Brooklyn Stories: Vol. 1

(In which we go to a 70s roller rink, meet a friendly coke dealer, and grapple with platonic friendship)

Last Saturday Night —

We wanted to do something fun to celebrate M’s birthday.

He was turning thirtysomething. We were of the age where we didn’t say the number unless prompted, and even then it was through clenched teeth.

Thanks to a recent health-scare, M had been prone to spells of neuroses and philosophy. Lately, he had been contemplating the meaning of life in coffeeshops on Sundays. We listened, our eyes wide with sincerity, but still scrolling our phones under the table. We were just acting so he didn’t feel lonely — we weren’t in our Aristotle era. We were still trying to solve the classic equation of how to have the most fun for the least amount of money.

Our solution was to show M a good time for his thirtywhatever birthday. When asked what he wanted to do, he said, “go to disco night at the roller rink.” Indeed, a place called Xanadu had just opened in our neighborhood (Bushwick). M is prone to quirky desires like this. He’s a tech bro with an autistic slant, but he’s definitely taken a few salsa classes.

In the group chat, we all talked about our relationship to skating: none of us were Nancy Kerrigans. The median age for our last roll around the rink was fourth grade. Still, we were game.

You could rent skates for $7, and it cost $30 to get in. We had to sign a waver at the door. None of us read it (this isn’t foreshadowing, just basic journalism). There was a long line of things we couldn’t do, including have more than two drinks. We were also told our gum would be confiscated. “It’s a liability,” they explained.

I hadn’t been answerable to a No Gum Policy since senior year of high school. I had just purchased a fresh pack of Trident Tropical Twist, which I clutched protectively to my chest.

“We’ll write your name on it and give it back to you when you leave,” they promised, brandishing a black Sharpie.

I surrendered the gum (now this IS foreshadowing).

Once inside, we were greeted effusively by Abba music. The lighting was a deliciously hazy concept of tangerine and magenta, making the scene feel like our parent’s disco memory— but newly restored. Xanadu absolutely gleamed, preening with the deserved smugness of being the Hot Thing in a trendy neighborhood.

On the rink, dozens and dozens of skaters were gliding in giddy circles. If most of us hadn’t done this since middle school, then muscle memory was a hell of a force.

I wasn’t so lucky. My first time around the rink, I held tightly to the wall, inching along like my toddler niece learning to walk.

A girl saw me struggling. Angelically, and with the patience of Helen Keller, she took my hand and guided me along the rink. When I wobbled, she stabilized me. I thought, what makes us worthy of women?

When I saw her boyfriend on the sidelines, I told him he should marry her. He said, “I probably will.”

Meanwhile, M was gliding easily around in his Dirk Diggler silk shirt, his chest hair out and smattered with glitter. He had really committed to the theme, but then again, so had I. I was rocking light-up glasses:

“It’s a lot like skiing!” M called to me gayly, not noticing my struggle. “I feel like I’m back in the Dolomites!”

This summer, a rumor had circulated that I was into M. Sometimes, when I watched him out of the corner of my eyes to see if he was watching me (he never was) I wondered if it was true.

Our friends, W and Dre, were there too. W was being patient with me, letting me hold his hand and use him like a service dog around the rink. We had gone on two dates last spring when we first met. We had even made out outside of Maria Hernandez Park at midnight, with the street lamps beating down on us.

The experience caused us to know each other more intimately than the average party friends. Certain details resurfaced now like friendly flotsam. (“Oh yeah, you said you have three nieces, right?” “Yeah, I remember you said your Mom’s obsessed with gardening.”) Any awkwardness had dissipated into a glow of gratitude for his helping hand extended to me now.

Dre was doing great with skating. He wouldn’t let me hug him, because his t-shirt was dewed with sweat. He was gay and partnered, and thus exempt from the cringe crushes that afflicted our friend circle.

We went to the bar to load up on fun drinks and chili dogs. Then, we were joined by an Irishman who had been invited by W.

The Irishman looked exactly like Kevin Connolly circa the Notebook, and had a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He was a 28-year-old bartender and aspiring comic. Our table became his set, and he told us stories that were as funny as anything I ever heard at the Stand from off-duty SNL comics. I wondered for the thousandth time why some people became famous, and others only got to tell their stories to friends in bars. It turned out that talent wasn’t the deciding factor.

After 3 hours, we were done filming our episode of That 70s Show. Someone suggested we hit a nearby rooftop bar. I got my gum back on the way out.

We spilled down Starr, where the industrial buildings of Bushwick greeted us. Midnight had cast its cloak over the colorful street art that our neighborhood was known for — the neon, blocking graffiti, the avatars who resembled refugees from a video-game you never played. All of them our weirdo neighbors.

The rooftop bar was filled with people, everyone saying basically the same thing: “this may be our last weekend for the rooftop!” Indeed, the Fall Solstice was tomorrow. The only person saying something different was a guy at the bar in a Hawaiian print shirt. He complimented my light-up goggles. When I told him I was there to party, his manner grew business-like.

“Are you really here to party, mami? I got coke I can sell you. You can come to the car and taste it.”

Outside, my friends were crammed around a table, with a string of tea lights above their blessed heads. The Irishman was smoking the cigarette behind his ear, telling stories about bartending in hostiles across Eastern Europe.

“Whatever you do,” he cautioned us seriously in his brogue, “DON’T take the free drinks in a strip club. Especially not in Bratislava.”) W and Dre were talking about their recent trip to Portugal, in which they had actually gone to a strip club.

I reached for my gum to freshen my whiskey breath. Then, I saw that in lieu of my name, they had written “CRAY” on the pack, presumably for how I made a scene about parting with it.

The next morning, this was my hangover, not the whiskey. I thought about calling Xanadu and saying I was bipolar and offended (only half-true). But I went for coffee, and it washed away, a tide to be replaced by another night out in Brooklyn.

❤️❤️❤️

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