On Death and Gin Rickeys
POST 53: February 2, 2023
Several weeks ago, I seized the opportunity for a mid-week getaway to Manhattan, in desperate need of a break from the twenty-foot-high-dog-pee-and-car-exhaust-stained snow pile of misery that is greater Boston in the winter.
Like many zillions of NYC travelers before me, I entered the city full of naive optimism. That first afternoon and evening, I planned to:
Make fabulous progress on a short story by writing for the entire train ride from Boston to New York;
Walk the mile or so to my hotel, dragging my suitcase behind me, in 15 minutes through post-holiday, uncrowded steets;
Eat a vegetable-filled salad for dinner (I smirked at the unlikeliness of meeting this goal, even as I set it);
Return virtuously to my writing for the remainder of the evening;
Go to bed at a sensible time, having completed a solid first draft of what is destined to become an award-winning piece of fiction.
Here's what actually happened the first afternoon and evening of my jaunt to NYC:
I listened to a podcast about overcoming the fear of death. Since facing mortality is a theme in my short story, listening to that podcast fell under the "writing" umbrella. How, you may ask, can one overcome a fear of dying? First, identify what specifically scares you. Fear of the pain of dying? Fear of leaving work undone, or words unsaid before you die? Fear of oblivion? If your (or, theoretically, my) death fear tends toward the oblivion thing, here are a couple of surprisingly effective ways to turn the tables on your devious brain:
The human mind is uniquely constructed to be self-aware, so remind your mind that it will not be aware of its own oblivion when you die.
I visualize a black, blank page on the left, where there is no me in the universe before birth. Next to it is a running stick figure in a white space, which is me alive in the universe and which represents the extent of my artistic skills (or lack thereof). Finally, there's another black, blank page to the right, which is no me in the universe after death. Easy peasy, right?
I downloaded the audio version of Malachy McCourt's book Death Need Not Be Fatal (again, research for short story = writing time). In addition to being the brother of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt, Malachy is an "Irish bon vivant," an author, a former candidate for governor of New York, and a gold smuggler, among other things. And he's wickedly funny. Death Need Not Be Fatal, though a bit rambly (hey, the guy was in his mid-80s when he wrote the book), is worth reading if you appreciate looking at tragedy and loss through the lens of humor to help make it more bearable. Which I do.
I looked out the window between Mystic and somewhere between Stamford and Greenwich, CT. Lovely views of the ocean from the left side of the southbound train. Southbound trains and mournful winter waves got me thinking about dying. Again.
I walked briskly the mile or so from the train station to my hotel! Yay, me!
I plugged in my computer and connected to the hotel's internet. I was all set to write--really, I swear--when my travel companion decided he had to take a work call at 6:30 p.m. Obviously, we couldn't both work in the room, so I did what I always do when all else fails: I went to a bookstore. In this case, Bookoff (WTF does that even mean?!) on W. 45th Street. Despite its ridiculous and slightly lewd name, Bookoff is a treasure hunt for bibliophiles. I found four used paperbacks in very good condition for $4.36, I kid you not.
I wandered over to Grand Central Station, then back towards Times Square. New York was much busier in mid-January than I'd anticipated. I'm glad that people are traveling again and businesses are making money from tourists again. I only wish that fewer of those tourists and business folks had their faces glued to their phones and therefore didn't walk into me.
Just as I was thinking I might keel over from starvation, I received an invitation to dinner. As enjoyable as that meal and company was for me, it will be super boring for you to read about, like if someone tries to describe a dream to you and you just want to scream and beg them to stop. So, I'll move straight on to the interesting bit after dinner, when we went to a bar called The Rickey.
You know how many bars connected to hotels are kind of sad and look like they were last re-decorated in 1985? This one definitely was not like that. The Rickey, attached to Dream Midtown, is romantically dark, cozy, and green velvety: perfect for a January night. I had an original Gin Rickey, an odd choice for a January night, but I was thirsty and it sounded quenching.
The Gin Rickey, I discovered later, has an interesting history, and, yes, I'm adding a bar scene into my story so that my rickey research counts as writing time. Colonel Joe Rickey, a well-known Democratic mover and shaker in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., walked into his favorite bar, a dive known as "Shoo's," one hot summer day in 1883 and requested a drink made of rye whiskey, lime juice, and seltzer water on the rocks. Gin soon became the liquor of choice, and remains so in the Rickey we enjoy today, although bartenders are always concocting variations on the classic.
As for Colonel Joe Rickey, he loved Shoomaker's so much that he bought the bar in the 1890s. Sadly, the Colonel took his own life in 1903 when, at age 61, he killed himself by drinking carbolic acid mixed with water.
In 2011, the Gin Rickey was named the official cocktail of Washington, D.C. I can attest that it tasted pretty darn good in NYC as well.
Fun fact: When I looked up New York's official cocktail, fully expecting it to be a Manhattan, I learned that, while the city has none, the official beverage of New York State is---milk! Umm, that was definitely NOT what I expected.
I thought about death a few times as I walked, and walked, and walked all over Manhattan the next day. Leafless trees, steely skies, and listening to a few more chapters of Death Need Not Be Fatal kept mortality front and center.
I also thought about Gin Rickeys again the next night at The Rickey, but decided to order a more seasonally appropriate espresso martini instead.