CHAPTER 40 -THE LIFE
I found a room for 30 dollars a week around the corner from the Y, intended for hourly customers.
"Bathrooms in the hall," the guy at the desk handed me the key.
I put the key in the lock. The doorknob wobbled. A sink in one corner. I would pee in that sink. I looked through the barred ground-floor window into an angular courtyard of sorts, my little dose of nature --well, leaves and wind anyway. Arguments and sex came through the walls.
On my stolen cassette recorder, I played Simon and Garfunkel over and over and sang along with Diana Ross as Billie Holiday
Lady Sings the Blues. She got 'em bad; she feels so sad.
I tried praying to God. Nothing. He was not a go-to guy. I prayed to my brother and father, thinking, maybe dead people can help. I didn't know how it worked. No sense of my male family members either. No magic. Just me, a cheap hotel, my window, and the thin mattress. Not sure if I knew the word existential, but there it was.
I had enough money for a week and a half in the hotel, food, cigarettes, and a movie.
Everyone had been talking about "Looking for Mister Goodbar" starring Diane Keaton. I walked to Times Square and protected my pockets as I moved with a crowd into the movie theater.
I sat with popcorn, watching and listening to opinions hurled by mostly Black voices at the screen. I liked this adventure.
Toward the movie's end, two guys sitting next to me offered me a joint, so I took a hit and began to feel I was melting.
"This isn't pot, is it?" I said right into that face next to me. The mouth smiled widely.
