Black Tie with a Cult in NYC
Some weekends you plan. This one just happened to me. It was one of the craziest weekends of my life, and New York kept escalating while I kept saying yes.
It started innocently enough. I was lucky to be visiting my friends Julia and Lexi, and their dad Steve invited me to run a 10k with them. That’s how I found myself running through Central Park on a Saturday morning, surrounded by thousands of people, pretending this had been part of my plan all along.
The city was clearly in a strange mood. At one point I walked past an old man sunbathing on a park bench with mirrors, angling the reflection at his face with the focus of a professional. Nobody looked twice. In hindsight, that man was a warning.
Then, somewhere along the way, I stumbled into a chess tournament in a pool hall. So obviously I sat down and played. I came out second, which for me is basically becoming world champion. And here’s where the weekend stopped making sense: through that tournament, I got invited to a black-tie party.
I owned exactly zero black-tie anything. So I sprinted to Zara for a suit and somehow got talked into an absurdly expensive belt at SuitSupply, because apparently that’s who I am under pressure. Minutes before the event, my acquaintance texted me: he wasn’t coming. So there I was. Alone, overdressed, holding the most expensive belt of my life, with a decision to make.
I went anyway. Obviously.
The party was hosted by what I can only describe as a cult. I was the only non-Cantonese person in one of the most luxurious houses I’ve ever seen: grand piano, velvet sofas, crystal everywhere, butlers gliding between rooms, and the Brooklyn Bridge glowing through the windows. It was so fancy I applied the golden rule of suspicious luxury: don’t eat or drink anything until you watch someone else survive it first.
They pointed at the paintings and casually mentioned they had just bought them from the Louvre. Including a Monet. The way you’d mention you picked up groceries. Then they explained that their organization, devoted to metaphysics and philosophy, was going to improve humanity. I smiled, nodded, and kept my glass untouched a little longer. I believe they launder money.
When I left, they offered me a driver to take me home. Home was a hostel with bunk beds. Going from a Monet to a bunk bed in one night was beyond real.
I never dared to talk to them again. They kept writing to me.
Life is full of randomness.