And I Opted Out
Queens, boredom, and the first decision that actually mattered
Early autumn mornings give way to a brief period, from late August into October, when the weather in New York City almost feels hospitable. As vacations fade into work, the winds in the early hours blow with a razor’s edge, and the blue skies of summer fade into the grey concrete clouds of the city’s brutal winter.
For the Queens of my childhood, it meant the green leaves fade to a brittle brown, and color slowly seeps out of the world surrounding. There developed a clinical sterility in the winter months, and it’s this sterility that led young residents with any kind of ambition to get out and see the wider world as soon as they can manage it.
By junior high school, I was cutting for months at a time. I didn’t need much of an excuse other than I was miserable and bored, and so by the age of twelve I was ducking out of junior high school to go to FAO Schwartz and play on their wall of Nintendos for a couple of hours.
From there I would sit by the Lagoon in Central Park and contemplate the ducks and the tourists feeding bread to the ducks and, quite a few times, the park’s rats as well.
I would wander through the park if the weather was nice, or up past the northern end and walk the streets of Harlem, or take a stroll to the west side and the river. On snowy days I’d explore the rest of the city, getting out at the World Trade Center and, one time, taking the PATH train to the end of the line and disembarking for a two-minute adventure into (and immediately right back out of) Newark.
I would sit in Central Park and contemplate the tourists feeding the rats…
By the time I reached high school, I was pretty brazen, and there came the day I told my mother and my high school guidance counselor that I would be taking the next day off to catch the first showing of Jurassic Park. I recognized that this was a movie that was going to change everything, and I wanted to be among the first to witness it.
I didn’t so much drop out of high school as I opted out.
It’s no coincidence that the area of Queens where I grew up was the birthplace of punk rock, of the Ramones and the Dictators. These were bored teenagers and young adults who looked around and saw the same thing I did. The lives of adults around us.
Waking up at the same time every day. Eating the same breakfast. Eight hours a day at jobs they didn’t care about, nights at home watching television. Going to the movies on weekends, or the bar. Vacationing in the Bahamas for a week, having kids, getting older, dying in the tiny aluminum-sided houses they lived their entire lives in.
Legendary manager Bernie Brillstein in his memoir talked about moving to my neighborhood when he was young, of living in the apartment building that neighbored my Elementary School.
Within months, he wrote, he realized that if he wanted to be successful, he had to move out and into Manhattan.
The scariest thing about that life was watching the adults wistfully staring into the distance and talking about the dreams of their youth. Ambition seemed like a sand castle washed away by the rising tides of financial security. It was a good life, yes, but it all seemed so claustrophobic when I was a child. So many people settled.
And I opted out of that, too.
Thanks for supporting my bad decisions. If you enjoyed this, subscribe below. I’m launching a paid series this Sunday, but don’t worry, Monday and Thursday posts are still free.
If this touched a cord, consider sharing this post with a friend or your readers.