I changed things. I started writing for a bunch of online sites. I befriended, via e-mail, a guy named Jason who worked for a record label that I was really into. I realized that I only needed 34 credits (entirely doable in two semesters) to graduate and decided that I was going to graduate from college early. I only registered for classes that sounded intensely interesting and they all proved to be. I started looking for an internship/job that had nothing to do with academics.
Spring proved to be much better than the fall. I acquired a cool internship at an online indie music store which had a marketing company and a record label. I spent two and a half days a week in their SoHo office pulling, packing and stocking online orders or doing leg work for the marketing folks. It was mindless work, but most everyone was pretty cool and they were all into independent music, cinema and publications.
During the time that I worked there, the manager of the store/shipping operations left the company to travel around Europe. The guy who had worked under him took over his position. In the first month and a half that I had worked there, I don’t think we had said much to each other beyond pleasantries and work related questions and answers. But, when Brian became my “boss”, we soon developed a good natured friendship over teasing, tape guns, and noisy instrumental post-rock.
A retarded monkey could probably have done my job most of the time. But, I really liked doing it. My obsessive compulsive and hyper-competitive tendencies were channeled into pulling, packing, labeling, and postaging as many orders as I possibly could in one day. And most of the time, there was a cool soundtrack playing in the background.
Things were looking up and my internship played a big role in it. I was back on track, liking all my classes, going to shows, meeting new people, not calling home every day just to cry to my mother.
To get to work, I used to take the 1/9 train downtown to Houston Street. From there, I would walk about 6 blocks east to Wooster where the office was located. I usually listened to headphones on my daily commute, checking out my newest acquisitions (since I wasn’t paid at my internship, I consistently acquired promotional CDs). But, for some godforsaken reason, despite my headphone wearing, men on Houston Street liked to make lewd comments at me during my walks to and from work.
I must explain something. I am entirely not hot. I used to think that only hot girls got harassed on the street, but men in New York City are not particularly picky about who they make lewd comments to. It seems that if you have two legs and breasts and you will be harassed. Two legs might not be a requirement.
I’d been working in SoHo for nearly three months when spring began to break. It was around 5:15 p.m. and the sun was still low in the sky, warming the brick and glass buildings on Wooster Street with its basketball-colored glow. I stepped out of the green door frame that surrounded the entrance to the building and, with headphones in ear, headed south.
I don’t know why I decided to walk west on Prince Street that day, but I did. And I must have been only 30 feet away from the office door when I noticed a kinda crazy and dirty looking man walking toward me on the sidewalk.
Now, defining crazy in New York City is a precarious thing. I’ve seen loads of people walking about, seemingly talking themselves, only to realize that they have those stupid cell phones with ear pieces. And I am pretty sure that if I saw former Modern Lovers front man and solo artist Jonathan Richman on the streets of New York City I would think he was a mental ward escapee. But, this guy on Wooster Street was definitely not right in the head.
I don’t remember what I was listening to, but I do remember that it was loud enough so that whatever this guy said to me as I drew near to him, was indistinct, but audible. I must have only been five feet in front of him, when he reached inside his fly and whipped out his penis.
As the flasher continued to voice indistinct messages at me, I walked by, quietly laughing at the absurdity of the event to myself.
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