The subway was fetid with humidity. Taking the detour uptown to change my clothes had been a wasted effort. A dark patch already flourished at the armpit I had to raise to reach the overhead holds as I rode the train back down to the East Village; by the time I made it to the top of the exit stairway sweat clung to the skin of my stomach and grabbed stickily at my shirt.
Emerging onto Essex Street was barely a relief. A solid bank of dark clouds lowered the ceiling of the sky, and there was no breeze besides the cool flow of air-con escaping from shop doors.
It was a regulars-welcome kind of bar, oblong and small. The kind of bar where the very arrangement of the furniture encouraged either solitude or intimacy. It was a lovers-and-loners kind of bar.
We had the place to ourselves for a few hours. It was still the afternoon; the bar hadn’t got going yet. He poured them, and I drank. Memory licked at the edges of the picture, thick and sweet as the blueberry-flavoured liqueur in my glass.
A bar for lovers and loners. But which one was I?
Magical: Day One 