1.

I felt a shot of nerves as the plane descended towards early morning Los Angeles. The pink glow emanating into the cabin faded to drab grey as we fell through the clouds. We skidded along the drenched runway and taxied to the terminal. I watched rain trickle down the window and decided ‘California Dreaming’ must have been penned by its tourism department. Struggling to decide if either of the options presented by the customs officer really suited me, I dribbled out an unconvincing, ‘Pleasure,’ and with that, I had entered the United States.

I was delirious by the time I reached JFK. I’d departed Melbourne on Friday morning, spent what felt like days in the air, and touched down in New York on that same Friday’s evening. I trudged through the airport with my backpack over my shoulder and stood at the baggage collection. The gentle hum of the carousel’s conveyor belt almost put me to sleep where I stood. A familiar shape and hue moved towards me. I heaved my bag off the belt and staggered along as I tried to counterbalance its weight with my own.

Catching a bus to Jamaica, I transferred onto the E line. Eyes fixed onto me and quickly darted away when my stare met theirs. I wondered how dark the rings around my eyes were. The sun was setting behind houses extending to the horizon as we moved through Queens – the train tracks elevated from the streets. I was surprised; my idea of Manhattan had, until that point, been a markedly empty skyline multiplying in height and complexity by a few thousand all of a sudden. Queens looked like a jungle of its own, but I had no idea what was waiting right down the line.

I tried to fend off exhaustion. Despite whatever ‘good work’ smiling news anchors proclaimed Giuliani to be doing, a lifetime of television and filmic impressions of the city had me convinced one was only ever a few seconds away from being mugged. Unable to fight it any longer, I drifted off, repurposing my backpack into a pillow as I keeled over.

Departing Lexington station, I was snapped awake by three thunderous bangs. I scanned the faces of the other passengers for any kind of reciprocation of my panic, but saw only indifference. Again, three bangs travelled through the car. Only the sounds of quiet conversation and the subway groaning along its tracks, filled the silence between the storms. I leant forward to look down the car.

A man in ragged clothes stood in the centre beside an old, rickety cart covered in bizarre fabrics and patterns. In his right hand was a small pot; in his left, its accompanying lid. I teetered between sadness at how invisible he must’ve felt to need to draw attention to himself on a busy subway car, and anger at how obnoxious his chosen method was. He raised his instruments up high, turning the empty pot for all to see, and again married them with force. Once, twice. This time on the third strike he held them together, smothering their clang back to silence. With a concentrated look and peculiar finesse, he brought the sealed pot down from above his head, revolving its rim to horizontal during the steady descent. Holding it in front of him for a moment, he scanned the car to make sure he’d retained the attention of his audience, of which I comprised roughly a third. I inched forward and cocked my head to get a better look.

With a confident smirk, he lifted the lid. Following it, a small white figure reared its head. Twisting and turning, its beady eyes scanned the car, locking onto me for a moment before shooting off to its next focus. The man showed the pot around as the thing stood tall, rising from the metallic confines and shaking itself off. A single, perfect, white dove, illuminated by the fluorescent lights of a grimy New York City subway car.

In my disorientated state, I was certain this was the most incredible thing to ever happen – some sort of cosmic metaphor for myself, perhaps. A woman noticed the awe in my expression and smiled.

The car began decelerating as we approached the next stop and, like clockwork, the magician had his cart packed and was moving down the carriage, taking tips along the way. Most ignored him, but I eagerly retrieved a crisp one-dollar note from my wallet and pushed it into his upturned hat. He nodded and stepped off at the next station, ready to board another train and do it all over again. With a grin, I eased back into the seat inside my own metal container and waited for it to open inside the heart of New York City.

A crescendo built inside me as I moved up the stairs towards the loudness of the city, growing with each step of my weary legs. It burst as I stepped out onto Seventh Avenue from 23rd Street station and was hit by a wall of sound. A sea of car lights disappeared into the distance in all directions; sirens and horns wailed; revellers laughed and cried. Illuminated buildings reached for the sky while the subway roared underneath, millions of people bustling somewhere in between. A man winked and waved at me as another barked ‘Excuse me,’ and moved through the door of a convenience store. I bee-lined down the busy footpaths against the flow of traffic, my bag colliding with a few. I turned to apologise but saw only their backs as they disappeared into the night, unaffected.

I reached the hostel I’d booked on 20th Street and signed in. The receptionist led me to my room, past a group of French girls who fell silent as we moved by – displeased looks on their faces as they blew out cigarette smoke. My shoulders and neck ached as I dropped my bags onto the floor and slid them under my bed. It was a shared room with three other guys already checked in: two young Brazilians, I guessed, and another Australian. The Australian instantly assumed a level of camaraderie when I spoke, shooting up to his feet and thrusting a hand towards me.

‘Nice to meet you, mate, but to be honest, I was hoping you’d be a girl,’ he said, chuckling as he shook my hand a little too hard.

‘Why’s that?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been here five days and still no pussy! What’s the go with that? I thought American girls loved the accent.’

‘Ah well, maybe it’s a numbers game.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Hey, we should go out for a drink.’

‘Maybe another night. I just got in.’

‘All good, brother.’

The others had gone out by the time I’d shaved, showered, and crawled under the covers. I’d lain in many beds, staring through darkness at many ceilings, but I’d never been this far from home. I could hear the chaotic hum of the city; its heartbeat so frantic it seemed to vibrate the room, the bed, the very cells in my skin. New York City. A billion little processes all taking place at once – each seeming microscopic compared to the larger being of the thing, yet all integral to its survival. And I was in the middle of it.

My fatigue vanished at the thought. I got up and dressed, not content with wasting another second. Walking back into the chilly night, I found a bar packed with people on the corner of a block. It was swanky – not the type of place I’d have gone to back home. An orange glow shone through the wall of spirits behind the servers, while the underside of the bar counter splashed neon blue over crossed legs on stools and flowed down to the tips of high heels.

I moved through the crowd to the bar and ordered the only beer I recognised, then took a free stool on the end of a long table with a loud group at the other. The girl nearest looked over, and I smiled and saluted with my bottle. She stood and moved closer. The table was reserved, she told me. I offered her my stool, hoping hospitality might afford me an invitation to join, but she returned to the group, her friends seeming uncomfortable as I watched her saunter away.

I moved to another area but found myself always in someone’s way. The speakers repeated the same few bars of monotonous, uninspiring beat over and over. I finished my drink and left. Walking the long way back to the hostel, I found a deli on a corner, ordered two slices of pizza and sat at the window. A man had been knocked off his push-bike by a cab in the middle of the intersection outside moments before I’d arrived. I chewed and watched as the gathered crowd argued about how to best help him. Then he was loaded into an ambulance, everyone left, and it looked like nothing had happened there at all.

The Brazilians were in bed when I returned. One slept and snored; the other looked up and smiled at me before returning to his book. I don’t think he knew English, but he knew how to smile. I got into bed and tried to drift off. The other Australian returned a while later – liquored up.

‘This fucking guy! He’s snoring again. I told him to cut it out last night,’ he grunted.

‘I don’t think he’s doing it to upset you,’ I said.

His eyes narrowed. I turned over, not wanting to antagonise the Neanderthal.

I moved in and out of sleep with the volume of the snoring, sensing mounting frustration across the room each time it climaxed. Suddenly the Australian was at the snoring Brazilian’s bed. ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up, cunt!’ he screamed, grabbing him by the collar and shaking him ferociously. The other Brazilian rushed over and grabbed the Australian’s arm to stop him. I watched as the three silhouetted figures wrestled in the darkness, their shapes outlined by moonlight creeping through the window.

The centre figure drew back an arm like a slingshot and launched it into the one holding his arm, knocking him back onto his bed before turning to the other. ‘I hear another fuckin’ peep out of you and you’re getting the same, alright?’ he screamed, giving him one last shake. The Australian went back to his bed and threw the covers over himself. I was frozen, my pulse throbbing in my ears. As it slowed, I stared into the darkness and fell asleep to the quiet sobbing of one of the Brazilians.