“We don’t have room,” Jake said.
I had planned on crashing at his apartment in New York for the weekend for a few weeks now, but Desi decided that afternoon to join me on the trip.
—
Desi and I walked through the streets of New York after the 5-hour bus ride from Boston not knowing where he was going to sleep. His high school friend who goes to NYU was out of town, and all of the hostels were booked up.
“Hey Des, that bush looks like a nice place to sleep,” I joked
I was cracking up, but his laugh was made of pure nerves. He had decided that he wasn’t coming and that he was coming after all in the same 30 minutes that afternoon, so he was woefully unprepared for the trip.
We walked the streets around Time’s Square trying to find a subway station that would get us downtown to Jake’s place while trying to figure out where Desi would sleep. It wasn’t terribly cold outside, but sleeping on the street would definitely not be fun.
“Hey man, if worse comes to worst and you have to sleep on the street I’ll give you my pocket knife,” I said. “You can probably just crash on the stairs in Jake’s building, just use your backpack as a pillow.”
“If I’m sleeping on the street I at least need to charge my phone in case something happens, you think I can charge it at Jake’s place?”
“Yeah, definitely. So let’s start there and see what we can figure out.”
We sat in Jake’s tiny apartment just catching up on our lives while Desi charged his phone when I just went ahead and said it:
“Hey Jake, I don’t want to be a dick and I know you already said you didn’t have room, but Desi doesn’t have anywhere else to go. His friend is out of town and all of the hostels are full. Are you sure we can’t find space for him in here?”
“Oh yeah no worries. My roommate is staying at his girlfriend’s place this weekend so you guys can share his bed.”
Desi sighed in the corner by the phone charger and looked as relieved as I’ve ever seen him.
—
We got up the next morning and explored the city. We started in the Village area, walking down the east side of Manhattan past the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges, on our way to One World Trade Center. Then we made our way back up the west side of the island up to the Highline Park. When we finally made it back to Jake’s place in time for dinner we had walked 16 miles and earned a few blisters each.
