We were standing outside because the only way to stand inside most bars near NYU was with your elbows pinned to your sides--not the most convenient drinking method--and even then you were in danger of another customer knocking your drink down your front.
It was a lucky kind of night. Not only were we enjoying the bar's urban courtyard but we'd managed to find an electrical outlet for my friend's phone. Had we not, we may never have received The Call and my visit to New York City would have been much more ordinary.
My friend snatched up his phone and his exact words were: "Hello?...Yes...Yes...Ten minutes...Thank you," before he hung up. "Let's go," he said to me.
I followed him up the stairs to the midnight streets. Even though my friend would rather live near NYU's campus than Columbia's, I was less comfortable with the grunginess of this particular neighborhood. It was darker than the Upper West Side, with indirect lighting from signs casting half-shadows on crowds of youngish people passing us. It was certainly a change from Time Square, where we'd ventured about an hour before. In fact, the brightness of that tourist attraction seemed to emphasize the lack of light here. But I'd already decided to love New York, grunge and all, so I smiled excitedly and said to my friend, "So we're definitely in?"
"We just have to make it there in ten minutes or they'll call someone else," he said nonchalantly. "I made sure we didn't wander far. We're almost there now."
We turned off of the busy street to a sparser, darker one that I recognized from earlier that night. Across the street from a wrought iron gate and flanked by two seemingly normal urban homes stood an unmarked black door. Four people stood in front of it, three hipsters on one side, one man in a suit and black fedora on the other, blocking their way inside. When we arrived there about an hour earlier, I had made the mistake of opening the door without knocking, only to be immediately pushed out by the same hatted man with the door quickly shut behind us.
"It's going to be about a half hour wait," the hatted man said, looking at his clipboard.
"We're friends of Andrew," said one of the hipsters confidently. The man in the fedora looked up from his clipboard at the group of three. It was hard to recognize much of anyone on this dark of a street, and before he could make a decision about the hipster who knew Andrew, he noticed the two of us standing to the side.
Without waiting for a question or greeting, my friend said, "Hi, we were called a few minutes ago."
"Name?" asked the door keeper, looking at his clipboard and scratching his scruffy beard. My friend gave his name. "Let me make sure your table is ready. It will only be one minute."
The exactness of his tone made me wonder if I should start counting down from 60. The door keeper began to turn when the confident hipster said a little less-confidently, "But we know Andrew."
The hatted man paused and glancing back, said, "I'll see what I can do," before disappearing behind the black door. As the hipsters began muttering amongst themselves, my friend turned to me and whispered, "I swear to God if they get our table..." I nodded, but considered the fact that when you're dealing with a speakeasy, no doubt the old school rules apply: it's who--not what--you know. We knew the location, the password, the schedule; they knew Andrew.
And those old school rules, no doubt, are what kept the magic flowing in a place that was no longer relevant in this century.
Even though the five of us were the only people on this streets, the sound of rushing cars and walking feet from other streets faded in and out incessantly. During my short time in New York, the city was never quiet. This may very well have been the quietest part of downtown New York, which made it all the more jarring when the doorkeeper returned.
"Please follow me," he said, looking at the two of us. The hipster opened his mouth to protest, but the man quickly cut him off with, "I have a table for you. There will be someone to help you in a moment."
My friend and I couldn't help smirk at them simultaneously as we entered the black door.
Behind the black door was a black curtain. The man in the fedora pulled back the curtain and led us into the dimly lit speakeasy. Everything about the room screamed secrecy. The ceiling was low and there were no windows, giving the illusion that all this really was happening underground rather than on the first floor of an old house. The only light came from candles on individual tables-for-two, which lined the walls and a few lamps on the bar in the back right corner. It was loud with people's chatter and laughter, but no single voice stood out among the rest and every table was full save for the tiny one reserved for us a short distance from the door.
I squeezed between our table and one occupied by a young lady and an older, foreign man sipping cocktails. I was reminded me how spatially spoiled I am as a native to a smaller, Midwestern city. In my hometown, this speakeasy would have been deemed claustrophobic and annoying. In New York City, the fact that you weren't in danger of getting trampled by a drunken mob meant you were in a classy, exclusive location (this, of course, only applies to middle-class hoodlums like me, who don't expect to pay the hostess exorbitant amounts of money to get a little space at a private bar).
As soon as we were seated and handed menus, the three hipsters walked through the door with a different bouncer leading them towards the back.
"Guess Andrew was in a good mood today," I said to my friend, gesturing over his shoulder. He looked and rolled his eyes.
"I'll have to remember to mention my pal Andy next time."
While we could have spent hours running over the cheeky menu with a fine-toothed comb, we eventually realized that no matter what drink we chose, it was sure to be spectacular. I imagine that when speakeasies first came around during prohibition, that was far from the case. You would have settled for anything alcoholic. Everclear and water? Sounds perfect. Moonshine was the word of the day. Meanwhile, my friend and I are tasting whiskey drinks that have 3 distinct flavors right in succession, leaving the drinker feeling intrigued, rotten, and addicted.
I doubt this sort of thing would have worked outside of New York City. Unless I'm mistaken, places don't call themselves "speakeasies" anymore. They're just exclusive bars or clubs. At most, I could it as a marketing ploy. But according to the back of the drink menu, this building was home to an actual speakeasy operating during Prohibition.
As an American in her early twenties, it's hard to imagine much of a social life without alcohol. "Absurd" is the first word that comes to mind. "Boring" is the second. Then again, I bet my 1920's doppelganger would have thought the same thing about laws against smoking indoors. My hometown is one of the few places left in the United States that still allows smoking at a few choice dive bars, and who knows how long that will last.
My high school history teacher always used to say that the driving force of human innovation is finding new ways to kill each other. But I think he missed an important piece of the puzzle. Humans are also ingenious at finding new ways to kill themselves, albeit more slowly. At this point, we've slowed it down so much that most of the time it's nearly imperceptible.
"I recently watched the movie Stargate for the first time the other day," I said to my friend after a few minutes spent silently absorbing our speakeasy surroundings. He acted interested, maybe out of politeness, maybe because he couldn't think of anything else to talk about. "In the movie, there's a scene where the hard ass general guy interacts with this young boy from another planet. Up until this point, the general has seen the aliens as a commodity, often being outright mean to them. But in this one scene the young boy is enamored with the general as he smokes a big cigar and in a sweet little moment, the general lets down his defenses and shows him how to breathe the fire stick as it were. For the first time, the general makes a connection with an innocent child and we see that he really is human after all.
"A moment later," I continued, "the boy picks up the general's gun and the general freaks out, grabs the gun, and yells at him because that's how the general's son died and I think you're supposed to be really moved because he's connecting the alien boy with his own son or because the general is not as emotionless as he seems. The boy, who can't understand the general's language, runs away."
My friend nodded, waiting for me to make my point.
"But smoking and guns can both kill you, so it's pretty ironic that he would encourage one and freak out about the other."
My friend chuckles. "You're morbid." He takes a drink. I smile and raise my whiskey.
"To death," I say.
"To Death," he responds with a clink of glasses.
We drink.
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