dmseay

A hundred bucks in my pocket. An unshaven face that looks in the mirror. A cup of coffee on the public bathroom sink. Look deeply at yourself, David. Tell yourself you are where you should be. This metropolis. This cosmopolis. Filled with nacropolis. It all seems clear to me that New York is a dream. It is not real. The concrete people walk and sleep on is real. Park benches with crazies talking to themselves as pigeons twirl around like a square dance is real. All is real, yet I am not. I’m just a ghost wandering. There is no particular place to be. Cleo is not waiting for me at home. Gladys doesn’t want me to make love to her anymore. I am alone in a far away city; the most important place in the world. At least, that’s how New Yorkers see themselves.  Particularly Manhattanites, who make decisions on finance, futures, what sells, what doesn’t. Money, money, money. Where can I get my hands on some? Work? No. Beg? Steal? Perhaps. Dear Lord, I pray for forgiveness.

Fifty in my pocket. I walk into The White Horse Tavern and take my seat. Guinness goes for four dollars. I plan to get my fill. Drink up all you people. The lyric goes. Drink up.

The rumor is that Kerouac was kicked out of this place time and time again. This is the bar where Dylan Thomas drank before going back to his room at The Chelsea Hotel and dying. Poor bastard. Cursed genius. When they told his wife, she said, bury the sonofabitch. I wonder if any woman will be so kind to my death as she was.

I sit and drink my stout. Coltrane is playing My Favorite Things on the jukebox. I smile. It is good to feel human.

It is morning. I slept in complete comfort; relaxed by a rare opportunity to live the good life. I shall shower with hot water and cleanse myself well. I leave this hotel room a different man, yet the same. Back to normal. Whatever that means.

My normal is that of a vagabond, traveling from portal to portal, really going nowhere. I walk the city again, looking at the sun reflecting off steel buildings and bodegas opening for the morning rush. The stores owned by the Chinese with their tables of food and various sundry. Deodorant sticks, cologne, soap, cans of soda, cigarettes, and so-on. The air is crisp. Morning in Manhattan; always beautiful. 

I have coffee and the New York Times in front of me. I read restaurant reviews, book reviews, op-ed pieces of  how our nation is falling apart; it’s always falling apart, has been since the pilgrims arrived. It’s very American to fall apart. As hard as we try, we always screw it up. We are a land of missed opportunity, always looking for the one shot to put us on top and failing miserably. I smile as I fold my paper and continue my walk. We are, after all, just a lottery ticket away from great fortune.

New York is tuned out. Or, is it? I climb over hills on Lexington Avenue. My feet have turned flat from carrying a two hundred pound frame. Only beautiful music playing through a transistor radio heals me.

For hours, I sit in Washington Square Park, telling myself not to make the same mistake again. Do not end up sleeping on the subway or on the beautiful grass under trees in Central Park. Park benches and concrete sidewalks are hard on the body; they take their toll.

Looking around the city, I see the less fortunate, the crazies, the speed freaks, people economically deprived in this land of ours, pill poppers, Blacks brake dancing before me with money collected in a box, Jews who have beards and twirled hair, wearing dark clothes, Hispanics celebrating life in this new land, the Chinese displaying delicious ducks and roasted pigs in the windows of their shops in Chinatown, businessmen and beautiful people looking ahead, not down nor at you. They are immune to this place known for welcoming all, and here I am, wondering where to go, the first step in my new town.

I take notes. I listen to WNYC and WKCR. I eat egg rolls and wontons, falafel, and lamb with rice from street vendors, hot dogs, and slices of cheese pizza washed down with coffee in a blue cup with Greek letters on it saying, We Are Happy To Serve You.

Classical music runs through my head as I fall asleep in luxury. A hotel room costing four hundred a night with firm pillows and clean sheets. I dream in peace.

Some people never learn their lesson. For tomorrow I will be broke again. A hundred to my name. Back to normal.

There is three hundred dollars in my pocket as I walk around Manhattan like a somnambulist. Seventy-two hours are gone, and my money is depleting with every step I take; buying hot dogs and slices, kenish, smoked white fish from Russ and Daughters, pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s, a lox and bagel at Carnegie Deli, beers at The White Horse Tavern, and packs and packs of cigarettes as I play the juke box at Rudy’s. It is my wonderland. And soon I’ll be broke, back to normal. Strolling streets and pissing in alleys. But, it is glorious. Simply glorious.

Your luck changes on a dime in New York. With a few dollars on me, I fall into the Playwright in the Theater District and take my place at the bar next to a gentleman who looks as though he’s had a few. Drunks can go either way; incredibly generous or demonic in their actions. They offer money, drinks, and perhaps a bowl of soup. Kind souls. Or, they tell you to scram and threaten to kill you and your dog. It’s a flip of the coin.

He asks, what’s your game? What do you do? I tell him I’m a writer looking for material, and he’s the type of character I would love to put in a book.

Let me buy you a beer, he says. In fact, I’ll buy you several,  he laughs. I’ve always wanted to be in a book, he takes a drink. You know, I’ve had an interesting life, another drink is had. We toast. To your book, glasses clink.

So, where do you live? He asks. And I tell him the truth. Homeless? I would have never guessed that, he says. I nod my head and look around at pictures of Irish writers on the walls.

Well, not anymore. Let me write you a check. A grand ought to do it. Right? I tell him he is too kind. Yeah, I’ll write a check. What’s your name again?

And so, I’m back in the pink. Another grand. Saint Thomas Schmidt is looking after me.

You need anything else, I’m always here, he told me. Now, good luck to you. David.

Yes. Fortunes change quickly. The kindness of others. I cry out in the streets. The beauty of drunken souls.

Back on trains. Subways and the elevated which run through this city like food being digested, going down the throat and going into the colon only to shoot out into a million pieces of freedom, or one long log of misery that had to be forced out.

Yet, there is very little constipation here in Gotham. All who move through it, both night and day, do so with a purpose as Midwesten tourists look on in utter awe of steel buildings and bums, trees in Central Park, concrete constantly beneath their feet. These are the people who are blocked up. Either from excitement or sheer fear, they can not take a decent shit until they are home, safely tucked away in their suburban beds with thousand thread sheets and cups of tea at night, Sleepy time, Oolong, perhaps a glass of brandy or a shot of whiskey when the other is in bed dreaming of a lover across town, or the teacher at their kid’s school. Yes, back home where the toilet never clogs, where what they think is freedom, the American way lies on a doormat that says, Welcome.

I spoke to a tourist from Indiana who said, my New York dreams are coming true, with a large grin as his wife admired the white horses in Columbus Square. I responded, your New York dreams huh. What is that? Rape, murder, theft, perhaps a good mugging? His grin turned sour.

So, I ride the trains at night reading Baudrillard’s AMERICA. I am captivated by this Frenchman’s point of view and how similar it is to mine. Maybe I am a foreigner in this country. Could be I was dropped here long ago by Europeans in search of a good joke. Left here to fend for myself. I laugh. This is my place of birth. My home. How I wish to be adopted.

This night. A thousand miles away from home. And, I ask the question, where is my home? Certainly not back in Indiana where Midwesterners cling to religion, conservative politics, and pork tenderloin sandwiches with pickles on them. I never felt at home there. Which is why I left at such a young age. Maybe why I tried to kill myself; in and out of psych wards, given a hundred different pills, the questioning and advice from therapists, the ongoing cycling of my mind, who knows?

Maybe Chicago is my home. A town that took me in heart and soul. Women, religion, booze, books, bars, and culture all wrapped in a package with a ribbon on it and a sticker that says corruption; my kind of town. For I am corrupt. I am a sinner. We all know God loves sinners. And, so did Daley; the prophet in the mayor’s office looking down on all of us, saying, follow me.

Perhaps New York will be my home. The land of Miller, Mailer, Breslin,  and others, like Baldwin and Langston Hughes, who placed a dent in America’s shield of shit. These are my heroes. Could be I finally find peace; home sweet home.

Washington Square Park, where I sit watching drug transactions and bums sleeping on benches. There is $500 in my pocket. Do I spend money and get a hotel room for the night? Or, like my fellow derelicts and curl up in the night air? Both are impossible. I’m too wired. Too manic. Move, move, move, I tell myself. Run all over New York. Take it all in. Walk the West Side. Travel the East. Go up to Harlem for some soul food, buy a dirty water dog, a slice, go to Greenwich Village, take the ferry to Stanton Island, just get lost in it all. For I am in search of a home. But first, give this homeless woman $50; she’s earned it.

With all this around me; the lights, the sounds, taxis honking and moving swiftly up 8th Avenue, bums asking for money, crazies pleading for sanity, I stop and take it all in. Like a kid at Christmas time, I am fascinated by it all. And, the thought of where I might sleep tonight has not even entered my mind.

I’m too busy with the here and now. Looking at the starving and afflicted. People in need of love, understanding,  cash, opportunity,  something to get through this life of hardship and broken spirit. In need? I am here to give.

An insane woman talking to herself, I give her a twenty. A man on a bicycle traveling the wrong way on a one-way,  I give him a ten and tell him to change course. He yells and gives me the finger; I love this town.

Never have I seen anything like it. Sure, Chicago has its ups and downs, the poor and the very poor, the rich, and those with way too much, with no time to spare, it seems. Always busy placing fingers in pies. Licking frosting off cakes. New York has those in abundance and also the sinners and saints trying desperately to get by. And with six hundred bucks in my pocket,  which one am I?

Don’t fool yourself, David. You’re still a bum. Give some more cash away, you fool. Spend it all tonight and wake up tomorrow to start anew.

This is my mindset. Never half way, go all out and start again; broken and in need, looking for another Thomas Schmidt,  another Gladys, another Cleo. Surely I will find them. I always do.

Mania is sweeping through me. I stopped in a diner on 42nd Street and ordered a coffee with lox and cream cheese on a bagel. It is the best meal I’ve ever had. A true luxury in my stomach. Purple onion flavor mixed with capers and tomato; a feast. And the coffee with lots of cream and sugar. I will last all night, giving this metropolis my all and then some. Why not? Why not, indeed?

Finally, I’m in New York with seven hundred dollars on me; kept in my front pocket due to paranoia, the wallet in my back pocket is obsolete, I pretend it’s not there.

The bills are rolled in a thick wad; more money than I’ve had at one time in my life; thank you, Thomas Schmidt. You are a Saint. Or, a fool. Me? I’m simply lost. Lost spiritually, morally,  and physically. I have no idea where I am.

I used to want to help people,  maybe save their souls, but now I just want more and more and more at the cost of nothing. Don’t judge me. This is America at its best. The leaching of our fellow man. For Christ’s sake, we’re taught it in Bible school. We are told that our sins are forgiven if you just believe. Well, I believe….I believe.

Times Square is an adult porno paradise filled with perverts and pimps, whores and dope dealers, speed freaks and junkies, businessmen in suits, all clamoring for the same thing, women, transexuals,  transvestites, domanitrixes, glory holes, and peep shows. We are all in this together. But we are not all as one. Different people with different kinks about them. Some will survive while others die in gutters.

Few cities of America offer this on such a grand scale. New Yorkers are lucky. It’s right at their fingertips, just a jerk or a suck or a fuck away from dreams coming true. It is really quite something. The spectacular does not do it justice. It is sin on a grand scale. It’s a poker game if you will. And I’m cashing in all my chips.

I watch night go by, and I think to myself, she’s right. I don’t know Miller. I don’t see the beauty within. The search for the soul. The quest for both chaos and peace. What do I know? Sex. That is all my mind is capable of handling. It is a constant throughout the day and night. Even as a child, it was constant, a strange ongoing chase for the physical touch. Yet lost in the mind. Or, was it?

There are streetlights shining down on small Ohio towns as we cross the border from Indiana, where youth never leave and the old stay to die. But, I left. And when I did, my father wished me good riddance; my mother simply stood there in shock, thinking to herself, how could he do this? How could our boy leave paradise? She was never the wandering or wondering type.

I remember when I first tried to kill myself; viewing the ambulance from above as we drove rapidly through town, lying on a stretcher, feeling nothing but warmth, an embrace; I wanted to leave this town, this state, this apple pie philosophy topped with a scoop of vanilla; where’s the spumoni?

Awaking in that hospital bed after hours of sleep, no one was there to greet me back home from my trip to heaven’s gate. My father was not there. My mother was not there. Friends and enemies to celebrate my journey were not there. I just lied there in bed. Feeling nothing. No remorse, no guilt,  nor shame. I wanted to be dead, I thought. But then sexual thoughts entered my mind as if it never left. And even in that half dreamlike state, I had an erection that showed through white sheets I was wrapped in.

It was the nurse I wanted. Not a Bible or a book of virtue, but a brunette nurse who smiled at me and was soon replaced with my mother standing over me.

She did not shed a tear or yell at me. She simply whispered that the road to hell was paved with sin. And then she walked away.

So, no, I do not know Miller. His beauty escapes me. I know not the soul. Only the flesh. And yes, it is weak.

I watch America go by from the seat of an Amtrak train. A scotch and soda in hand as trees, rivers, and streams go by in front of me. Large cities and towns of the Midwest and Eastern parts of these United States while I read Baudrillard’s amazing insights on this country; a Frenchman traveling America with keen insight as to our triumphs and failures. From East Coast to West, he saw it all, the beauty and the ugliness. What humor.

I continue looking out the bar car window, fascinated by what Baudrillard has said of my native land. It’s a lot to take in, New York, the skyscrapers, people in lines waiting. Minneapolis, with its huge mega mall called The Mall of America. Again, the lines of people. What are they wanting? Why are they waiting? I knew what I wanted. I could no longer wait.

A woman sits at my table. She reminds  me of Cleo. Her red hair and emerald eyes. The tight-fitting sweater shows a near perfect form. She drinks coffee and reads Miller’s Sexus; a big, thick book filled with insight on the human condition and what it takes to be a true artist.

Do I talk to her? I know I would be perturbed if my reading was interrupted. She puts the book down and looks at me. Two readers engaged with one another. What is that you’re reading? She asks. I tell her a French philosopher’s view of this land of ours. She smiles.

I see you are reading Miller, I say. I’ve read Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. But, never Sexus, Nexus, or Plexus. Tell me about it.

She reaches under the table and touches my thigh. Smiles, and says, you wouldn’t understand. You are tickled by the sexual writing of Miller. Have you really read him?

I guess not, I tell her. She laughs.

Rosy Crucifixion indeed.