Bright Lights, Big City

The narrator is in a nightclub, either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge, talking to a young bald woman. He’s not sure how he ended up in whatever nightclub he’s in but figures that his friend Tad took him there. Tad’s only goal is to seek pleasure, and the pursuit of pleasure requires constant movement around New York City. However, the narrator doesn’t want to be in this nightclub, talking to a woman with a shaved head. He wants to be “the kind of guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and steps out to cop the Times and croissants” (3). He wants to spend his days playing tennis and strolling around art museums and meeting women at Friday night publishing parties.

The narrator leaves the bald girl to go snort four lines of cocaine in the restroom. The drug gives him renewed energy. As he’s leaving the restroom, he spots the kind of woman he’s been looking to meet. She is “tall, dark, and alone” (4). When the narrator asks if she’d like to dance, she says that she doesn’t speak English and looks at him as though he frightens her.