Christening the Toilets at the Ned, Nomad

What use is it being young and hot in New York City if you don’t have places to be hot and young in? What, am I supposed to wander the streets, padded cups and a combative nature on display to the public? For free? No, no. When the shoes are this expensive, they’ve got to have somewhere to go.

I made a great alliance with my DJ Friends early in my New York Nightlife tenure. They’re too fascinating to explain briefly, so suffice it to say that they’re male models and you’re aware of that as soon as you see them, though you’ll have to crane your neck. But even though I was too short for them to hear the first time we crossed paths— expensive heels be damned— they kindly took me under their wing. Of course, given their wingspan, there was a lot of room under there— which made it easy to meet the other small birds taking shelter.

Now that you have the context. 

One fine day, I received a text from one of my DJ Friends asking me if I was free. And for them, I always was. There was an event they were playing that night— an opening for a new social club, and they were looking to fill the space. By the time they told me the address, I was already dressed and shooting a text to my Charming Friend with a simple message: Meet me here. 

They were playing the Ned Nomad, an extremely luxurious and well-decorated space that was supposedly being brought over from the UK. And like the UK, it was speckled with warm wood, stocked to the brim with Whisky, and—  of course— full of white people. 

Home, sweet home. 

My Charming Friend and I arrived in time for my DJ Friends’ set. They had two priorities for the night: a table by the dance floor and an obscene amount of ass shaking, and once they had one, the other followed in quick succession. They said their hellos and made their way to the stage, telling us that we should grab a drink while they got set up.

This is where it gets interesting. 

We made our way to the bar, which, for anyone unfamiliar with this venue, was set in the double-height-ceiling library with low lights and books that should’ve smelled like books, but somehow didn’t, as if they held no stories and had forgotten they had a spine. But what the library lacked in literature, it made up for in loose women and men trying their luck with them. 

My Charming Friend and I went to the bar, or rather, tried to. The crowd was thick and loud and sweaty, and the bar was fighting the waves of cocktail demands to no avail. It was the kind of crowded where you end up making friends just by virtue of shared waiting— and pity for the bartenders near tears. We found some girls next to us in a similar state of spirit-less despair and decided to ride along with them, pooling orders and calculating splits. There was only room for one arm, one tongue, and one credit card to make its way over the warm wood bar, so you order together, and you order simply.

The order is placed.

The bartender disappears. 

The bar is loaded with 8 of the largest tequila shots you’ve ever seen in your life. 

I’m not talking about full shot glasses— there was no meniscus measuring to see the brim of liquor to be slurped pre-lift. I’m talking tumbler glasses loaded FOUR FINGERS FULL with tequila. 

I am, though I will deny it, five feet and three inches tall. My Charming Friend is a couple inches below that. We looked at the tequila and shared the same thought: that we were unquestionably fucked.

Now, I won’t claim to be the victim here; I lifted that glass of my own accord. I took the shot— the largest shot I have ever seen— assuming it would hit me as a large shot would: with a slight gag reflex and a reminder to check on my liver the next morning. But call it a refraction in the glass, a trick of the light, maybe a trick of the bartender, but the shot that looked like it could kill a small child only seemed to grow with every sip (and yes, you did have to sip). I was chugging tequila, looking at my Charming Friend, who was struggling as much as I was. Both of us trying to swallow the ocean from a tumbler.

We could’ve stopped, but we didn’t. Why? Fuck if I know. Probably because we had the misfortune to be in our low-twenties, proud, and bisexual, although I’m not sure what that last one has to do with it. But we drank, and we drank down, polishing off our glasses and making the resolution not to have anything else for the night. As if that would help.

We returned to our table disgracefully. Swaying and singing like pirates. Just two small-enough-to-step-on gals taking crazy redirections with every step. 

We sat for a bit, listened to the music and the hammer of our heartbeats on the inside of our ears. I don’t know how long it was, but I know I danced and danced hard. I know my Charming Friend was enjoying telling men that she was engaged (she wasn’t yet, but she likes to lie) and watching them crumble in defeat. They were doubly devastated when they looked at her rack for a final time and realized the scope of their loss. 

My DJ Friends played exceptionally, as they always do. In New York, the lucky few are able to befriend a DJ or two. The luckier few have the benefit of their DJs actually being good DJs. The luckiest few know their DJs are not only the best in the city, but also foster a community of generosity, grace, and the kind of friends that offer only the safest illicit drugs. 

I’m very lucky. 

But that was the blur of the evening. I don’t really black out when I get drunk; it all just starts to blur. Like my eyes pop out of my head and fall into the spare hand of a cameraman in a swivel chair. Spinning and spinning, never knowing he forgot to press record, and my eyes hold the only memory of the spin-striped scene. I’ve only ever blacked out three times, all three of them at Butterfly Soho. I had to give myself a two-drink limit when I was there because even a sniff of a third Mai Tai would leave me dazed and confused with only the memory of being poured into a black SUV and having to describe my address with the backward alphabet of an intoxicated fool. 

The tequila was starting to ring harder when I parted with my Charming Friend. One of us called her a car, only our credit card statements know who, and she got on the elevator. I stopped at coat check to get my bag and took the stairs down to escape before I could no longer see, hear, or spell my mother’s name. 

Downstairs, I felt the stir. The rumble. That fluttering, rising feeling. And then the bile. And then the shame. In that order, as always.

And suddenly, there I was, prostrate to the porcelain throne. 

Now, when gagging, I recommend your focus fall from your throat with all the rest. I think of the floor. Try to count the bathroom tiles under your knees. How many corners can you feel against the third-grade scooter scar and the last-night-stumble-skid bruise? Never think of the exit; you don’t know how long you’ll be there, and leaving early risks the sticky ick of knowing the sick is still inside you. No, when you’re gagging, you have to find the finish.

Emerging, no longer tequila-laden, but still feeling the rolling ocean I’d sipped from the rocks glass, I had to find the exit. This was difficult as I could hardly see. But I was determined and too tipsy to worry, so I wandered the floor like a muse in the Hotel California. Can I leave here? No, that’s a painting. Can I leave here? No, that’s the kitchen. Can I leave here? No, that’s the boiler room.

The boiler room?

I turned around myself. There were no windows. Why were there no windows? Ah— because I was in the basement. Why was I in the basement? Because the party had not been on the second floor. It’d been on the ground floor. There was no need for stairs. How did I forget that? By being belligerently drunk off a single “shot.” All I’d had to do was walk straight out onto the street, into the night, and back to my parents’ house. But I’d added a level of difficulty, quite literally, and had gotten lost in the process. 

Up the stairs, I returned to the scene of the party that got me too drunk to function. But once I’d reached the top, I started spinning again. The room, which just minutes ago had been full of artists and musicians and dancers and, as above, white people, was now empty. A staff member sweeping the back. A chill of air conditioner for the summer heat. 

I must’ve looked confused because someone came over to me and let me know that the party was only scheduled to go to 1 AM. 

“1 AM?” I asked, vomit still on the corner of my lips. “So early?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and I tried not to feel like a grandmother. “The venue hasn’t gotten its liquor license yet, they only have their cabaret license.”

“Uh-huh.”

“… So they could only serve until midnight.”

“Ah— their cabaret license.” Of course. “That makes sense. Is that why the bartenders were trying to get everyone plastered before midnight?” 

“Yes. The exit is right this way.”

And he pointed in a direction I had not gone before. And I followed. 

I left, walking straight out onto the street, into the night, and back to my parents’ house. As I walked, I realized I’d forgotten to reason out why my Charming Friend had taken the elevator when she went to leave, and decided I’d have to ask her as soon as I could function.

Turns out, as I had thought the party was on the second floor and had foolishly gone downstairs, she’d thought the party was in the basement and had tried to go a floor up. She also did not find the exit. But she had, as I had, found a bathroom, and practiced the same postulation to the patròn— sorry, patron saint of pretty party girls. And then she realized her mistake, as I had, and made her way home in the Uber.

The lesson? Who knows. That not all baptisms are holy. That a detour to the dump-bucket saves you the Uber cleaning fee. That you can fall apart whether you’re on your way up or on your way down. 

I think it’s just that some nights end on the floor. Even if you don’t know which floor you’re on.