From the Lower East Side

It is gusting and the cold burns your face. It is almost unpleasant enough to ruin your night. Four boys spill out of a restaurant and take the subway downtown, one stop. They disappear into an apartment on Avenue B briefly, only to reemerge and walk north. After roughly a block, they approach a large man sitting on a stool hugging himself through a chunky North Face jacket. He sits outside a closed shop, next to a defaced wooden door. Hands are thrust determinedly into pockets and obscenities are mouthed as the large man halts the boys. He asks if there's a problem. He is told no, it's just fucking cold. He agrees, waves the boys through the small door, and returns to holding himself. He is also probably swearing now.
The staircase inside climbs steeply and has no handrails. Sounds spill out of the door at the top: muffled music and shouting mostly, but also some screams and maybe a couple of smashing glasses. There isn't much light in the staircase. There is enough to see the tags on the walls. The light trickling out of the doorway at the top is reddish and the walls are black. As they reach the doorway and turn into the bar the boys pause briefly because people are so densely packed in. They get to the bar and drinks are bought. This happens numerous times. Meanwhile girls dance on the bar, people dance on the table and one falls off, and people notice there is no DJ. The dancefloor is packed when indie and hip hop plays and subsequently drains when other types of music come on. The place is unremarkable, except for the considered and assertive hedonism in such a small space. The pervasive attitude is fuck tomorrow. In fact, fuck later tonight. Nownownow. It is contagious. It is not the practiced ennui these kids usually display. The boys, along with the others in the bar, are vibrant and lively.
Come morning, they leave. The wind is still blowing and it is still cold. It is still difficult to light a cigarette. The subway is warm and people with no home sleep against its walls, but they are rising now, to avoid the crowds of people who will push and shove through here in the coming hours.
Underneath the bar, the grocery owners raise the corrugated steel guarding their shop and watch the kids roll out onto the footpath and road. Despite the cold, some sit on the ground, and some hold their jackets over their arms. A few wait until they can buy water from the grocery. The rest walk off. The kids wonder how the store owners get up so early and the store owners wonder why the kids still stay up so late.