I remember Albany like a dirty dream.

All I wanted was sex, but strangers' starved grins cooled me.

I wore the heels off new black cowboy boots while walking around frigid, unfamiliar winter streets. I was in a in a New York city I did not know. Catherine had asked me to visit and with an 18-year-old's thoughtlessness, stupidity, or impulsive abandon, I grabbed a spot on a coach bus with its industrial stink and dirty seats.

We stopped somewhere and I managed to suck down a beer hidden in my bags, then begged a stranger's cigarette.

I did not know yet that youth's whims and the scent of urine in an alley in cold Albany would fade. I did not know that one day I would want to fall in love desperately, as if I could bring my dreams to life, but the guitar strings snapped and the music stopped.