Midnight City

My deranged journey home from a dark and drunken night.

Illustration by Gabby Schulz

New York City becomes another place deep at night. During the hours when most people are asleep, comfortable and secure indoors, the city becomes another beast altogether. I know this city from an addled point of view. Namely, drunk. My most recent experience in this New York was a rigmarole-like ramble that began with me and my friends sharing a surplus of drinks.

A friend from college was hosting a dinner party at her apartment, a place where one could stare at the Planetarium with ease. Many of our old classmates had come from out of town for the event, as had my girlfriend. As the party picked up and became livelier, it was hard to keep count, but plenty more bottles of wine and Champagne kept our glasses full.

While I knew that I had more than my fair share of Champagne, my wherewithal was negligible, making it impossible for me to point and say that drink was when I went from dinner-party tipsy to spectacularly drunk. However, I remember the blurry cont…