It just started to snow but I didn’t care. I felt like walking anyway, besides it wasn’t that cold out and the bar was only about five short New York blocks anyway. There was already about four inches of snow covering the ground, but it was just getting slushy at the corners. You know where people are walking day and night. You kinda have to avoid the big muddy puddles. I hate the lousy corners this time of winter because you never know if a Goddamn cab is gonna come ripping by and splash that slushy shit on your suit. I was wearing my gray suit and carrying a fresh one from the cleaners with me. The suit I had on wasn’t my favorite, because it didn’t fit me that well. I bought it at a thrift store for thirty bucks, because I didn’t own a gray suit for a while. I still didn’t want to get slushy mud all over it from one of those Goddamn rogue cabs so I kinda held back from the corner until the light was green.

Which reminded me that I didn’t wear any green, and it was Saint Patty’s day. And everybody knows that New York goes fucking crazy on St. Patty’s day. So, I was expecting the worst since I was going to my friend’s Irish bar and all. I was feeling pretty good anyway because I had just sold a fifteen thousand dollar painting to some couple from Florida. I made fifteen hundred bucks today as a commission, so I was in a good mood. I was looking forward to some intellectual conversation and a shot of Jameson Whiskey with my good friend Will. He is a poet, a damn good one I might add. He and I could talk for hours, and sometime we wouldn’t talk at all for hours. He is the perfect friend, low maintenance. Not one of those so called friends that you have to constantly talk to, to casually reassure them that you’re their friend. That gets so boring after awhile. Will is cool. He is working on a series of poems by famous philosophers and important people. Lets say that you take ten dead philosophers that are quite controversial, I mean he would write a poem by say Socrates as if he were alive today. That’s the big idea. If these ten dead philosophers were alive today, what kinda poetry would they write? Even if they never wrote poetry, that idea is so cool. Will reminds me of myself with my paintings. I just painted a series of paintings called lost in New York. The whole idea is that I am painting the city from the perspective of being lost, and don’t get me wrong. I have been lost here many times. Which reminds me, Saint Patty’s day is my three-year anniversary living in the big apple. So I have a lot to celebrate tonight. Anyway, Will likes to think, just like me. We don’t have to make small talk just to be friends, because we are both thinking of our next great idea. I guess artists like to hang out with like-minded people. I do anyway and that’s all that matters.

So I avoid the slushy corner and wait till the light turns green then cross from Spring Street to the West side of Sixth Ave, and walk toward Greenwich Village. I’m thinking about Whiskey and avoiding the slush. I wish I didn’t have to carry my freshly cleaned Goddamn suit with me though. This could be a real problem later if I decide to tie one on. And I did, after all it’s St. Patty’s day in New York and I have a lot to celebrate. Fortunately I had on my good shoes, because I have been in the gallery all day in Soho.

I like New York when it’s snowing because it feels clean, not like in the summer when it’s too Goddamn hot and smells like rotten food and piss. The city is blanketed in this beautiful white coat for a little while, like a gorgeous woman in a fancy fur coat. Hiding the sins of the city. The five blocks were nothing, and I wasn’t even wearing my hat. Everything smelled so clean and fresh, and I could hear the Saint Patty’s day parties all over downtown. You don’t even have to have a reason to party in New York; there is something like twenty five bars in every square mile of Manhattan. Everyone likes to party anyway, so Saint Patty’s day is just a grand excuse. When I got to my friends bar, “The Four Faced Liar” that’s what it’s called I’m not kidding, that’s really what it’s called. My DJ friend and his buddy decided that when they came over from Ireland, New York needed another bar. God bless them, because it’s the best Goddamn bar downtown. And I’ve been to many of them. His is the best. The bar started getting popular about six months ago. I was there when they first opened it almost two years ago. It was empty for a long time. That was the best; I would walk in and be treated like a king, me a struggling artist. It was great, they would buy me drinks all night and I had to crawl onto the subway and my tab was five bucks. It’s still like that for me, there are just more people here. Mostly NYU students. The Four Faced Liar is very close to the NYU campus, near Washington Square Park where I used to buy my weed.

Anyway, the snow was coming down in big fat snowflakes all wet and gorgeous. I could hear the thumping music coming from the bar when I got to the corner. I noticed that the sex shop didn’t have much traffic on St. Patty’s day, but they stayed open anyway just to catch the occasional pervert or horny couple leaving some place drunk. The windows of the bar were all fogged up, like something crazy was going on inside. It draws you in, and you want to see what all the excitement was all about. I was there for whiskey and good conversation. What I didn’t expect, was this beautiful red haired girl wearing a green tee shirt with a saying on it, “Irishmen need a little l’ass” right across her big beautiful pale breasts. That killed me. I haven’t been with a woman in nine months on account of my separation and all, and here’s this unbelievable sassy Irish girl that I’ve never seen before picking up empty glasses from the Goddamn drunks outside. I have been coming to this bar for almost two years, and you think someone woulda let me know that some sassy Irish girl started waiting tables here. Oh well, I guess I have to find out on my own. I wish I didn’t have this stupid shitty clean suit over my shoulder on St. Patty’s day. It’s the Goddamn suit my father in law bought for me after I got married. Right now it feels like an anchor, just like my marriage.