For somebody who grew up with at least half of the people surrounding me in the bar, I couldn't have felt more out of place if I tried. The night before Thanksgiving always brought back all the neighborhood college kids, sporting their roll-neck sweaters and JCrew rugby shirts. This holiday also seemed to lure everyone else out too. Anybody that had relocated but was in the old hood visiting family for the weekend, congregated on barstools, as surely as they would on pews at the parish churches on Sunday morning.

My friend Louie convinced me that we should head to The Refectory Room or "The Rec" as everyone called it. The Rec earned the nickname because you were sure to leave the joint wrecked. It was a notoriously easy spot to get into. They let virtually anyone in between the ages of sixteen and twenty, even if they had the worst fake id or chalked license, especially if you were a girl. So needless to say it was a pretty popular spot.

And it must have been a great business plan because the place had been around forever and was always busy. No matter what time of day you came in here, you were bound to run into someone you knew. New York City is a huge place with millions of people. But in our little corner of South Brooklyn everyone is connected to each other in one way or another. Either they were your cousin's cousin, or you played skelly caps with them in the schoolyard when you were ten, or you made out with their best friend in Wood Park when you were thirteen. And tonight they all made an appearance at The Rec. It was like that old tv show my Grandmother loved when she was younger, "This Is Your Life."

Louie thought it would be good to come here for shits and giggles. But at twenty-five, I felt like an old man right then and I wasn't exactly laughing. It was too much. So I let him know my opinion of the evening. "This place is stupid packed. I barely have room to lift my beer to my mouth. And they're playing some of the shittiest music. Remind me why we're here again?" He sipped his beer and peeped the crowd. "Cheer the fuck up Dom! We should be able to easily score some sweet, young pussy amongst all these drunk college girls. Don't forget we're here as conquering kings!"

Having just gotten back into town ourselves after finishing up a sweet gig with our punk-rap band "The Deans of Dyker," Louie was counting on impressing the ladies. As the opening act for an agro-metal band that had a solid fan base, a fair amount of radio play and was even breaking into the rotation on MTV, it did feel pretty damn impressive to tell people. We had played some legitimately huge venues. Sure the audiences weren't there to see us specifically, but we didn't get booed off the stages. Plus we actually sold a decent number of discs and a lot of merch. The only downside was, that little of taste of success made leaving the road and coming back home, to where I had nothing much going on, all the more depressing. Now I knew what I was missing.

Louie watched two girls in mini-skirts climb onto the bar. He adjusted his fedora and said, "Easy as pie..." before he headed in their direction. I didn't follow him. Instead I stood by myself and watched him mack it to the girls for a few minutes. He helped one of them climb down from the bar and was whispering God only knows what into her ear while she had her arms draped around his neck. I had to admit that the guy knew how to have a good time no matter where he was. You could drop him into the middle of a fucking convent and he'd have the nuns smoking a spliff or doing bumps of coke with him in no time.

Then he looked at me over the first girl's head, pointed at the one who was still shaking her ass on the bar, and waved at me to come over to them. Through my beer goggles and the haze of the smoke in the bar I thought she looked to be about the same age as my seventeen year old sister. Truthfully, I wasn't into that kind of pie, because I bet cherry probably tastes the same as a bologna sandwich in central booking. All I wanted to do was go home and climb into bed, so I could wake up tomorrow at about noon. Then I'd go directly to my Grandma's house for a slice of pumpkin instead.

She was the best thing about being back in Brooklyn.

So I shook my head no and pointed towards the bathrooms. Leaving Louie to enjoy his jailbait, I disappeared into the crowd. My plan was to actually escape out the side door without a word, the classic "Irish Goodbye" even though I'm not Irish, so he couldn't talk me out of leaving. It seemed like my best option at this point or I was in danger of getting pretty surly and therefore plenty drunk if I stayed much longer. A hangover was not ideal on Thanksgiving Day. Been there, done that.

But before I got to the exit, I was stopped by a manicured hand on my shoulder. I turned to find my bandmate Kenny's girlfriend, Magdalena standing there. She yelled into my year, "Hey Dom, have you seen where my dumbass boyfriend went? That douchebag was gone for three months and it's his first night back and he's already ditched me!" I didn't have to lean down to yell back because Maggie was as tall as I was. At 5'10" she was pretty tall for a girl and of course that's the first thing people spot about her. "I haven't seen him at all. Good luck finding him in this." I gestured my hand around at the crowd that was gyrating to The Tootsee Roll. "I'm cutting out of here. It's not my scene."

Maggie shook my shoulder a little bit. "Don't be such a grumpy cocksucker Dom." I laughed, because true to form and the second thing people usually realized about her, she swore like a long shore-man. Then Maggie leaned in even closer. "Stay and I'll make it worth your while asshole." I jerked my head away. I couldn't have been more shocked if I pissed on the third rail of the D train. What type of game was she playing at? I mean I knew she had to be playing one. Even though Kenny treated her like crap most of the time, and they argued enough to irritate everybody else around them, Maggie was devoted to him. She wasn't one of those slags that cheated. Nope, Kenny had that part covered for them.

Then Maggie gave a little nod over her right shoulder and that was when I spotted the girl that was standing behind her and holding onto Maggie's hand. She was almost easy to overlook, not because she wasn't somebody worth noticing, but just because she was so short. If she was 5'1" I would have been surprised. But despite how tiny she was, this was the exact girl my eyes always seemed to find in the crowd at The Rec anytime she was there.

What first caught my attention was the fact that she hung out with a bunch of girls who wore their hair in that stupid "Friends" style that was so popular lately, but not her. Her ash blonde hair was cut really short. It was like Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby" short – which was fucking hot. But unlike Mia, this girl wasn't some emaciated twig. She had curves - which was hotter.

In all of my years playing in punk bands and going to shows, I've seen plenty of girls with short hair, or part of their head buzzed. Hell, at a Bad Brains show you meet girls with completely shaved heads. But I think what made me take particular note of this girl, was that I couldn't understand why she was hanging out with the crew she was with. There she would be with her brown suede paratrooper boots on, standing next to a handful of sitcom character clones. But what confused me even more was that she was always laughing and having a good time with them.

I didn't get it. She definitely looked like she belonged standing next to me, not them.