8234. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #73

73. 'NO-TELL MOTEL'

I never lived without money. I never

lived with money either, don't get me

wrong, but those were days when other

people would provide for me. Mothers

make lunches, and all that. Once I began

being on my own, I had to get resourceful

quite quickly. New York City, in 1967, did

not quite yet demand that you have a million

dollars always at the ready, but it demanded

cash, and at the ready. As I mentioned before,

places like that Polish camp-survivor guy

would allow me to pretty much eat for a

quarter. There was another place, on Eighth

Street, where they had these massive and

pretty great potato knishes, also for a quarter.

One or two places had hot dogs too, some at

two for a quarter! I always had a supply of

corn muffins and things I'd manage to get,

and then of course I was adept at scrounging

around  -  meaning to say, restaurants throw

out a lot of good junk, as do supermarkets.

One thing I never did was wait in lines

for food-kitchen stuff. That was mostly

for the real bums  -  old, staggering scruffy

guys, beat by life and downtrodden. I could

have been there, but never wanted to. I'd

stand around fire-barrels with them, in

the cold, and sometimes the episodes were

good. But I never waiting in soup lines.

There was one at a mission by Canal Street.

It came with some prayers and stuff you had

to go through first. I never much wanted that

either, like making a deal for a meal. Deals

For Meals! What a concept. Except 'Meals

On Wheels' stole it. One funny thing, all

through the 1980's and more, when I did

finally have a job and a career and all

that crap, with St. George Press, and I'd

get a big, fat sixteen or so pound turkey

each year, at Thanksgiving, as part of

the Thanksgiving paycheck, my wife,

son, and I would, without fail, each

year, take the turkey in to that very

mission and donate it. For twelve years

we did that. It was the best feeling in

the world, doing that. We'd walk right

past the slowly growing line of hungry

men, usually the Saturday or Sunday

before the holiday, and donate it for

their dinner. They always wanted us

to fill out a stupid tax-donation slip

to deduct the cost of the turkey, or

something. I always declined. It

wasn't about taking back something

for a damned free turkey.

-

I used to sit and try to think why I did

that. It wasn't for pride, or superiority.

It had more to do with wanting to

remember those days I'd remember;

of these old guys standing around

the shacks and sheds off the crumbling

Westside Highway area, the old meat

markets and little factory places. Every

guy, silent and brooding, with some sort

of cigarette dangling, unshaven and

unkempt as they were, trying to stay

warm in their shoddy clothes and hats,

broken down old shoes and bad teeth.

They'd crowd the barrel, flames and

warmth shading the area in an intimate

privacy of men, the downtrodden.

If you got them to start, they each had

a story, some meager fragment of a

life, tried and broken over some matter

or another. Trading cigarettes around,

they'd look at me and start that old 'Son',

or 'Kid' routine  -  'don't end up like me

here, stay with it from the start, work and

get ahead. I made mistakes, and they've

killed me, but I have no regrets, just

this life, that's all I got left....' and they'd

go on. As different as each were, so too

each story was alike enough to give the

mark/handle 'ugly life, bad turn' a good

use. That's all gone now, but it was all

still there, even when I left. An entire

subculture of under-the-radar types. New

York City was made for them. They are

the underside of each New York story or

NY Noir you ever see or hear. The old

men who'd flamed out, lost a few fingers,

had gotten beaten or maimed, fell off the

train and stayed down. That's where I was

too, and where I'd probably end up  -

had I not been just a tad more careful,

I suppose, or even lucky, then any of

them. Life always has its turns; I

just never turned.

-

509 east 11th Street, when I got 

there was pretty much a shambles. 

A run down shocker of a walkup, a 

few flights of stairs. It had one of those 

lobbies wherein you just know that, 

since the year 1900, at least 5000 people 

must have lived and grown out from there  -

every lineage and every life-story there

ever was. Generations of immigrants and

strugglers. The dead and the living. The 

kind of place when, as soon as you 

entered, the soup or sauce being made 

on the fourth floor had already sent its

aroma downward somehow to permeate

the entire stairwell and entryway. All

these smells were intermingled and

unavoidable. The walls had some old

black and white tile motif, patterned

design, circles and swirls, with large

patches of missing tiles. The banisters

were some dark, old, polished wood

kept smooth and polished by the

hundreds of hands a day which were 

slid along it. A half wall of mailboxes

on the right side of the entry, each one

with a little window bearing a typed 

or scrawled name. One comes with 

every rental. I never used mine once.

There were, then, no big security bolts 

or lobby deadlocks. Each apartment 

was free to justify its own security in

whatever way it chose to, lock, 

chain, baseball bat, or gun, but the

lobby had nothing. First door on the

right was the Superintendent's, and he

mostly watched everything. My sixty

bucks a month, the first month anyway,

was paid to him. Curiously enough  -  

and this had nothing to do with me  -  

the guy who I brought in to share

expenses and act as 'roommate', from

that point on, in his special rapport

with the Super in question, paid the

rent in drugs from that point on. I

knew nothing of it, wanted not to 

know, and just stayed away from it all.

I think it was always pot, but I'm not

even sure of that, since this roommate

guy turned out also to be a 'pharmacist'.

('Nice work if you can get it, and you 

can get it if you try.') His name was

Andy Bonamo, curious fellow, a bit

mysterious. When I first met him he

was living up above the old Second 

Avenue Theater, which in immigrant 

days had been one of the lower eastside

NYC's premier Yiddish theaters, but

was now just about derelict. He had a

large, single room, as an apartment,

on the second floor, right above the 

marquee. The huge, old-style turn

windows (they were on like a vertical 

swivel so you could open them out, 

right out onto the marquee, walking 

out if you were so inclined), looked 

out over the street. This all was near

the corner of Eighth Street, right there

called St. Mark's Place, actually.

Across from Gem Spa, a crazy hippie

candy store, of sorts. Egg creams, full

fountain service, a zillion newspapers

and magazines. Runaways and hippies, 

the real kind, swarmed St. Mark's Place

at any hour of the day and night. You

could pretty much get anything you

sought  -  from girls to body parts to

drugs to food. Andy gave me open-door

to sleep, crash, or do whatever I wished,

and with whomever  -  if it came to 

that  -  at his gigantic room. I slept on 

his hardwood floor plenty of times, 

curled on  a blanket as October 

approached. I got to know him a bit.

We talked. He was always sleeping

with somebody, a different somebody

like every 14 hours. That's all I ever

knew. The cute little babes just came 

and went. Naked was a state of mind, 

and that was the state they mostly 

seemed to live in. In  due time, Andy

heard I'd just bagged a 60 buck a month

apartment 3 blocks away, at the park,

right by the 'Psychedelicatessant, as

it was called, and he jumped at the 

chance to move in with me and foot 

the bill. I, of course, said yes. Andy

was gold in that respect. He brought

a few sets of cowboy boots with him,

and they stayed on the floor. One 

filled always with quarters, one 

with dimes, one with nickels, etc. 

Take whatever you wished, for subway

fare, coffee or snack, small change. The

big money, Andy kept. He was selling

all sorts of drugs out of the place in no

time flat. Hallucinogens, pot, speed, 

LSD, STP, you name it. A veritable

empire of drug-commerce, with

Andy as banker and deal-man. He 

never pressured me to partake, honestly,

I had neither the time to burn up, nor

the inclination to get all hazy and 

dumb. I didn't need any insights. I

had my own already. By comparison

him and his minions, I was a working

man, already hard at my task of writing

and painting, and the rest of me. I did

sometimes get annoyed at him, and I 

often wished others could see him as

I did  -  Andy Suicide. I don't know 

how many kids' heads he screwed up,

but it was a big, round number. Then

the place started getting overcrowded.

We were taking in draft dodgers and

military runaways on their way north

to Canada. They  were mostly coming 

from some base in Virginia, bringing

along as well whatever stolen shit 

they'd take with them. Two times

there was base cars involved  - they

were Plymouth Valiants, white, with

govt' military markings on the side.

There was a Puerto Rican body shop

right across the street. The two that 

I know of, the cars, were brought in 

there, quickly de-numbered, sanded 

and repainted, and moved out. Andy

would get about 300 bucks per car.

Crime? If it was crime it was rampant.

But if it was crime too, then what the

hell was the Vietnam War called if not

Crime, with a big C. Everything going 

to Hell. All these kids on their way to

Canada, guys and girls too, Wacs or 

Waves, or whatever the military 

female crap was, they were fleeing

to freedom. They'd leave all sorts of

stuff behind  -  shirts, pants, shoes. I

got a good number of decent wearables

out of that. The girls, I'd have to say, 

they most all stayed the day or two 

it took, to have sex with Andy, and to

get drugged stupid high before they

left for Canada. It was like an 

Underground Railroad all over 

again. Military slaves this time.

Instead of 1857, say, it was 1967.

-

This went on. I eventually just left the

place  -  too many people around, naked

bodies sleeping everywhere, rotting food

left around, everyone zoned out and too

stupid to know there was a roach on 

the end of their nose, the same roach as

the hundred others crawling all down the

refrigerator and sink. One time, no one

would let me in because no one knew 

who I was. 'You stupid shits, it's my 

apartment. Let me in.' 

-

That's when the Studio School began to

let me live in their basement as a night

watchman of sorts (previously written 

of many chapters back). I was grateful 

for that. Remember, this was all still in

my name; whatever went on in that 

apartment was traceable back to me.

And then the inevitable happened.

Two dead kids, found, no less, stuffed

in my (my grandmother's, which I'd 

been given) steamer-case, foot-locker

thing, whatever it's called. The stuff

immigrants come over the seas with

and in which they've put their 

belongings. Steamer trunks, I guess. 

These two kids had been brutally

murdered, cut all up and were found

in a nearby alley, dead in the trunk.

I knew right off what was up. The

Unsolved Hippie Murders, I think the

casefile was called in the newspaper.

Just before that, on Avenue B, there 

was also another dead hippie thing 

going on, a black guy named 

'Groovy' was found killed. I think

they called that one 'The Groovy

Murders.' The stupid newspapers

ate this stuff up  -  kids, hippies,

drugs, war, girls, and death. If it 

all tied together, or if there was 

any crap to that from the mad 

mob at 509 e11th street, and my 

purloined steamer trunk, I never 

really knew. Just surmised. But 

I stayed long away from that

bongfest from then on. One time,

later, when I'd gone back, the place

was police-taped, vacant, and every

last soul  was gone. And so was all

my stuff, bicycle to underpants, man.

The Studio School became my 

own 'No-Tell Motel.'