I got lost in New York once when i was 16. My father was playing chess in the park with honos in central park and i went off my own. Couldn't find the chess boards again untill much later when he was not there.
So i decided that i wanted to get out of the park, i just started walking in one direction untill i smelled the asphalt. Eventually i heard music from somwhere and went towards it. That was at about 85th street. A band was playing some sort of latin music and a bunch of latins were hanging around. They were not really dancing and partying and shit since this was the middle of the day, they just stood around and listened.
I had no idea how the streets and avenues where laid out at this time so i just started walking around. I eventually ended up at about 120th street where there were brown people everywhere.
The only possesions i had with me at this time was half a pack of unfiltered lucky strikes, 5 dollars and a hotel keycard. Black women with large bottoms gave me angry looks as i made my way through their little neighbourhood. What struck me at this point was how quiet everything was. In contrast to broadway and where i had been before this was a desert. I smoked my lucky strikes trying to figure out where the fuck i was. I took a look at my keycard and saw on it an adress and an ad for some camera-shit. The adress anyway was 23rd street. I came to a place were there actually was some human life. There i asked a police officer about the adress, he said i had to go down this street where he stood till i came to 23rd street. So well, i started walking down all those 100 hundred streets. Just me, my cigarettes and a fleeting coca cola now and then. Felt sort of good to be honest.
Eventually, i finally got there. This place looked nothing like the place my hotel had been in. The buildings were shorter and dirtier, sunlight came through at a more intruding rate. At the exact place were the adress on the card pointed, there was this camera store. As it turned out, the adress was not the adress of the hotel but the adress for where the camera special offer shit could be bought. I just started walking around completely at random, i swear to god i must have walked about 300+ blocks that day.
Eventually i asked another police officer about the name of the hotel and he gave me the adress. Just as i started walking towards it, it started pouring down rain. At this point i could not give a damn about taking shelter, i just wanted to get to that goddamn hotel and pour a bottle of whiskey down my throat. So i just kept walking getting so wet that rain could no longer soak me anymore. And eventually i reached the hotel. All my cigarettes were wet but i smoked them anyway.