Kasteli Cafe
I did a double take walking past the Kasteli Café (why it is called a café I am not sure because it doesn’t sell any food, but whatever) on 8th Avenue last night – it was about 8:30 and I had been pounding martinis and bitching about men with my friend Jason for a couple of hours, so I wasn’t operating on all cylinders, but something about the place looked oddly familiar. There was a good, if murky, memory attached, so I went in. Two older gentlemen were chatting animatedly at the bar, and the young lady behind it came over at once with a smile and asked what I wanted to order.
“Beefeater Martini, up with a twist,” I said, trying (and failing) not to slur. She mixed it fast, set it in front of me and quoted me, as stated above, the laughable price of $6. OK, granted there were three people in the place and it looked like it was about to close, but still, score! It was also about 10% vermouth, which is sacrilege to any true martini drinker, but served in a respectably sized glass and not at all watered down. When you’ve inhaled as many martinis as I have over the past nine or so years, you know damn well when an establishment has watered down their alcohol, which in my opinion is about the most disgusting thing they do.
I sipped and looked around, trying to remember. It was summertime, maybe late afternoon, and I had gone in why? Was I alone? Had I met someone? Something about a bus…and oh Jesus, there it was. There he was. I was 28, riding the M7 up 8th Avenue, and he was standing in front of the bar, dressed in army fatigues and looking like he was waiting for something. My hand completely detached from my brain, flew up and slapped the yellow tape-bell to stop the bus, because right then I didn’t think I could go on living if I didn’t find out who this vision was. We had a wonderful afternoon, talking about his life in the Army and how great New York was. Maybe we made out a little. I gave him my number, never expecting him to call, but he did, late that night, sounding very drunk and almost close to tears. He told me that I was beautiful, an amazing and special spirit and he just thought I should know that.
I wonder if he’s still alive. And if he is, whether he would end up like the gentleman I spent the rest of that evening with, an Army man himself, who came home from Vietnam with all his limbs intact, but also with a serious case of PTSD and to a life that didn’t quite know what to do with him anymore. He lives in a single-resident-occupancy building on 24th between 7th and 8th, some of the pricest real estate in the city that the landlord is angling to sell and turn into condos. We played some music on the jukebox and danced a little bit, and after that I mostly let him talk, which it was clear he desperately needed to do. He’s extremely funny and salty, still enormously optimistic about life, and simply couldn’t believe I was spending all this time listening to his old war stories. “You have such a beautiful spirit,” he kept saying. So they tell me.
I thought about how the experiences that have shaped me with respect to the opposite sex tend to take place in bars, both good and bad, surprising and disappointing. I remembered the bartender who asked for a blowjob behind the bar after closing time, which I probably would have done had his equipment not been so unremarkable AND if he hadn’t poked me in the eye with it to boot), the time I got so smashed on dirty martinis that I made out with a fifty-eight-year-old Irishman, and kept giggling every time he said something dirty because I couldn’t stop thinking of the Lucky Charms leprechaun, and the two sailors I met at a Village dive and later lost my virginity to in my friend’s hotel room, just to name a few. Spending time with a man I had no intention of doing anything with other than talking was a lovely and unexpected departure for me. It reminded me of a time when I didn’t feel so let down by men, and by myself. The breeze wafted in from outside, we rested our arms on the long polished bar and escaped life together for a little while.
Kasteli Cafe, 372 8th Avenue (take A, C, E to 34th Street or 1 to 28th Street and walk one block west); 212-564-7515
