Greg had just gotten a van and it was parked close to the place where we ate. We sat with Stephen, a friend of his, at a table on the corner of twelfth and avenue B, at the Life Caf?, and whistled at the crowds that walked by. Some of them paid attention to us, and turned back and sneered, others just walked past, maybe not hearing us, or, as they should have, just ignoring us. We finished our dinners, a little conversation here and there, and asked for the check.

"We should go to Williamsburg," Greg said, without much else in mind.
"We should," I said, foreseeing a car trip.

But Stephen lived in the city, and he had an aunt in a hospital, dying of cancer. When he left for the bathroom I asked why he looked so exhausted; Greg said Stephen wasn't sleeping much, he was spending a lot of nights in the hospital with her. On top of this, he was at the brink of losing his apartment. He might have to spend many more nights with her in her room. He didn't mind being with her, Greg said, Stephen and his aunt were close, but the idea of having to spend almost every night in the hospital, after shifting around from one friend's place to the next, was taking its toll on him. Stephen wasn't having an easy time. There wasn't much I could say, so we paid the check, said goodbye, and left.

"We'll take the bridge, and get out near my house," Greg said.
"Then where to," I asked.
"Have you been to the docks in Williamsburg?"
"I've seen them. But I haven't been down there yet."
"We should. It's clear enough, tonight," he said.

Greg sped around traffic in his van, driving carelessly. I was in the passenger seat, adjusting the radio. Again, conversation was here and there. When we did talk, it wasn't worthless. Greg spoke to me about his band, how they were going to tour around the states in November. Nothing huge, just the Midwest. For a couple of weeks. I was glad to hear him say this; anything that sounded close to determination from him was more than what you were used to. I wasn't doing so well, myself.

We parked the van in a gravel driveway. A few warehouses stood on the left, and past them, a sandy beach, and past that, the water. It was the East River, or what's called the East River. Down here, it was a bay. A few waves spread on the sand after they crashed. As we got closer, this did away with any chance there was for talk. The only thing heard in the city close to this was the rush of traffic over a bridge, or a parkway. Greg started to walk near the water. He seemed to know where he was going. I was silent, and followed. We walked along the beach, and sat on a rotted piece of wood that had been dragged over from one of the docks, and propped up onto a couple of cinderblocks to make a bench. More crashes came from the water and some light from a full moon.

On the other side of the bay was the Financial District; the lights from some of its buildings were reflected in the ripples of the water and almost reached us where we sat. There were two long, watery images of the Twin Towers.

Farther North from the District was the FDR, quietly roaring. Just about all the bridges appeared to the left and right - the Brooklyn Bridge, the 59th Street Bridge, and also the Statue of Liberty couldn't be seen. Outside of the waves and the reflections in the water, the only other thing to notice was the shore of Manhattan, underlined and supported by half-submerged rocks. Greg walked on, packing a pipe full of hash from Hong Kong, and, again, I followed him.

We walked away from the shore, and made a left past a deserted boxcar, and, circling around it, walked to an old dock; nothing much was left to it except for a couple of cement walls, wide enough to walk on. A makeshift bridge of two collapsed boards connected them. On shaky feet we crossed to the second wall. At its finish, there were two rows of rocks. Greg climbed down to the first, and used it to jump to the next. I climbed down from the dock, but couldn't jump very far, I almost crawled onto the second row. In front of us was the shore of Manhattan, but, this much farther out in the dark, it appeared there more clearly. The crashes of water around us were more spread out now, thrusting against the rocks and rushing into the cavern of the cement walls. Greg said he had started to come down here in the spring, this was where he came when he wanted to be alone. It must have taken a lot of exploring for him to get there, and find a place like that.

We heard voices coming from behind us. One of us turned and pointed to a flickering light from a fire, obscured by a wall of some sort. We decided we'd walk to it, head back to the van, and then go home.

"A lot of people build fires here," Greg said, "and stay out the rest of the night."
"It's the right place for it," I said. "They're not from around here are they?"
"I don't know," he said, "look at those people walking their dog. They're here. They're not around a fire, though."

And that's how it was. Three Mexicans were sitting around the fire. On the way back, I had fallen off one of the rocks, and scraped my legs trying not to slip too far into the water. When they invited us to sit down, it only seemed natural to accept. Although, lately, it seems only natural to get away from being natural. They talked to us in Spanish. We replied with what we knew. After getting past their names, and our names, everything else was a struggle. We asked them what they did for a living, and they said they worked in factories, and in restaurants. They asked us. I told them I worked in a factory, also, and, it wasn't a lie. Greg laughed, and, then, after awhile, so did they.

We sat in front of the fire for about an hour. We stirred it, smoked cigarettes, and talked. Between their broken English, our broken Spanish, and the Coronas they gave us, we formed some basis for discussion. We told them where our parents came from. One of the Mexicans said he understood Italian, and I spoke a little, so we exchanged a few insults. They laughed at Greg when he said he was German, made scornful faces, but they said it was all right, now we were friends, and we clanked our bottles together.

After this we left, we went to see if there was a bar still open. Greg said Enid's was close. It's possible we left the van near the docks. If we drove, thank god we didn't hit someone. Enid's was closed. We didn't find out until after we walked in and saw a crowd of four getting up to leave. A few others sat at the bar. With us it was four. The bartender said he was closed, but he'd let us stay. I realized my clothes were dry. We stayed, a little dumbfounded at what had happened to us so far. As it turned out, the others were friends of the bartender's, from home, in St. Louis, maybe, and were visiting for the weekend. The bartender said we were in for a surprise. He handed out condoms to us all, but said he was kidding. He pulled out a square mirror, put some cocaine on it, and said there were a lot of us, so we'd have to be careful. I was careful.

We left after a couple of hours. I went back to my parent's apartment. Greg left the van by the docks where he had parked it. It was six o'clock, or close to six, and I probably watched the sunrise from my parent's living room window, almost directly opposite the jilted shore in Williamsburg, where we were sitting, just half a mile South, maybe a quarter. No sense in splitting hairs. I fell asleep in my room, and, the next morning, felt the scrapes, or, cuts, on my leg. I tried not to remember where they were from. They stung so badly in the shower it was impossible not to. All my clothes smelt like a burnt-out fire. The rest of the night fell into place, or pieces, and I tried organizing them into at least a picture of what had happened. And I remembered I forgot to say to those Mexicans, grouped around the fire, something along the lines of "gracias para cervezas," and felt a little rude.