New York memoir by Stephen House

when i was forty i lived in New York for two months, after a funded playwright residency at banff in canada, (that i’d received through the australian arts department). it was an exciting time of travelling around and writing. 

i found a cheap room in an old character building in harlem. this part of my travel was self-funded, i wasn’t flash with cash, but the room was fine, low budget was how i was existing, and there were interesting and unusual people living there.

in the mornings i’d do yoga in my room (as i do everywhere), grab some fruit and bagels from a mini mart for breakfast, and head to my local café to work on my new play, drink coffee and chat to a few other artists i’d met there.

every day i’d take the subway downtown to hang out in washington square with a poet and musician i’d met, smoke weed with them and other stoners they knew, and watch New Yorkers with their dogs in the dog park nearby. from there, i’d see exhibitions, and often line up in times square for cheap theatre rush tickets. 

towards sunset i’d head to an old un-used hudson river pier and hang out. it was a cruising spot, peppered with lone seeking guys, near the notorious meatworks district i’d read about in novels by some of my queer literary heroes, so it felt cool to be in that area.

after eating either chinese or mexican, i’d usually go to christopher street and play pool in a leather gay bar and drink beer, meeting different guys of all races and leanings. it was a laid-back place and i made a few local mates there. other nights i’d go to see theatre (on and off broadway), if i’d scored a ticket earlier in the day.

every night i went to the same nightclub. lined up with others at midnight for my after-dark New York hit. it was a mixed race, sexuality, and age place, and that’s my thing. some locals called it rough. i liked the downmarket vibe. i remember meeting a latino taxi driver and a black actor from jersey city; both, nice guys.

my last night there a drag-queen named, “ima bitch”, gave me lines of coke in the toilet and we danced together until sunrise, and had coffee before i rode the subway up town to my room to sleep and pack to leave New York. 

that was twenty-three years ago. i’ve never returned. the nightclub is still there i found when i searched online. i may go back to New York one day: see theatre, wander around and write, though i’ll pass on the weed, the club every night, and the snorting coke. we change with age. fortunately, memories usually remain with us.  

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright and actor, including two Awgie Awards from The Australian Writer’s Guild, Rhonda Jancovic Poetry Award for Social Justice, and The Goolwa Poetry Cup, and nominations including, a Greenroom Best Actor Award, Tom Collins Poetry Prize, Patrick White Playwright Award and Queensland Premier’s Drama Award. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts and an Asia-link India residency. His chapbooks “real and unreal” and “The Ajoona Guest House” are published by ICOE Press. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.