CHAPTER 20 WHAT’S IN A NAME

I started life with a dislike for New York City. Being from Texas, I wanted my hometown to be the biggest in the world. So it was mostly jealousy. It would take years to discover the magic of the big city and now Manhattan is one of my favorite destinations. This chapter covers a wonderful layover I had there and ends with a facsinating story from a passenger on my flight home. You won’t be reading about that here, but you can read about a fun evening in the Big Apple.

It brought back that New Orleans layover where Margarita and Seetah had me on stage in front of all these people singing Summer Lovin’ with them. I only did it because the alcohol made me do it. It had nothing to do with how much I adored the girls! After our performance, the club showed our video on the house monitors. They had not shown any other act’s videos all night, so either we were that good or that bad. What a layover that was!

Of course Jenny asked me to go with her, and really, the only thing holding me back was the thought of all that cigarette smoke, which would surely fill the room like a fat lady in tight clothes, suffocating me. That, and knowing that I would not be drinking because we are not to drink within twelve hours of working a flight. I just could not envision myself getting up in front of people to sing sober. And you know someone was going to encourage me to sing! The bar was in The Village, a part of Manhattan I had not been in before. So I told Jenny I would go with her on the subway, say hi to her friends, then venture out and explore that part of town on my own.

It took us a few minutes of consulting the subway map, and comparing it to the tourist map I had stuffed in my back pocket from the hotel, to make sure we were catching the right train. We went to the proper platform but soon found out we were, indeed, on the wrong train. We got off at the next stop and decided to take a cab the rest of the way, which saved about a twenty-minute walk.

We ran into her friend, Jason, on the street as we emerged from the cab in front of the bar. He admitted that he was full from dinner and getting drunk very quick. The group had just left a restaurant and bar where they had been hanging out for some time. He and his pals were celebrating the graduation of one of their friends from college. He seemed very nice and for not knowing who the hell I was, treated me as if he did.

We walked into Sing Sing and passed a bar lined up with stools, most of which were occupied. Everyone was watching the music videos on the TV above the bar. The odd thing was the silence from the people. None of them were talking. Each of them sat there like zombies, one hand on their drink, mesmerized, as they watched the video flickering on the screen at the end of the bar. At the bottom I noticed the words to the lyrics changing colors as it was time to sing them.

We went down a flight of stairs towards the back of the establishment. I was pleased to discover that instead of a large room full of people around a stage, I found a hallway lined with individual rooms, which were rented out individually. This meant I no longer had to face stage fright from singing in front of a room full of strangers.

In each room were seats, a large table, a big screen TV, and a kareoke machine. In room thirteen was our party, consisting of twelve people, fifteen after we entered. The room was indeed full of smoke. I could see four glowing cancer sticks moving around to the beat coming out of the speakers. The room was dimly lit, had dark walls, and the large table in the center was full of beer bottles and glasses. There were so many of them, I could hardly see the tabletop. They had to have been there for a while.

Everyone turned to see who had come into the room and soon their attention returned to the big screen with the words to the song flashing across the bottom. Several were looking through the books listing the song selections trying to choose one. There were two microphones being used by two of the young women who were singing a song I was not familiar with.

This was a very eclectic group and as I surveyed them, they certainly took me back to my college days in Houston. There were women and men, black and white. One guy who didn’t look black wore dread locks. One guy wore a knit ski cap and I could see later, when he removed it, that he had shaved his head and looked a lot like the singer, Moby. One of the black girls wore a sleeveless tie died cotton dress and large beaded bracelets around her wrists. There was a thin girl with brunet hair and a great body that knew how to move while she sang. She seemed to be the one coordinating the whole event. She encouraged people to sing, grabbed the microphone to hand it across the room to the next singer after each song ended. She was the one who ordered drinks when the waitress came around, and made me feel at home by asking me to pick a song and if I wanted a drink. I refused the drink but took the songbook to start looking at the selections.

I started to look for songs I was familiar with and was impressed with the wide selection of music. My attention darted from the book to the group as I tried to survey it all. This bohemian group was now taking me back to my high school days. They were selecting songs by Guns and Roses, Journey, Tears for Fears and songs like “I Touch Myself,” “Africa,” “Electric Avenue,” “Raspberry Beret,” and others I had not heard since 1986. I suddenly felt very old. And I was comparatively. Here I was, surrounded by people in the range of 19-23, ten or more years junior to me. And they were all in love with the music from the eighties.

The songs came one after the other with only a few seconds in between each. That was just enough time for complements to the singers, handing the microphone off, and taking a drink of alcohol. The waitress came in often with a new tray of drinks and the table seemed to fill to capacity. At one point the microphone cord grabbed a wineglass and threw it to the ground, breaking the stem in half. The music was loud and the room was warm and smoky. But the people were alive and having such a great time that I found it difficult to leave.

After being there for about two hours, Jenny leaned over and asked if I was about ready to go. It was almost 0100. I could not believe I had been there so long, but I was never able to pull myself away as I had originally planned. But I was indeed ready. We agreed that we would leave after the next song. Sure enough, the next song was my selection, made about an hour earlier. I stood up and took the microphone and began to sing “They Stood Up for Love,” by Live, one of my favorite bands from York, Pennsylvania.

There was only one other guy in the room who was familiar with the song, even though it was just over a year old and a fairly popular college band. He took the other microphone and sang with me, which was good since he could help me reach the notes I had a hard time with. I could see the others looking at me almost with the same curiosity I had been watching them with. I wasn’t sure if it was my age, that I was singing something so unknown to them, or, as my ego would prefer to think, that I was singing so well.

My moment of fame ended and we said our good-byes and headed back up to the city, where we caught a cab back to the hotel. Her friend walked us upstairs and he hugged us both goodbye, neat, I thought, since we had only just met. They promised to keep in touch and to see one another soon, then we got in the cab and were off.

I looked over to Jenny, who had a smile on her face. “I had a really good time tonight. Thank you for dragging me down here,” I told her. And to think, I had almost not gone at all.

“I’m surprised you stayed.” She said.

“I was too, actually, but I really enjoyed it. I couldn’t get over hearing all those songs from the eighties. It was a real flashback for me.”

“I only knew two people in the room,” she confided; “but Jason and Trish are good friends of my sister, but we keep in touch also.”

I realized Trish was the girl who could dance, who seemed to be the organizer of the group.

There was a moment of silence between us as we sped up the streets from down town. It had begun to sprinkle and the streets were wet again. We passed restaurants and pubs full of people. There were closed shops with their windows illuminated from within. Above them, and everywhere, were residences.

I began to think about this city and all of its inhabitants. So many people. You could live a lifetime here and not see it all. You could dine out every day and not taste it all. The Big Apple they call it. I grew up in a town they called Space City. There was Big D, the Big Easy, the Windy City, the City of Brotherly Love, City of Angels, Mile High City (and how can you forget Bigger Better Borger!), all of which I had visited. But none had the mystique or the feeling of being someplace so completely different as the Big Apple. I loved being there, feeling so small and anonymous.