This morning a knock on my SRO door.It was Ernie the porter for 27 11th Street. An eviction notice in his hand. He was about fifty. I had never saw him outside the building. No one had, almost as if he were in hiding, but he always said hello. Friendly.
"I have nothing to do with this. If you pay right away. There's no problem. This is an SRO. The owners are used to people having no money."
"Will they change the locks?" I owed three weeks. $45 per week. $135. I had $63 in my pocket. I already had borrowed from everyone I knew. Alice had given $60. She only earned $120 a week. No one at CBGBs was rich.
"Can I pay one week."
"Yes, that will buy you a few days."
"That's all I need." I shut the door and sat on the sagging bed. This SRO was bad, but not the bottom. Flophouses like the Palace Hotel over CBGBs were worst. Drunks and junkies crashed there. Here the residents had jobs. Not in banking. Not union. Just jobs like mine. A waiter in an executive dining room on Wall Street. Worse was the street.
I sat with my nerves jangling, wondering where I was going to get $75 more. I had my last unemployment check from my teaching job in Boston for $110 coming. Not tomorrow and probably next week. I could ask my boss at Ebasco for an advance. Until then I'll have to avoid the manager. Arthur hates all of us. Like we were to blame for his having a crappy job. George, who worked as a dishwasher at a hotel, said the manager had been fired fom the Plaza for stealing. No jail, just sentencing to sit in the office at the door. Like Ernie. He never left the building.
S*** this does wonders for my nerves. My boss at work get in advance on money. He doesn't know, it said to ask Arthur this afternoon. I avoided him yesterday, cuz I thought this wouldn't be a problem. I was wrong it is a problem
Work isn't going to answer this problem. Hustling 53rd and 3rd to get some money. $20 is my soul worth up there. I have to get a new job
Later standing at the windows the dining room 27 floors above Wall Street. Jersey across the river behind that the monster continent of America stretches in some 3,000 miles. For the last month I've been confined to this island. 2 miles by 15 Mi is all I know. I have no idea. Concrete sidewalks asphalt streets and steel skyscrapers cover Manhattan except for 4th Central Park. I crave real nature
Later
The end of the road in Seattle I-90 Hobos under the bridge This is Skid Row Nowhere else to go Alaska to the north No roads go there Only ferries No money Stay in Seattle On the continent's edge.
CBGBs was really boring last night I need a break from that place hang out at a bar without having to inhale one the smoke from other people's cigarettes. I couldn't hear what anybody says the light is poor your senses deprived by the punk rock drunk. I should just give it all up and headed west. America's first step from here is New Jersey. And that thought is enough to make me go nowhere.
Later
I get my check early from Ebasco.
Hopefully Ernie will let me back into 11 West 11th Street very sweaty. There are tramps camping kind of Bleeker Street. One has a Barcalounger. A lamp plug into nothing. He so comfortable I wish I could be as comfortable. He needs no money. I have no money. I should just hit the road. The bum is cultivating a rock garden. He doesn't take his boots off. Many bums do and put them under their heads don't get stolen sleep drunk. This one is different his name is Jim. He comes from Kansas. He hasn't been back there in over twenty years.
The highway is lonely play tonight. Strangers driving westward. Maybe leaving their wives, homes, jobs. I have nothing. Last Chance on the Interstate bar girls beer booze all you want open all night to all the lights nowhere Nevada. Sounds like paradise. Free.
Later
And over the phone at the SRO dropping quarters $3 for three minutes. We both express our love and she told me," "It was a mistake to come back to West Virginia. Maybe you should come back and teach school again in Boston."
It was a solid plan. I was going nowhere, but friends live there anymore. Alice isn't coming nack. I have nothing here, but so does everyone else.
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