The day after Christmas 1977 was cold. Typical weather for the Lower East Side and I wished I had worn a sweater under my leather jacket, as I walked from St. Mark’s Place to the Bowery. Most everything was closed for the holiday. Not CBGBs. The Dead Boys were playing for the orphans of New York. No turkey left-overs. Only plenty of beer. As I neared the bar, a white-wrapped object struck the sidewalk not five feet from me.
At first I thought someone had thrown trash out of the nearby SRO hotel, except the bag started getting red, then someone groaned within the soiled sheet. The man was in his 50s. A fourth floor window was open. Not a usually fatal height, but he landed on his head. Bone was showing under his greasy hair.
A crowd was gathering on the sidewalk. I rolled the man on his back. A wit said he looked like a used tampon. I told them to shut up. They muttered under their breath. A siren wailed from Houston.
“I’m not on the Bowery, am I?” The man asked desperately in staggered gasps. “I don’t want to die on the Bowery.”
“No, you’re not on the Bowery.” I lied hoping he couldn’t see where he was, except the huddle of onlookers were not so sympathetic.
“Sure, you on the Bowery. Where you expect to be? Park Avenue.”
The police arrived within seconds and EMS a minute afterwards to whisk the fatally injured man to a hospital. The crowd filtered into the SRO and I entered CBGBs. A tinge of blood on my boots.
Killing yourself takes courage and nowhere is this life-ending bravery more evident than Pattaya, where every week some farang leaps off his condo balcony to be embrace by the impact of his fall.
The circumstances are always the same; broke, love-lost, and not wanting to go home to a home that ain’t a home anymore because you sold everything to make Pattaya home forever.
Germans, Swedes, Americans and various other nationalities populated the list of men determined to take one small step to eternity and probably tell themselves on the way to their doom.
“At least I’m dying in Pattaya.”
I wish there was a better way, because usually things don’t so much get better as livable, but if not watch out down below.
GERONIMO.
For a related article click on this URL