,” I said. “I have to talk to you or Dad about applying for the Math Achievements, actually.”
“Well, talk to me about it—you know your father can’t handle administrative tasks.”
“I protest!” Dad yelled from the living room. Was I just drunk, or were my parents unusually funny?
“Hey, Daniel!” I turned my attention to the bathroom again. “What are you doing in there?”
“Nothing! I got here first!” He was probably reading Road & Track.* Because Daniel and I shared a bedroom, he always monopolized the bathroom, treating it like his private suite.
“Daniel, I need to get in there right now!”
“Oh, calm down!” Mom shouted from her room. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
Finally, Daniel appeared at the door. He punched me in the arm and ran to our room. I walked into the bathroom and turned on the hot water. Climbing into the tub, I noticed I was still wearing my boxers, but I left them on.
Two minutes later, Dad entered the bathroom. I hadn’t closed the shower curtain, so he saw me in the tub. In my underwear.
“Ned, Ned, Ned. Look at you.”
I looked down. I did look a little silly.
“Do you want the Spanish Inquisition in here? You better start acting with a little sobriety, or your mother is going to put two and two together. Get out of this tub in ten minutes, okay? Or, if you’ve lost your ability to keep track of time, I’ll cue you.”
Dad left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Then he popped his head back in. “Oh, yeah, and the obligatory father-son thing: don’t come home drunk ever again.”
I slid under the soapy water, smiling.
*Creator of The Simpsons.
**One of his best books.
*The bar code kept track of textbooks. Whenever a teacher gave you a book, she bar-coded you “out.” When you returned the book, she bar-coded you “in.” If, at the end of senior year, you hadn’t bar-coded in all your textbooks, you were branded a book thief and you couldn’t graduate.
*Anytime a guy gets a Swiss Army knife, he wants to use it immediately to pop open beers and cans of stew. Up until then, I’d only used those femmy little scissors that don’t cut very well.
*Yeah, I admit it. I smoked pot before I drank. People are always shocked about this: they don’t seem to care that I smoked pot or drank—they just don’t understand how I got them in the wrong order.
*A “back order” happens when somebody orders a pizza but isn’t there when it’s delivered. The pizza is returned to Domino’s and just given away to someone who’s hungry. It’s an underreported act of charity.
*Daniel had taken a keen interest in cars at this point. He went to auto shows and read Automobile, Motor Trend, and Car and Driver. He still knows more about cars than anyone I know.
MARATHON MACHO
“You’re going to run in those?” The white-guy lawyer pointed at my feet. He had on blue running shorts, the kind that reveal way too much, and expensive sneakers—I couldn’t determine the brand. He wore a corporate-logo T-shirt that read “J & H Marsh & McLennan,” with the number 3786 pinned on it.
“Yeah, I’m gonna run in these.” I was wearing sandals. Big flip-floppy Tevas. About a size too large.*
“Well, good luck,” he snickered. He stepped away to stretch and warm up.
I was at the Chase Corporate Challenge, this thrice-annual race sponsored by Chase Manhattan Bank, which springs corporate cogs from their offices and gets them to run around Central Park for an hour. It’s a 5K race, from Strawberry Fields up around the top of the park to the boathouse. There would be no official winners (or losers) except Chase, which got to publicize its healthy, caring image.
The race wasn’t free; to register, you had to pay Chase twelve dollars. You then got a number and a company T-shirt, which you wore to “support your corporate team.” That mentality prevailed at the Challenge—that we’re-all-in-it-together company brotherhood that men fall back on when they have only their jobs and their TVs. I saw guys slapping each other’s backs, saying, “Let’s win one for Citibank,” and women stretching intensely, chatting up their coworkers. A high school varsity atmosphere.
I was there because earlier that day Erin had asked me to go. I was interning in my parents’ office,* carrying around computer printouts, when she approached. Red hair. Glasses. Blindingly pretty. She was far too old for me—in her late twenties—but talking to her was a thrill.
“Hey, Ned!” Erin smiled, as if just hit by a wonderful idea. “Do you want to run today?”
“Sure!” I nodded. I predicted some office thing, like the annual softball game or running around the block a few times. “Ah, where do I run?”
“In Central Park.”
Oh, boy. “Uh, h
ow far do I run?” I asked.
“Three miles.”
Okay, that sounded easy enough. Erin got my T-shirt and number (4112), and then told me where to go.
“The race starts after work, at Strawberry Fields by the Daniel Webster statue. And bring a raincoat. It’s coming down hard.”
“Oh, it’s raining?” I stuck out my neck, peering through a nearby office window. Thick, nasty-looking drops spattered the glass. Later that night, on the Weather Channel, they’d call it a tropical storm.
Erin tilted her head. “Do you mind running in the rain?”
“No, no, ah, it’s just some rain,” I said, looking down, wondering why I love punishment.
Erin smiled. “You know, Ned—” Oh no, she was going to make eye contact; I could feel it. “I’m really glad you decided to do this.” There it was, open-eye staring. I looked away. “I’m in charge of getting people involved in this race every year. A lot of them quit on me today because of the weather. So, thanks.”
“Anytime, Erin.”
I left the office at 5:00 P.M., carrying an inordinate amount of junk. First, I had the clothes: the T-shirt I was going to wear home, the new T-shirt with the company logo, and my jacket. Then I had an umbrella, an eighties-era Walkman, and The Fellowship of the Ring, a book I’d been reading on and off for two years. It never occurred to me that this stuff might impede my running ability.
When I arrived at the race, a few hundred amateur athletes were already there, their ankles propped up on park benches, stretching. I tried talking to a few, but they brushed me off; I wasn’t from their company. I stood with my coworkers.
“So, Ned, why are you wearing sandals and socks?” one of them asked.
Everyone thought that was funny. I didn’t see what was wrong with sandals and socks. I’d worn them to work because I’d lost my shoes.* “Uh, I just happened to wear ’em today. I didn’t even know about the race until this afternoon.”
“Where’s your number?”
That was another problem. I had forgotten to ask for a pin at work, so I had no way to attach my racing number to my shirt. I figured I’d just tie it on with my extra clothes.
“You better put that number on soon. The race is starting.”
I took my two T-shirts and jacket and tied them around my waist—it almost looked like an inner tube. I slid my running number under this ring of clothing, put the Walkman and book in an oversized pants pocket, and stuck the umbrella in the front of my pants.
Some announcer I couldn’t see was saying, “From the Chase family and from everybody who helped organize this race, we want to thank you for coming out in the rain!” People clapped. “We’re ready to begin, so stay safe and have a great time! On your marks … get set … go!”
“Nonserious runners should stay to the side!” someone yelled as I started jogging. My Tevas flip-flopped all over the place, making loud smacking noises; people gave looks. The umbrella in my pants began to chafe my thigh almost immediately. For a while, the only noises I heard were the huffing of breath and slapping of sandals.
“How far are we into the race?” I asked a kindly looking gentleman after what I thought was a long time.
“Oh, a quarter mile.”
“A quarter mile?!” This was going to be much harder than I thought. The Walkman in my pocket was getting heavy; it hit my leg with every stride. My pants were soaked; I used one hand to keep them from falling down.
I started walking fast instead of running. I wanted to give up and just sit down, but three things kept me going. First, those fifty-something balding guys who were in better shape than me, making better time than me. Second, those damn Nike commercials, where the big athlete at the end says, “Believe in yourself.” They always emphasize the self, and I figured, hey, I can do this. And third, more than anything else, there was Erin. Was she somewhere in the race? She’d helped organize it; she must be somewhere nearby. Maybe she was waiting at the finish line, and if she was, I didn’t want to look like a tired, wet, sweaty idiot. I wanted to hold my head high and be a real man.
So I kept running. When I got tired, I hawked up a loogie and smeared it all over my face, which really grossed out the other runners but kept me refreshed. Every time I got my hands on a cup of water, I poured it on my head. I stomped in every puddle. Halfway through the race, I was an orgy of spit, snot, and rainwater.
To pass time, I sang the Doors’* “L.A. Woman” as I ran. That song has the perfect runner’s beat; it was in sync with my slapping sandals. I found myself belting out the lyrics as I rounded corners, “L.A. woman! / You’re my woman!” I cut the volume occasionally, never sure when I’d run into Erin.
Then, suddenly, I was at the finish line. It was a sorry scene. Chase volunteer cheerleader-types patted me on the back, said “Good job,” gave me another T-shirt, and doled out generic soda and Power Bars. (If you can imagine a candy bar with all the good stuff—chocolate, caramel, peanuts—replaced by carob, you’ve got your Power Bar right there.)
I looked around. Erin was nowhere in sight.
I tried to convince myself that the Chase Corporate Challenge had been a good deal. I factored in the free T-shirts, running number, water, soda, Power Bars, and exercise, which was the best I’d received since routinely getting beaten up at Pure Energy Martial Arts. But who was I kidding? After leaving the park, I checked myself out in the mirror of a local Burger King: I was a soppy teenage Frankenstein—snot all over my face, sweat and rain mixed in the armpits of my shirt, socks and sandals covered in mud.
The next day, of course, Erin was at work, all smiles. “So, Ned, how’d you do in the race?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Great, great! Did you hear how good Jack did?”
Jack was Erin’s boyfriend, who also worked in the office. I tried not to think about him.
“Come, look!” She led me over to the coffee machine, where she had posted a chart with the participants’ names and running times. The other runners had kept track of how long they’d taken and reported to Erin. I guessed this chart was something she did every year.
“There’s Jack!” She pointed. Next to his name was, “27 minutes! WOW!”
“How long did you take, Ned?” Erin asked. “So I can put you on the chart.”
I had probably run for an hour. “Forty minutes,” I said.
“Oh, great. Great job, and I hope you do it if you work here next summer, too.” She put my name on the chart, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sipped, leaving lipstick all over the rim.
*My grandmother always bought me these sandals for Christmas, always a size too large, as if anticipating future foot growth.
*My parents jointly run a family business. Every summer since I was fourteen, they’ve offered me a job at their office, and some years I’ve been so desperate for cash that I agreed to do it. That summer, I worked in research and development to get a little money. Very little money. I think my parents paid me less than minimum wage. Erin was some sort of midlevel manager there.
*I lose my shoes a lot. They get put behind the radiator or something, and I can’t find them for a few days; eventually, they show up.
*Seminal psychedelic rock band.
JUNIOR YEAR
MAGIC MOMENTS
Teenage boys are (1) many in number; (2) bored out of their minds. And they get tired of pornography. So, when I was twelve, a California mathematician named Richard Garfield began selling a game called Magic: The Gathering.
You remember Dungeons and Dragons, the fantasy role-playing game, where you spend hours pretending you’re an elf or a dwarf on an adventure? Or Pokémon, which is a descendant of the game? Magic’s like that, but it uses cards. Each player has a sixty-card deck, and each card depicts a troll, gnome, or some other Dungeons and Dragons–ish creature.* The players draw seven of these cards to make a hand; then they use this hand to attack each other, taking away life points with successful hits. Each player starts out with twenty life points; when someone hit
s zero, he dies. Game over.
The rules get a lot more complicated. Just know that when you win a game of Magic, you get a sharp, semisexual thrill that makes you forget, briefly, that you’re a card-obsessed loser.
I love the game, as do a lot of people—Magic is a global industry with tens of thousands of cards.*
It takes money to play Magic. The cards are sold in packs, like cigarettes, about three dollars and fifty cents for fifteen.** Those fifteen cards, however, aren’t random. Just as baseball cards have “rookies” and “all-stars,” Magic packs contain eleven “commons” (virtually worthless cards), three “uncommons” (might be worth a buck or two), and one “rare” (the real goodies; some have double-digit price tags). Every few months an “expansion set” is released, containing a new group of cards with dozens of fresh rares for players to collect. Each expansion set has its own name and packaging so that a Magic player making a purchase sounds like a smoker, “Yeah, I’ll have a pack of ‘Legacy.’ ” I’m down to a pack a day.
Magic also offers a chance to make money. Certain ultrarare cards are worth more than three hundred bucks, and if you get your hands on them, there’s a world of collectors who will buy. Also, Magic tournaments sponsored by the Duelists’ Convocation offer cash prizes. Real cash. I know a kid who won twenty-five thousand dollars in the Magic Grand Prix in Japan.
For years, the New York Magic “scene” has been dominated by a single gaming hall: an oversized room full of tables called Neutral Ground. Occupying the entire fourth floor of 122 West Twenty-sixth Street, Neutral Ground is nerd heaven. At all hours of the day and night, you can pay seven dollars to enter the place and play Magic with people as addicted as you are.
I used to attend Neutral Ground’s Friday tournaments about once a month. Fridays at the Ground were a trip. Hardcore gamers sat in stained T-shirts methodically opening packs of cards, while businessmen perused glass display cases, picking out seventy-five-dollar rares. The businessmen wore stylish coats and carried attaché cases, but as soon as they entered Neutral Ground, they were like little kids, gibbering about this and that card. The patrons ranged in age from twelve to fifty, but most were in their twenties, and everyone acted like teenagers. Occasionally, a girl would join the tournament, but the women who play Magic are a wild and woolly lot: they either look and smell like train-hopping hoboes, or they’re with male Magic players, who value them more than anything on earth.