Living with Legends

There was a toothless old man, probably a former junkie, staying in the transient room next door.  I ran into him coming out of the shared bathroom late at night.  “Where you visiting from,” I asked, stupidly.

“I’m not visiting from nowhere,” he said.  “I’m from New York.  Brooklyn, New York.”

            “How you like the Chelsea?”

            “I’m paying $125 a night!  Can you believe that?  And I’m not getting any heat!  That’s wrong, that’s illegal and that’s dangerous!” he raved.

            “Yeah, that sucks,” I said.  $125 a night was the lowest rate I’d heard in awhile, however.  I guess they know they couldn’t get any more out of him.

            “How, about you, what you paying?” he asked.

            I told him.

            “Man, you’re fucking crazy!  Oh, but I guess you’re not from around here, are you.”

            “No, I’m from Kentucky.”

            “Oh, a rube, eh?” he said, jokingly.  “Listen, my friend, they’re taking you for a ride.  You can get an apartment for much less than that.”

            “Yeah, I know.  But I kind of like it here.”

            “Hey, to each his own.  You getting any heat in your room?”

            “No, not much,” I said.

            “Oh, OK,” the old man said, relieved, “I thought it was special for me.”

            “No, I don’t think so.  Nobody gets any.”

            “I thought they were trying to send me a message,” he said.

            Yeah, like, get out while the gettings good.  Leave while you still have a chance.  But of course that’s the same message they’re sending everybody. You don’t have to be a paranoid former junkie to see that.

Ed Hamilton