some kind of mental retard? I
already
told you. I can’t!”
“What do you mean, you can’t. That’s ridiculous.”
“If I turn this mother off, I can’t get it started back up again.”
Harry stormed back upstairs and phoned the police. “Yeah, right,” said Sgt. Dan Lucey of the Eighteenth Precinct. “As if we don’t have more urgent things in this neighborhood than truck fumes. What is your name?”
“Harry DeLeo. Look,” said Harry. “You think some guy blowing crack in a welfare hotel isn’t having one of the few moments of joy in his whole life.
I
am the one—”
“That’s a pretty socially responsible thing to say. Look, mister. We’ll see what we can do about the trucks, but I can’t promise you anything.” And then Officer Lucey hung up, as if on a crank call.
There was no way, Harry decided, that he could stay in his apartment. He would die. He would get cancer and die. Of course, all the best people—Christ, Gershwin, Schubert, theater people!—had died in their thirties, but this did not console him. He went back downstairs, outside, in nothing but his overcoat thrown over a pajama top, and a pair of army boots with the laces flapping. He roamed the streets, like the homeless people, like the junkies and hookers with their slow children and quick deals, like the guys down from Harlem with business to transact, like the women with old toasters and knives in their shopping bags, venturing out from Port Authority on those occasions when the weather thawed. With his overcoat and pajama top, he was not in the least scared, because he hadbecome one of them, a street person, rebellion and desperation in his lungs, and they knew this when he passed. They smiled in welcome, but Harry did not smile back. He wandered the streets until he found a newsstand, bought the
Times
, and then drifted some more until he found an all-night coffee shop, where he sat in a booth—a whole big booth, though it was only him!—and spread out his
Times
and circled apartments he could never ever afford. “1500 dollars; EIK .” He was shocked. He grew delirious. He made up a joke: how you could cut up the elk for meat during the winter, but in the months before you could never housebreak the thing. “Fifteen hundred dollars for a lousy apartment!” But gradually the numbers grew more and more abstract, and he started circling the ones for eighteen hundred as well.
By March, Harry found himself gassed out of his apartment, roaming the streets, several nights a week. He went to bed full of dread and trepidation, never knowing whether this particular night would be a Truck Night or not. He would phone the landlord’s machine and the police and shout things about lymphoma and emphysema and about being a taxpayer, but the police would simply say, “You’ve called here before, haven’t you.” He tried sounding like a different neighbor, very polite, a family man, with children, saying, “Please, sir. The trucks are waking the baby.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said the police. Harry called the Health Department, the Community Board, the Phil Donahue people. He referred to Officer Lucey as Officer Lucifer and cited cancer statistics from the Science Times. Most of the time people listened and said they would see what they could do.
In the meantime, Harry quit smoking and took vitamins. Once he even called Breckie in the middle of the night at her new apartment on the Upper West Side.
“Is this an awkward time?” he asked.
“To be honest, Harry, yes.”
“Oh, my God, really?”
“Look, I don’t know how to tell you these things.”
“Can you answer yes-or-no questions?”
“All right.”
“Shit, I can’t think of any.” He stopped talking, and the two of them breathed into the phone. “Do you realize,” he said at last, “that I have three plantar’s warts from walking around barefoot in this apartment?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do now.”
“A barnacled sole. That’s what I
already
told you. I can’t!”
“What do you mean, you can’t. That’s ridiculous.”
“If I turn this mother off, I can’t get it started back up again.”
Harry stormed back upstairs and phoned the police. “Yeah, right,” said Sgt. Dan Lucey of the Eighteenth Precinct. “As if we don’t have more urgent things in this neighborhood than truck fumes. What is your name?”
“Harry DeLeo. Look,” said Harry. “You think some guy blowing crack in a welfare hotel isn’t having one of the few moments of joy in his whole life.
I
am the one—”
“That’s a pretty socially responsible thing to say. Look, mister. We’ll see what we can do about the trucks, but I can’t promise you anything.” And then Officer Lucey hung up, as if on a crank call.
There was no way, Harry decided, that he could stay in his apartment. He would die. He would get cancer and die. Of course, all the best people—Christ, Gershwin, Schubert, theater people!—had died in their thirties, but this did not console him. He went back downstairs, outside, in nothing but his overcoat thrown over a pajama top, and a pair of army boots with the laces flapping. He roamed the streets, like the homeless people, like the junkies and hookers with their slow children and quick deals, like the guys down from Harlem with business to transact, like the women with old toasters and knives in their shopping bags, venturing out from Port Authority on those occasions when the weather thawed. With his overcoat and pajama top, he was not in the least scared, because he hadbecome one of them, a street person, rebellion and desperation in his lungs, and they knew this when he passed. They smiled in welcome, but Harry did not smile back. He wandered the streets until he found a newsstand, bought the
Times
, and then drifted some more until he found an all-night coffee shop, where he sat in a booth—a whole big booth, though it was only him!—and spread out his
Times
and circled apartments he could never ever afford. “1500 dollars; EIK .” He was shocked. He grew delirious. He made up a joke: how you could cut up the elk for meat during the winter, but in the months before you could never housebreak the thing. “Fifteen hundred dollars for a lousy apartment!” But gradually the numbers grew more and more abstract, and he started circling the ones for eighteen hundred as well.
By March, Harry found himself gassed out of his apartment, roaming the streets, several nights a week. He went to bed full of dread and trepidation, never knowing whether this particular night would be a Truck Night or not. He would phone the landlord’s machine and the police and shout things about lymphoma and emphysema and about being a taxpayer, but the police would simply say, “You’ve called here before, haven’t you.” He tried sounding like a different neighbor, very polite, a family man, with children, saying, “Please, sir. The trucks are waking the baby.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said the police. Harry called the Health Department, the Community Board, the Phil Donahue people. He referred to Officer Lucey as Officer Lucifer and cited cancer statistics from the Science Times. Most of the time people listened and said they would see what they could do.
In the meantime, Harry quit smoking and took vitamins. Once he even called Breckie in the middle of the night at her new apartment on the Upper West Side.
“Is this an awkward time?” he asked.
“To be honest, Harry, yes.”
“Oh, my God, really?”
“Look, I don’t know how to tell you these things.”
“Can you answer yes-or-no questions?”
“All right.”
“Shit, I can’t think of any.” He stopped talking, and the two of them breathed into the phone. “Do you realize,” he said at last, “that I have three plantar’s warts from walking around barefoot in this apartment?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do now.”
“A barnacled sole. That’s what I
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