The year was 1997.
The night New Year’s Eve at the Helmuth Building on West 18th Street and 7th Avenue.
The party was hosted by my good friend, Juliana, and music provided by her music fanatic ex-husband.
A Chelsea loft filled with old jazz musicians, real estate moguls, and a crew of Italian visitors.
The latter wanted drugs.
Cocaine to be exact.
I had a connection.
The desired amount was an ounce.
The dealer gave a rendezvous. He was more than two hours late. I overcharged the Italians $500 and pocketed 2 Gs. No one at the party had a scale. The Italians understood the delay and one of them said, “Waiting for my man.”
They loved that song. The wait had been true New York. Never obsolete. We huffed lines and that night I spoke Italian with a fiery tongue. I had studied Latin in high school. A dead language reanimated by the New World.
Never better.
Never again.