2000-07-27 | 03:51:44

nictate takes new york - day two

in today's episode, nictate has her first subway ride, meets her first internet pal and flirts with a cocaine-snorting bahamian bisexual. talk about must-read tv! shit! monica dating chandler is crap compared to this online journal gold. well, monica dating chandler is crap any way you look at it.

TGIF in NYC

ah, yes. we rejoin me and stephanie after a lovely friday afternoon of strolling through soho. did guiliani clean up the humidity, too? because it felt great outside. ah! summer in the city. actually, the back of my neck did feel dirty and gritty. after checking our e-mail at a cyber waystation, we walked over to the subway station to hit the f train to brooklyn to check out her new apartment.

we bought our little metro cards and swiped our way into the small intestines of the city. hey--it was about as steamy as a gastrointestinal passage down there.

as we dropped ass in the orange plastic modular seating, an older black man stepped on the train and took up position by a silver hang-on-here-if-there-are-no-seats pole. as the subway train doors sucked shut, he began his spiel: "ladies and gentlemen, my name is sonny barker. i'm homeless and hungry. if you could spare part of a sandwich or a drink, i'd be much obliged." he began to walk down the aisle as a businessman dug in his briefcase for some food and a little girl toddled up to give him a juice box. when he reached the halfway point of our compartment, he began his pitch again.

next station: a woman gets on and takes sonny's exact spot. the doors suck shut again and she begins: "hello. i don't mean to interrupt your ride, but i'm down on much luck and hungry. if you could do anything to help, it would be appreciated. i'm gonna sing a song for you now." i wanted to tell her, hey, sonny beat ya to it, but after a strong rendition of a gospel classic, she was able to peel a few more dead presidents from us riders of the storm drains.

at another point, a man a few seats away from us could be heard talking to himself. now, i've heard street people mumbling incoherently before, but this guy was broadcasting every thought and scion of a thought. "i guess i'd better be getting off now. this is my stop. i've gotta meet my friend, rebecca. i sure hope you're there for me tonight, rebecca. she's an usual girl, she is..." as he climbed off the train, i turned to stephanie and said, "that man has no internal dialogue!"

so we check out carroll gardens. beautiful, steeped in old family goodness, tree-lined streets and stately brownstones. the girl chose good. the view from the roof alone was worth the commute!

then back to the city for my virgin meeting with my nyc peep, proven . now, the e-friendship with gq b-boy began when i discovered his page via mop's page. i got such a kick out of his wit, i sent him a fan e-mail. little did i know he likes to play with his readers' minds until he can figure them out. after a couple back-and-forths via e-mail, i realized that i had somehow pissed this fella off! my friend torrez , who introduced me to diaryland, scolded me for stepping on e-toes in my first week of www club membership. "don't piss off web people! what are you doing?!" he harangued. anyway, long story, dvd director's cut with commentary short, proven and i cleared things up and have since had some fun IM'ing and e-mailing. actually, the prospect of meeting him was one of the most anticipated parts of my trip. i knew he'd be too cool for grad school and he didn't let me down.

ok, i already knew what he looked like since he posts pics on his site . i knew he was a good-looking bloke with a pleasant demeanor by all photographic accounts. he didn't know what i looked like and i liked it like that.

so he rolled up to the "w" and picked us up. we hugged hello a little shyly and then the three of us took off in a cab for his hood. he took us to a mexican joint with a nice vibe and we had some good eats while getting to know our 3-D personas. one of the funnest parts of it was making references from each other's diaryland entries and chuckling in mutual recognition. inside jokes with a virtual stranger. very trippy and cool.

proven was a host with the most, squiring us around the east village, looking natty in his work clothes. he had to stop by a newsstand to pick up a magazine that his album was reviewed in. how cool is that? uh-huh, we be hanging with one-half of the hip-hop sensation, atmos. word up, for real. then we checked out a clockwork orange-y/retro bar called drinkland, but ended up pulling up some velour couchage at a candlelit cushy place called XVI. while proven's upstairs neighbor spun some tunes, we talked and laughed and discussed the fair city we sat in and how i was already thinking of moving there after only two days.

during our conversation, i caught a view from the corner of my eye of some dreadlocked guy locking eyes on us. during a break in the trialogue, he caught my attention and touched my arm, while saying in a faintly accented, feminine voice, "i just had to tell you, that bang thing you have going on is working." ha! interrupting to compliment my bangs. aha! proven smirked and said, "so your bangs are bangin'. see, if you move here, you'll get that kind of stuff happening all the time."

soon after, proven had to bang out to a party, but he gave us props and hugs. such a cool, cute, funny, talented, make-me-wanna-jump-back-and-kiss-myself gent, that one. after he left, one of steph's friends showed up. while she and he talked, the dreadlocked bahamian boy came in for the kill. donned in a wifebeater tank and black docs, he turned up the flirtation dial to eleven. i was kinda bored, so i figured, what the heck. do some stella-groovin' conversating to pass the time. he was bizarre, but attractive somehow. his big, disney-esque, animatronic blinking eyes and pursed and pouting mouth were strangely appealing. i was feeling a bit daring. (was it the bangs?) so i was pushing my comfort zone and telling him something sex-related that i'd never told anyone else. weird, aye?

he told me his name, which didn't fit his persona at all, so i gave him a club name: basquiat. he club-named me brooke. ahem. k. so basquiat couldn't figure out why i wouldn't kiss him and kept asking as he played with my irresistable bangs. i explained i was a good girl. we discussed god and guilt and living with no regrets and about how he thought i should be wearing chokers on a regular basis and about how he had never tried homosexual sex (uh-huh, sure, yeah, right, i'm buying that). then he said he had something to ask me that might be embarassing: "do you want to do a line?"

ahahahahahahahahahahaha! he offered me cocaine! excellent! that was a first for me, too. ahahaha! i told him no, thanks, but that he should feel free to go "do his thang." "it's not my 'thang.'" he objected. uh-huh, sure, yeah, i'm buying that.

so about this time, it started feeling like i should probably get the hell outta dodge. basquiat was creeping me out just a tad. so when he went to get a drink, we paid a hasty adieu to his pouting self and escaped into the last few notes of a rain shower. ah! fresh, wet air!

we wandered to a wine bar with a large, french-door-type window opened onto the street parade going by. a step-and-repeat pattern of young hipsters laughing and tossing their heads back and bumping into each other playfully as they ran down the street.

ahhhhh! i love new york. for real. can you blame me?

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