New Rules NYC (#Wattys2015 Winner)

Friday Night Antics

CHAPTER 24: MASON

Stepping into an old, steel frame elevator in New York was always a good sign. It crawled up the wires, creaking and making weird snapping sounds. These elevators were a sign of authenticity, they could only service a small number of lofts so it was a great sign that no developers had put their hands on the building and squeezed it into condos.

 I hadn't heard from Lucy in awhile so it was a weird invitation. The sound of muffled bass kicked in half way up as the lift slowly crunched its way to the top. I pulled open the gate and stepped into what felt like the set of Factory Girl, a huge sculpture sitting as a work in progress in the center of the room, small clusters of people around it. I sucked in the smell of paint and plaster, warm from the sun coming from windows on the south side. The place felt like a grown up finger painting playground, one piece of art merging into the next, patch worked up the walls, only palatable due to the impressively high ceilings.

Lucy wasn't anywhere in the huge loft space, so I parked myself in the kitchen and opened a beer. A girl in a blue fedora appeared from behind a fridge door, “Everyone’s on the roof.” she said, and continued digging around, “Take the stairs down the back.”

I considered putting the beers in the fridge but I felt in a drinking mood, I'd require quick access to these, beers always tasted better on a rooftop.

Walking up you could tell this wasn’t a Brooklyn rooftop. Oozing color, It was covered in bright green turf, red chairs and flamingos dotted among ferns. Groups surrounded two elevated fire pits, trying to summon the onset of spring. It was beautiful in the sun though. She was sitting on a deck chair, jumping up to give me a kiss as I arrived. She introduces me, a couple of people say hi, I could feel their names already slipping from my mind, except an English sounding dude called Wale; his stuck. I opened a beer and offered them around. No takers, everyone was on the margaritas, couldn’t blame them, a girl called Mandy was running an impressive operation ferrying them up from the blender downstairs. A few minutes of chatting to her about the complexity of the perfect Margarita and we were instant friends.

Behind us, the Standard hotel rose up high across the road, its signature floor-to-ceiling windows white in the sun.

“You should have been here a couple of weeks ago”, one of the guys saw me looking at it, “Two girls just going at it.” He nodded up at the hotel. “You could see them on the bed clear as day. They knew we were watching.” Apparently it happened all the time. You're in a hotel in the middle of New York, why not put on a little show right? It reminded me of that scene in the movie Shame where the guy is addicted to sex and he skips work to take a hooker to this same hotel, they have a great shot looking up at the room as he bangs her against the huge windows in the middle of the day.

The crowd is a mixture of artists, foreigners, filmmakers, restaurateurs, models, younger girls, older men, younger boys, trust fund babies and self-appointed trendsetters, the type of people that are available to get it started early on a Friday afternoon. A true New York assortment clamoring to enjoy their spot in the rare winter sun.

I made a point of getting stuck into the margaritas, the frothy mixture cold against my upper lip. Lucy floated off, chatting to some older dude with long hair.

Shots with a French couple. Multiple cigarettes. A quick taste of a joint. The afternoon seemed to have quickly evolved into the evening as we moved downstairs minimal house and pop remixes crept louder over the speakers,

I chatted to a girl with hair down to her waist, she sounded Polish, I didn’t ask, you meet so many people with accents every night, going down the “Where are you from?” path pushes you into the past tense, sometimes it’s nice to stay in the present, at least for a brief conversation anyway. “Where?” inevitably leads to “Why?”, “What?” and “Who?”, the pre-cooked responses that everyone is used to. Again, best avoided in the pursuit of something unique.

“Come, meet Virgil.” Lucy appeared with a weird intense energy and gave me a little pull from the arm.

“Virgil, this is Mason," she said, "The producer I was telling you about.”

“Mason, welcome.” he opened his arms a little.

"Great spot."

Virgil looked like an old rocker, but cleaner. Long hair, but not the greasy kind. He looked pretty good for his age, but when you have a place like this you generally have a bit of cash available to do a few touch ups on yourself. I wondered what their relationship was, how they had met. Could be anything. But this dude had created a whole scene around himself, and she was a favorite. This weird father, daughter, lover mechanic. Whatever, who cares. We weren't even hooking up anymore.

 New York was the same as LA, generally the best parties were the most diverse. All sorts of ages, origins, styles – the clash is where the freshness was.