Fire Island or Rykers Island...

When people ask me what it was like to grow up in New York City, I often reply "Everyone I grew up with either ended up on Fire Island or Rykers Island." It's more like any guy I dated... but the fact remains - I had quite the diverse groups of friends. It's ironic that the "bad" people were often the ones who were the kindest to me... I mean who was going to protect me better than someone who knew the streets?

I went to private schools, but my cronies were not the classmates seated around me. These "gotta go to Brown" students were not my peers... at least not in my horribly depressing "I hate school" days. I preferred to hang out with the groups who congregated on street corners and in school yards in my upper east side neighborhood... specifically the "84th street gang" who met for pizza at Mimi's to plan an evening of drug-fueled carousing, the "Yardies" who hung out in the PS6 schoolyard (especially John Denoia, my eternal "crush") , and the "Parkies" who met up in Central Park (the Meadow or the Bandshell) or on the steps of the Met, and who shaped my teenage years more than any other group I can recall. These groups were loosely connected to each other, and often their antics provided more of a street-smart, self-actualizing education than I could ever receive from science lab or Cliff Notes.

With my mother bedridden and dying, and my father's alcoholic tirades, I took every opportunity to escape our Park Avenue apartment in search of an acceptance I couldn't quite achieve in school. Equipped with a Walkman and tapes of the Who and David Bowie, I would cruise the streets of my neighborhood or hightail it to the park on my ten-speed in search of the friends who shared my common values - sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We'd drop acid at the Bandshell and listen to Pink Floyd, chomp mescaline at midnight in the Meadow, and roam the streets of "forbidden" neighborhoods in search of new and better highs.

It's no wonder I dropped out of Riverdale in the middle of 11th grade. My father's motto was "whatever makes you happy" and I was only "happy" when I wasn't under pressure to excel in an academic onslaught of vertebrate anatomy (although Mrs. Djedda was the only teacher I really liked) and European History. When I did go back to school, I chose an "alternative" school, Baldwin, which I learned about through my Parkie friends. We paid the tuition and I got a diploma. And I hardly ever had to do any work. Plus, Baldwin had an ultimate frisbee team, which meant (of course) practice in the Park. How convenient! Lots of round rolling trays!

25 years later, I have found many of these friends through Facebook. People who have popped up in memories and who I have often wondered "whatever happened to...?" are back in my life and I am overwhelmed by the fact that so may people do remember me. And even more... liked me! Go figure...

I am hearing about so many people - those who ended up on Rykers Island and those who made it to "Fire Island" - or more likely the Hamptons.

It's a trip... and what a long, strange one it has been.