Lower Broadway Wednesdays, 1997-1999

There were Wednesday afternoons – it always
seemed to be Wednesdays – when I would
walk into a public bathroom – an NYU basement,
on a break from work at the film department,
then Barnes & Noble or the Writer’s Room
on Astor Place, where I would go not to write,
but to stare at a cubicle wall and experience silence –
and cry, uncontrollably, sound muffled in my hands,
often to the point where my eyes would be bloodshot. 
I would walk out, complaining about my contacts
if anyone asked or seemed concerned.
Other Wednesdays I walked to the Bath & Body Works
on Lower Broadway to use the free samplers of hair gel,
and there was always a young guy working there
who would strike up a conversation with me,
never about the hair gels or trying to sell me anything,
but just ask friendly questions. It’s only now
writing this that I realize he might have had a crush
on me. One Wednesday while I gelled up my hair
and looked in the mirror, he tried out a back massager
on my shoulders. It felt good. I walked back to work,
feeling – and there’s no other word to use here – fabulous.  

Künstlerroman, 1996

Before I moved to Brooklyn, I hopped
on the L train and, I shit you not,
interviewed the bohemians
of Bedford Avenue, pen and pad
of paper in hand. I asked
if they liked living in Williamsburg.
Most kept walking, ashamed
to be seen with me. Some were nice.
Even the glasses guy from They Might Be Giants
stopped and talked. I lived in a sublet
on Crosby Street, a fifth-floor walk-up frozen in time,
heated from a brick on a stove, rent-controlled
in a building filled with old men.
This was 1995, and Williamsburg
was no SoHo. We had the L Cafe,
Planet (or Planeat?) Thailand, brunch at Oznot’s,
open mics at The Charleston,
Styrofoam cups of beer at Turkey’s Nest.
And Joe’s Busy Corner, where the patriarch
held court outside and cursed through
his artificial larynx. Everyone
in Williamsburg lived on borrowed money.
We walked to the Citibank in Greenpoint
just to use a bank machine. And our landlord
never cashed our rent checks. Like, never.
Months would go by on North Fifth and Havemeyer.
Nothing. I’d watch my checking balance swell
to four digits and start to think, this is my money,
not his. So I’d shop at OMG Jeans 
or buy new Doc Martens. Then the landlord
would cash the rent checks. A whole year’s worth.
All at once. The whole building would shudder. 
I can still see myself a year later, 
on a summer morning by the East River
with a Strathmore sketch pad, not very humble, 
wallet-chained, younger-looking, jaded,
waiting for last night’s mushrooms to wear off
and Tops grocery to open. A skinny boy
bums a smoke. I give him a light. I smile.

Daniel Nester is the author of Harsh Realm: My 1990s, a poetry and prose poem collection to be published by Indolent Books in 2022. His previous books include Shader, a memoir; How to Be Inappropriate, an essay collection; and The Incredible Sestina Anthology, which he edited. He currently edits Pine Hills Review, the literary journal of The College of Saint Rose, where is also a professor of English. His first two books, God Save My Queen and God Save My Queen II are hybrid collections on his obsession with the rock band Queen. His poems have appeared in such journals as Bennington Review, American Poetry Review, Word For/Word, Court Green, Love’s Executive Order, and other places. His essays have appeared in Salon, New York Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, and the Poetry Foundation website.