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 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.
“You have a couple of 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 were 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.
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 be able to get some money. $ 200 is my soul worth. I have to get a new job
Comparative standing at the windows the dining room twenty-seven floors above Wall Street. Jersey across the river behind that the monster continent of America stretches in some 3,000 MI. For the last month I’ve been confined to this island Two miles by 1
Fifteen miles is all I know. I have no idea. Boris looks like anymore concrete sidewalks asphalt streets and steel skyscrapers cover Manhattan break 4th Central Park boys dog s******* mothers 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.
Cbgb’s was really boring last night I need a break from that place hang out at a bar enlightened one the smoke from other people’s cigarettes belongs I can’t hear what anybody says the light is poor your senses deprived by the punk rock drunk. I just gave 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 he has a Barcalounger the lamp plug into nothing I’m so comfortable I wish I could be as comfortable he needs no money I have no money I should just hit the road. Obama’s cultivating a rock garden. He doesn’t take his boots off bums do and they 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 20 years
The highway is lonely play tonight they’re still strangers driving Westwood so I’m leaving their wives of their homes others their jobs sway Last Chance in Interstate bar girls beer booze all you want open all night to all the lights nowhere Nevada.
Later
And over the phone at the SRO dropping quarters $3 for 3 minutes. We both express our love and she told me,” it was a mistake to come back to West Virginia.”
I never Wonder and I always thought she would go and not come back
” none of my friends live here anymore. One friend Jane. . She’s in the hospital he just gave birth to triplets. My brother Bobby. I never see him. I’ve been here 2 days already I want to leave. What should I do