Immediately after my firefighting midterm test, I roared home, took one of the most superficial and unsatisfactory showers of my life, stuffed several handfuls of random clothing into a bag, and ran out into the street to catch a cab to Union Station. Susan had left the previous day for New York City, where our friend Richard was hosting a dinner in honor of his own birthday. I had told them I would join them as soon as I could.

I made it to the train station with thin minutes to spare, practically ripped my tickets from the iron maw of the ticket machine, and sprinted for the gate. My legs, exhausted from a day spent hauling ass up ladders and staircases, were feeling precariously rubbery by the time I arrived. It was then that I discovered that the train was delayed. I bought a sandwich that looked like it had been stamped out by a hydraulic machine, and sat on the cool tile floor to wait.

After an hour and a gladiatory struggle at the gate, I boarded the train. The world immediately began to feel better. I went to the dining car and selected the items that intuitively appealed to my body: a beer and a cold salad. The night whirred by in isolated lights and momentary flashes of dilapidated railyards.

I curved myself into the open two seats on my side of the aisle and napped fitfully. I was running a slight fever, and the railcar felt stuffy. This elevated temperature is a curious effect I've observed in the evenings following fire class. It does not feel like a normal fever, which is generally accompanied by unpleasant aches, chills, and malaise. It simply feels like my ambient body temperature has kicked up a couple notches, and I am radiating heat, much as you feel when you have a slight sunburn. My only explanation is that the class causes such widespread tissue damage that it prompts this systemic response, akin to the throbbing heat one feels at the site of an injury. Alternatively, I suppose that it could be the result of an increased metabolism as my body tries to get rid of the abundance of waste products generated by a day of intense exertion.

The temperature had subsided by 11 PM, and we were nearing New York. The train was now well over an hour late, and I held out little hope of meeting Richard and friends at the restaurant. I was exhausted, and wanted to drop off my stuff at the hotel and perhaps take a more effective shower before rejoining polite company. Every time I brought my hands near my face I would again smell my disgusting leather gloves, and no amount of hand-wringing in the train's tiny bathroom was getting rid of it.

Armed with the street address of the hotel, I stepped off the train and headed confidently towards the street level to catch a cab. As I did so, an Elton John concert in neighboring Madison Square Garden ended, and thousands of people flowed out around me with an immense, terrifying roar. Who would have thought that Elton fucking John could bring in so many people? Apparently his monstrous and utterly shameless cashing-in on the death of his friend Princess Di bought him that number 1 hit that made him cool to a whole new generation. While in childish days I loved Rocket Man and its funky background noises, now my loathing for the star was made complete as his fans spilled out into the streets of New York and instantly snapped up every cab within miles.

I'm relatively new to the NYC scene, having grown up a country bumpkin who thought that all urban dwellers had some sort of mental imbalance that forced them into unnatural proximity with others. I had no idea where the hotel was located nor how I might get there on the subway. Gamely, I asked a couple folks for directions, receiving in turn a litany of subway and bus lines that might as well have been the assembly instructions for an aircraft carrier. I decided it was a cab or nothing, and returned to the street girded for battle.

I fought off two elderly ladies and a "helpful" man hailing cabs for tips and bludgeoned my way into a taxi, which then took on a trio of coked-up partiers hopping to the next club. By the time I got to the hotel, it was nearly midnight. The Carlton Arms turned out to be the nicest dump I've ever stayed in. Every wall, every surface in the entire place has been painted, collaged, or otherwise influenced; it looks like it was decorated by a team of delusional schizophrenics. It was more than a little reminiscent of the basement level of Harkness Co-op at Oberlin College, where former student and itinerant provocateur Gus once provoked a firestorm of artistic critique by repainting a beloved restroom mural to create "The Hell Bathroom."

The interiors were so opulently, obsessively over the top that it hardly mattered when the room's sink wouldn't shut off completely, or when single bare light bulb in the bathroom burned out, or the fact that the room locks were supplemented by padlocks issued to each guest. I gave it four stars.

It was too late and I was too exhausted for a party, so I crashed out on the creaky bed. When Susan returned to the room she reported that Richard had gone all out to make the party a milestone of wretched excess. "I don't want to see a single wine glass empty," he had told the waiters, and they had willingly complied. As a result, everyone was thoroughly plastered by the end of the night.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, the first thing we did after breakfast the next morning was to visit the New York City Fire Museum.