A Final Night In Harlem

In the morning I had to (regrettably) leave the New York City Loft in Brooklyn as the were completely booked out. My search for anywhere else in the borough proved fruitless, and staying to abuse their internet I met two separate groups of two who were also in the same boat. Their searches for any affordable place anywhere in the city, let alone Brooklyn, had yielded nothing. Wanting to stay a final night and knowing the place I'd stayed before in Harlem, Jazz on Lenox, was pretty empty then, I just headed back to Manhattan and back north to 125th street. They had plenty of space, so had no problem checking in, and at $23 a night I couldn't complain. I was still in a dazey-haze through lack of sleep and spent a good hour pissing about on the internet, as I'd miraculously discovered I wasn't (and still aren't) getting charged a penny for any of my data usage on this BlackBerry. So effectively I've got unlimited free access wherever I am, regadless of having an available WiFi connection, oddly making me as electronically available as I am back home. But that's boring. The un-boring thing was I headed out for drinks with my old school friend Mark in lower Manhattan at about midnight, and that's really not at all weird in New York. It was a case of "wanna meet for a few pints in lower Manhattan around 12?" Almost anywhere back home, catchup drinks would be pointless at that time due to the banging tunes, leery bellends and general fuckwittery of places open past that time. But we met in a real-aley place called the Heatland Brewery near 14th Street station that was of course cringe-worthily expensive at about 7 bucks a pint, but had a good atmosphere and most importantly good drink! When they stopped serving around 2am, we went for wander around 34th and Madison, as my friend's last train back to Long Island was out of there about 30 minutes later - just time for one more. We managed to stumble, quite literally, across a great little bar called The Rattle and Hum who also served an impressive array of draught beers, and was seemingly managed by a very knowledgeable and friendly Irish fellow. We chatted beer and ended up with several free samples of odd brews varying massively in style. The maddest of all was a 15% whisky-esque ale that brought back terrible, terrible millennial-eve scotch-based puke memories. The guy told us the owner is always sourcing new varieties from independent breweries from across the state and country, so much so the menu changes on an almost daily basis. So definitely check it out if you like good beer! Anyway, we left just in time for Mark to (with seconds to spare) catch his last train home. I headed toward the north-bound red 2 & 3 lines to get myself back to Harlem. Fortunately, the first train to come was a number 3, which teminates at 148th street and not the Bronx-bound express that runs all the to, if my memory serves, 241st. Why was this fortunate? Well I've become something of a serial subway-napper, and drifted off around north Central Park, only to be awakened by a thud and an announcement we'd reached our destination. Bugger. But it presented a good opportunity to prove to myself and to you, my four dedicated readers, that Harlem's not a dangerous place, even at 3.30am. So I decided to walk the 20 blocks south to 128th Street and my bed for the night. Of course it was fine. There were people about, nobody menacing, most smiling right back at me. When I saw two boisterous dudes entering a fried chicken place I just couldn't resist. Even though I wasn't hungry, the thought of chatting with locals while I waited was far too appealing! Ordering a five-piece box and fries for $6, I just turned to the guys and asked how they were going? They were far friendlier than the sort of pricks that frequent our late-night shit-eateries. We chatted about all sorts and our exchange ended with one of the guys high-fiving me and a reciprocal wishing of good night. So chicken in hand, I strolled the last seven or eight blocks to meet one of the decent hostel employees, working the graveyard shift on the hostel's reception. An awesome girl from Austria who seemed to get my sense of humour reasonably well and just was (still probably is) a genuinely decent human being. Unfortunately, possibly the biggest tosser I've ever had the misfortune to meet was on hand for some needless argumentative bullshit. I'm not going into full details, but everyone who knows me knows I hate conflict and will avoid confrontation at all costs. This guy, however, was such a prick, I couldn't help but argue the shit out of him. And it actually felt good, especially when I caught him out at the end. Essentially he was accusing me of being a bigot and a racist, which was completely unfounded and twatty, and after he wouldn't admit he was wrong for over 20 minutes, claiming he was fucking Ghandi, he said, "alright, this conversation has got really gay" to which I pointed out that he'd just completely destroyed his case by being an offensively homophobic titend. What a faggot. So that was that. Determined to leave in the morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 - half an hour before checkout. Of course it didn't go off, leaving me less than a minute the following morning to get my stuff together and head to the subway. Fun - yet shaggy-haired - times.