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20 June 2013updated 23 Jun 2013 11:02am

Wet, broke and ill in New York – but it’s good to see my old pal Razors

Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.

By Nicholas Lezard

So, here I am in New York, shivering and sweating with a lurgy in my old pal Razors’ apartment, digesting the news that, thanks to the reluctance of an accounts department somewhere, I have only £47 to my name. The rain falls in sheets outside and the weeping sore on my foot caused by the new shoes I had to get to replace the suede ones that rotted under the weather’s onslaught throbs ominously. Is this indeed the lurgy at all, or the opening stages of septicaemia?

The other news I am having a hard time digesting is that Razors is apparently now entitled to cast a vote in the Academy Awards. I have to admit I’m impressed, although form obliges me to sneer loudly and incredulously to his face. Those of you who are late arrivals to this column may not immediately grasp why the fact this person can now vote for Best Beard or whatever at the Oscars is a symbol of a civilisation far gone in collapse and moral degeneration. Actually it’s not really that bad and I’d value Razors’ opinion over any one of the other bozos in the entertainment business, with the honourable exceptions, perhaps, of David Lynch and Joss Whedon. Then again, I was slightly surprised to learn that Razors has not seen Mulholland Drive.

“You’d love it,” I say. “It’s got women snogging in it.”

“Right, that’s getting my vote then,” he replies, but I have a hunch that you’re not really meant to vote for films that came out a decade or so ago. Still, it might be worth a shot. And while we’re on the subject of homosexuality, I find it immensely amusing that Razors, despite being – how best to put this? – emphatically and indeed at times clamorously heterosexual, has just moved into the gayest area I have ever seen outside Castro Street.

In my experience gay men have no difficulty at all in discerning whether another man is gay or not – and indeed in this neck of the woods I don’t even have to rely on my very unreliable gaydar, as everyone here is simply flaming, which I think is wonderful – so the spectacle of two middle-aged Britons hanging out together but not actually holding hands causes people to do double takes as we walk down the street. Razors had to enlist my help in order to buy some bedding and a coffee-maker from the local equivalent of John Lewis, and after a couple of drinks to prepare for the ordeal we were smilingly rebuked by a woman for “having too much fun” as we careened about the place making silly jokes about some of the products on offer.

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Meanwhile, we have found a routine. We lived together for two years and have a pretty reliable knowledge of what makes the other tick. It is not knowledge that demands particularly arcane skill. Basically, it involves a certain degree of hedonism and that means we fit right in here. People may think that Americans are acutely conscious of their health but this is just superficial. They still make filterless Lucky Strikes with only the most cursory and non-committal of health warnings, and the local diner offers two free cocktails – either Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers – with their three-egg fried breakfasts, which weigh in at about 50 per cent alcohol. A country that encourages you to get smashed at breakfast time should command a degree of respect, wouldn’t you say?

We have also discovered a truly excellent Italian restaurant whose waitress has developed a loathing for us so powerful that we find ourselves compelled to go back again and again in order to experience it. Ah, what a city. I have been coming here for five decades and it never palls. I would up sticks and move here for good if the Beloved and my children were not in London. (Well, maybe not. They don’t understand cricket and no one here seems to be very interested in explaining the finer points of baseball to me, however many times I ask.) Still, my mother, whom I am accompanying, has often wondered why I never did make the move.

Then again, I look at my bank balance and reflect that it wouldn’t cover the cab fare to JFK. I may have to move here, like it or not. Suddenly I find myself getting a bit homesick, an emotion I have not experienced since I was about 11. This lurgy isn’t helping much, either; one prefers to be unwell in one’s own bed, however excellent the hospitality elsewhere (and Razors’ is exemplary). The NHS may be under threat from the Ghastliest British Government Ever but at least it is more than notionally still there.

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