Whether it was the worrying or late-stage jet lag that was keeping me up at night, no one could say for sure, but the worrying certainly didn't help. Past a certain age, birthdays become more of a burden than they do a reward; less an expression of one's individual character than they are a declaration of his social worth. It's not to say that I've crossed that threshold yet, just merely that it seems closer now than it had before the big 2-4 yesterday.
Sam and his girlfriend Brittany treated me for lunch at the Shake Shack near Times Square. It was my first time, and the excess of it all was what really stuck with me—mouths gorging on cheese fries, burgers oozing with mayonnaise and ketchup, Day-Glo Creamsicle floats and frozen custards. Just peering expectantly into the gray-swirled concretes studded with chocolate chips and fudge chunks was enough to make my heart stop. The burger was definitely good, but you don't need to take my word for it. The lines are so routinely out-the-door that even their promotional T-shirts picture their original Madison Square Park location with a line of people wrapping around the front.
But exactly how good? Consider that the cost of a single ShackBurger nets almost four Tuesday promotional $1.29 Whoppers at the Burger King a block from my house—where I ate my day-after-birthday lunch—and I'll reconsider whether or not I want to wait in line again for 40 minutes. We wandered our way through the Meatpacking District after lunch and darted into Chelsea Market to escape the rain—a hulking steel building outfitted with giant whirring ceiling fans and over-sized cargo elevators built in the late 1890s. The sheer depth to the stores there was remarkable—enough bakeries to fill a small New England township and a specialty produce shop that even sold tamarind rinds and dragon fruit. We bought zucchini and squash to barbecue for dinner.
I had my birthday dinner, not with my own family, but with Sam's. It wasn't so much the circumstances—Hannah was bussing back home from Maryland and my mom had called to say that she was out and wouldn't be home until late—we just weren't that kind of family. Besides, it was something of an accident—the three of us were playing Halo with Sam's kid brother in the living room and lost track of time. Dinner was fancy by my standards—pasta salad, poached salmon, bruschetta—the first real home-cooked meal I'd had since being back. It would have been any ordinary dinner had Sam not mentioned to his mom that we were going out, and before anyone had time to object, Mrs. Graves was out with a kazoo humming the four chords that no birthday celebration should be complete without.
We took the 4 train from Union Square to the Upper East Side. It had been over two years since I'd made it up to that neighborhood, and it felt like I couldn't pass a single building without staring hard at it, the way a dog might eye an errant stain of piss. Inside, the bar could have passed for any house party at college. Ex-frat boys, still wearing Greek letter T-shirts and plaid shorts, playing beer pong on two long tables by the back wall. Girls in tube tops and mini-skirts surreptitiously looking on. Dirty messages scribbled in the bathroom stalls. Blink-182 and Yellowcard blaring over the stereo sound system. A Jets game on one set of TV screens and a Yankees game on the other.
The seven of us were sequestered at the first table by the entrance. When we arrived, another group was in the process of wrapping up a birthday of their own—streamers hanging from the lamp shades, printed napkins in colorful hues, even a half-eaten cake sitting in the center of the table, the letters “PY” and “THDAY” left untouched. To the casual observer, the whole scene would have hardly garnered a second look. Even I, had I tried hard enough, could have believed that the whole production—paper plates and tiny serving forks, fragments of tinsel and wrapping paper—something I never would have asked for but at the same time would not have refused, could all have been for me.
About an hour in, the table next to us cleared out and another party was getting seated. Brushing aside stray cake crumbs, a short, trim man with a mustache inquired about an umbrella that had been left at their table. It was one of those long retractable ones, the kind kids use to propel at each other on rainy days. “Is this yours,” the man asked us, knowing full well that it wasn't and that he was now reluctantly charged with its fate. He turned to me, sitting closest to him. “Well, how would you like a free umbrella,” he asked with a smile. I thought to myself—it wasn't that outlandish of a request. “Sure,” I told him, really meaning it. He handed it over, careful to spare the drinks, and with a sense of irony he couldn't possibly have imagined, added, “Here you go, buddy. Happy birthday.”
*
Just to allay any worries, my birthday was lovely, and I want to thank everyone who came out with me to celebrate on Monday. Again, these vignettes are semi-fictionalized, and, like much of my writing, tend to ere on the darker side.