I got very fucked up. But by dancing as hard as I could, I burnt the intoxication out of my veins. I was high but in a totally physical way. And even though I didn’t know one single soul in the whole magnificent place (besides Jack) I was an essential part of this gigantic endeavor, like a bee in a swarm. The place was a hive and we were bees on speed going faster and faster and faster.

I got thirsty and went looking for Jack and found him upstairs in the middle of a vast mezzanine overlooking the dance floor. He was lying on a kind of bed-couch with someone, a woman. I approached him, all smiley and shit and then realized that Jack wasn’t just with this woman, he was actually having sex with this woman. Right there in the middle of everything with people coming and going all around them. No one gave a shit. Jack glanced at me sideways but keep pumping away. He didn’t smile.

Later on, Jack came dancing up beside me. The woman was gone. He didn’t say anything about me seeing him flagrante delicto. It was as if I had caught him eating a slice of pizza. Not worth mentioning. He disappeared a couple more times and then hours later shouted into my ear, “Time to go home.”

We stepped out of the warehouse onto the street, where pigeons pecked at the night’s crumbs and spills. The sun was edging up over the rooftops. We made our way down Broadway as the tense workers flowed up from the subway entrances ready for another day of boredom. Jack and I were like the invisible dead, seeing but unseen.

We shambled east along Houston Street, thick-headed and semiblind in the morning glare. Insomniatic winos burned scrap wood in iron barrels. Buses and cabs roared and honked and hissed. Everyone was on a mission to contribute to the new day. Jack tugged me into the doorway of a diner. We sat down at the counter and ordered fresh coffee and fresh doughnuts. What could be better than this? I was deliriously happy, like a jet-lagged tourist.

Jack nodded toward a gaggle of girls dressed up in sequined blouses and tiny cutoff jeans. Lots of eye makeup. I knew these were hookers, having a quick bite before heading home to shoot up drugs and hit the sack. One girl smiled at me. Flattered, I smiled back until Jack whispered in my ear, “She thinks you’re a hustler.”

In one corner, a muscular black guy stood alone, having a conversation with nobody in particular. Every so often, one of the girls would drift up to him and bring him coffee, or a sugar doughnut, and he would touch her face gently with the back of his hand and then she would drift away again. Of course he was wearing an enormous diamond on his pinkie. Clichés are built on some kind of truth, right?