NICOLE LE - DAY 1 OF 5 BAD DAYS

Nicole Le is a writer from San Diego, California. She is a graduate from Oberlin College with degrees in Neuroscience, Biology, and English Literature, and has worked with Literary Departments at the Playwrights’ Center, South Coast Repertory, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

Day 1 of 5 Bad Days
​

​I remember getting off of work and heading over to Prospect Park, a neighborhood that I didn't really ever go to, and a neighborhood that I had driven past with N-- once in his car and commented at how I hated all the girls that I saw walking down the street. They all looked like Anna Karina, but none of them were as beautiful as Anna Karina, and I think I secretly may have thought that these were all the girls that Nico found attractive. A part of me wishes that he and I had done a nude photo shoot, like he had asked at one point, but he never followed through on it, which just added to my insecurities about whether or not people actually mean the things that they say to me or if they are smitten for a moment and then double back and regret everything that we've experienced together.
 
I got to Prospect Street, I walked to the apartment building that was supposed to be C--'s. I looked around, happy to know that I wasn't at work anymore, wasn't in Manhattan anymore, wasn't in the Upper East side anymore, wasn't pretending to be not myself anymore, and then C-- let me in. A-- was showering. We went up a very tiny, narrow staircase and opened up into a sweet old apartment that I didn't mind. C-- eventually told me there were cockroaches everywhere. A-- came out of the shower and I was so happy to see him. We got ready, we got on the subway, we went to Brooklyn Academy of Music to watch Ghosts. C-- sat alone. A-- and I sat together. I don’t remember how that had worked out, but I know it was probably something that only made my friendship with C-- more tenuous. We saw the play. A-- and I had our thoughts about it. I was very glad to have gone.
Afterwards, went across the street to a whiskey bar that some old friend of A--'s and C--'s was at. I had Japanese whiskey for the first time. The girl that we were meeting had short hair and was strange, but in a self-conscious, self-designed way, and I wasn't very fond of her. She was an actress in New York and couldn't get over the fact that she had been featured in the Cornell Medical Center's subway ads. She was a real actress now, she said. I remember recognizing her picture on dirty buses days later.
She asked if we were interested in going to the Box. C-- and A-- didn't know if they were up for the Box tonight. I asked what it was. The girl said it was a famous burlesque club (that had recently been featured in Vice) that her cousin owned. We could get in for free, and we could get table service. I didn't know what any of that meant. I didn't care. I was off work, and I still had four days before I had any accountability in my life. Sure. I just wanted to drink more.
We got on the train and headed to the East Village. We showed up to the Box. It was a warehouse with no sign. The bouncer ushered us in past a line of stupid looking people. We were underdressed. The bar was like any East Village warehouse bar, but with aerialists falling from the ceiling, and carousel heads sticking out of the walls. Every wall was like a giant vanity mirror. We followed someone up into a box seat where we could overlook the whole club. All the men in suits. All with clean cut heads. And no girls in their company. Just the shot girls in big feathery skirts and neon sparklers and big cat eyes.
We started drinking. People started coming to sit with us. I don’t remember who they were. A-- and I were leaning over the railing, calmly remarking on how bad the whole thing was. If it were up to us, we said, we could do it so much better. The show started. We saw two naked people on roller skates do an aerobics routine that was mildly erotic. It was bad.
The emcee was a transgender queen, but she was boring, and strange. And unlikeable. Eventually I would watch her take a shit on stage.
Strangers were joining us. We met the girl’s cousin. Someone kept bringing me wine and whiskey. I kept drinking and felt more and more sober. A few suited boys came and talked to me. I put on my charm face, and it felt good but only because forgetting their faces when they walked away to get me drinks was funny and enjoyable. A-- and C-- eventually told me they were going home. Did I want to leave as well? A boy had just left to get me a drink. I said I would stay. I didn't want to leave. What was I going to do? I didn’t want to go back to my apartment on the upper east side.
They left. I continued talking to strangers. I continued leaning over the railing to watch what was happening.
A group of girls came up and sat with me. We smoked cigarettes. They were young, energetic, beautiful, diverse. They took to me; I don't know why. Maybe because I sat alone at table service. Did it make me seem important? The girls gravitated towards me, and they had two men with them. The owner of the club asked if we wanted to go to the smoking room. We did. The girls clung to me.
We went to the smoking room. There were poles set up. The girls clung to the poles. They, the girls, were rail thin. They were models. The men with them were their escorts and handlers for the night. The girls kept kissing, kept asking me to spin them, to kiss them. The two handlers and I each took a side of the banquette and smoked cigarettes. Someone passed around a joint. The two men asked if I wanted to leave with them to go to another party. Afters, they called it, when all the clubs are supposed to be closed. I took another drag of my cigarette and said alright. Again, it was early. I wasn't feeling inebriated. What did it matter. I had a pocketful of coke that a stranger had given to me in the bathroom. I took one hit in the bathroom as if I knew what I was doing. I got into a car with the models and the handlers. We drove somewhere. I don't know where we ended up.
We went in together, but not soon after one of the handlers came up to me with the tall skinny blonde with an accent draped over his arm. She had whispered something sweet to me earlier. She was almost passed out now. He said he had to take her home. I nodded. I didn’t care to ever see them again. I sat on the couch of this basement club. There was music playing. A good-looking black man in an all-black suit and hat talked to me. His brother and sister came over. We traded cocaine. I think theirs had something in it. I gave them the Valium I had in my pocket. I was waiting in line for the bathroom, and another good-looking eastern European man who was in the band and in line smiled at me. He asked if I wanted any molly. I took some. I came back to the couch. Someone handed me a drink. Everyone was drinking out of their own bottles and cups.
A random band member came up to me. We talked about nothing. I was bored. We did coke together. It was getting late. He asked if I wanted to go back to his apartment. There we go--I got what I wanted.
We walked up the steps to the entrance. He flung the doors open. The light was very beautiful. The sky was very blue. It was 5 am. I didn't realize I had been up all night and I had never been awake in NYC at 5 am before. I had never thought the city was so picturesque. I had never been more affected by its looks. I blinked, and immediately hated myself.
I got into a cab with the boy whose name I don't remember, and whose face I only remember as being unattractive, and we ended up at a tiny apartment in Chelsea. It was smaller than the living room that I had once rented a couch in.
We dumped both our remaining stores of coke out on a stack of books by his mattress on the floor. He had a desk somewhere in the apartment, but I couldn't see it for all the trash and papers and books and shit all over the place. I plugged my phone in, and told myself that I was only there to charge my phone, and when that was done, I would know to leave and figure out what I wanted to do next. I just wanted the sun to come out and the next day to start. We alternately snorted lines of coke and had half-hearted sex. He tried very hard. He was terrible. I mostly laid there and waited an acceptable amount of time before propping myself up to snort more. I remember thinking to myself after the fourth or fifth line that I was getting very good at this. I was pleasantly content to lay back and let him wriggle around while I stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks.
Shortly before 8 AM, I saw that my phone was done charging. It felt like no time had passed at all. I got in touch with A-- and said I would meet him in Union Square. I walked from the boy's apartment and navigated myself to 14th. It was already very crowded. It was a Friday morning and the city had been awake for hours. I don't remember what I was wearing but I remember needing desperately to get out of it. I sat on the curb outside of the exit from the L station and waited. I heard the chess players behind me. I heard pigeons squawking. I think I crossed my arms over my knees and rested my head. It had been a very long night.
 
A-- came a little while later and sat down next to me. He asked me how my night went and I think I answered by saying I wanted to get changed. We walked across the street to the H&M and I bought new shoes, new socks, a shirt, and pants. I wish I had bought new underwear, too.
We walked down a cross street until we found a restaurant that wasn't crowded where we could sit outside and eat breakfast. It was a very nice day out. Spring had started breaking in New York. I told A-- about my night. Still, none of it affected me. He listened patiently. He chewed slowly, and eventually I told him that something was wrong. Something about my time in New York was not going the way that it was supposed to be. It was the first time that I had said that out loud, and I suddenly was overcome with nausea and could not eat anymore. We left and got coffee, and sat on an empty stoop on another cross street. There were only a few people walking by now and again. A-- talked softly and with certainty. I don't remember what we talked about. Alex walked by. Without thinking, I stood up to force him into a hug and introduced him to A--. I am embarrassed even now to remember how easily excited I was still to see Alex then.
A-- and I would part ways a few minutes later, and we would happen to part ways in front of the Cooper building. N-- would walk by and we would both have a quiet cigarette together and commiserate without sharing details about our morning. Eventually, M-- would come by and invite me up to studio. Eventually, I would curl up in the wooden chair behind his drafting desk against the wall and sleep while he worked on his thesis. I know R-- walked by; I know K-- walked by. I know Alex was in studio. I know L-- saw me at one point and rubbed my back, saying that coming down was always the worst part. They wanted to go out that night. I couldn't do it. K-- had invited me to go back to their apartment to stay, but I just needed to go home. Nothing felt right and I was exhausted. I tried to smoke with M-- in Williamsburg, but had a panic attack for the first time in years, and forced myself to leave so that I could be by myself. I remember thinking every moment that I was going to die from being hit by a car or having a heart attack or falling onto the subway tracks. I don't even think I made it onto a platform. I may have just taken the long, expensive taxi ride across the bridge.
                                                                  END