Ralphie’s all of five-foot nothing, but muscularly compact, energetic, with eyes as playful and vicious as a terrier’s. He shoots Spanish/English blend out of his mouth like a Chinese waiter yelling short orders to a cook. He’s the reason I even have this apartment.
It went like this: I moved down to Manhattan from Yonkers—more like trickled down here intending to be homeless. I’d just got the job working for the landscaping company by using a fake address—easy enough since they don’t mail our checks, we pick them up at the office. I’d been sleeping in Tompkins Square Park, showering after work with the hose behind the company’s office. I wasn’t in the best of shape, but at least I wasn’t shooting heroin. So, one night, mid-autumn, this guy I knew from the park—nineteen, from Philly, discs in his earlobes, we used to shave each other’s heads—was walking with this other guy who was nodding out on his own feet. The Philly guy was telling him to fight through it, to use his will, but the guy’s will gave out and he collapsed. Philly called me over and asked if I would help carry the guy to the hospital. After a few blocks of hauling the guy I realized I smelled as much like a dog run as both of them, and that I had zero desire to someday be the one getting carried to a hospital. I helped Philly get the guy close enough to the emergency room door then let him do the rest. On my walk back to the park I thought, winter’s coming, my hair looks like shit, I own two shirts—this whole thing isn’t really me. So I started looking for a place to live. One day after combing the streets for for rent signs I wound up resting on Ralphie’s stoop. I jumped when he opened the door behind me with a broom in his hand. “You no sit here,” he said. I got up and apologized. He started sweeping.
“You don’t have any apartments in there, do you?”
“No,” he said. “We got nothing here.”
“I have a job,” I said, in case that was the issue.
“Good,” was all he said.
“I don’t have a place to stay yet, you know? I just moved here, you know?”
“I know.”
“So I’m looking, if you know anything.”
“Where you live before?”
“My parents.”
He nodded his head and kept sweeping.
“I used to be an auto mechanic. So maybe, you know, I could help you out around the apartment.”
“Nobody has cars.” Which made a lot of sense.
“But now I’m a landscaper.”
That one we both laughed at, realizing there were as many shrubs around the building as there were cars.
Because he took in Stephanie who was probably living in some shit family situation, because desperation was probably shooting out of my voice in every direction, and because Ralphie is a good guy, he decided to tell me an apartment was opening up soon.
“…this guy, he miss his rent for seven times. He leave here this month. You go down to the office, and fill the application. The guys: you tell them you know Ralphie. And then you see.”
“That would be so great. Where’s the office?”
Turns out that deadbeat’s lease wasn’t up for another year-and-change, and they didn’t have plans to renovate. So between the letter from my boss, Frank—who I fuckin love for being cool enough to say I made a lot more money than I actually did—and Ralphie’s recommendation, I got in.
I think Ralphie likes me; he sees me leave for work every morning and knows I wasn’t lying about the job, but I understand why he’s keeping an eye on me. I’m still a shaved-headed wildcard kid who dresses like a derelict.
Now he watches me closely as I lift the slate from the wall and stand it upright. It starts to fall toward me; I brace it. Ralphie pulls off his baseball cap, which has probably been on his head for a decade now, and with his palm, smoothes back his already matted gray hair.
“You need help?”
“No, it’s OK, I got it.”
Two little kids pop their heads out of the door behind him. A girl with her finger in her mouth and a miniature boy version of Ralphie, hat and all. All three of them watch as I pick up the slate and lay it on my foot. In unison they all cringe.
“You want no help?” Ralphie asks again.
“No, I’m good.”
“You loco, you know? Crazy.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see the full-sized picture.”
“Be careful, OK? Don’t hurt nothing.”
“I won’t.”
He turns to the kids, “Ivamos.” They scurry back inside.
My studio is part of a railroad apartment that was broken into smaller spaces. It has exposed brick on one wall, and a curtain—not a door—separating the bathroom from the rest. I get a laugh out of the wood floors. Lay a marble anywhere and in ten seconds it rolls to the south-east corner. There’s more paint on this radiator than there was in my mother’s Yonkers apartment. So many coats on the walls I think the place has lost a few square feet since it was built. A futon lies against the side wall. No frame, just a mattress with a sheet that’s got little holes worn through it where my toenails rub while I’m on my stomach. Next to the bed are two cardboard boxes. One’s got my clothes in it and the other is filled with books and paperwork—things I’m using to get my GED. There’s also an alarm clock I never have to use.
All by itself on the floor is a black spiral notebook. I write in it sometimes about things that I’d rather not get started on right now.
The milk crates are waiting for me. I guide the slate down onto them and step back for a better look. It’s … it’s a table. Dark. About a foot off the ground, covering more of the apartment than it felt like it would. I sit on the floor facing it and cross my legs. It’s perfect eating height that way. I stand up and look at it like it’s supposed to do something.
I’m hungry.
Out the front door Stephanie’s gone from the stoop. I walk across Tompkins Square Park. Low sunlight stretches tree shadows over benches and heavily pierced and tattooed squatters who set up beds in the grass. With dreads past their shoulders, they huddle behind a cardboard sign that says they need money for their dog, who also has dreads.
I sit on a bench hoping to get tired. I say no to people who ask me if I got a light. Make split-second eye contact with a few dozen people who walk by then watch them go their way. I stay put until streetlights come on, and memories of living here creep back in. My apartment isn’t great shakes, but it beats this park, and this park, as a transition to sanctuary, beat the shit out of Yonkers.
A guy and girl who may or may not have another place to sleep tonight walk by me with their arms latched like the safety pins that hold their pants together. I see Nokey putting his hand on my sister. I wonder if he hadn’t done that would anything else have even happened. I get off the bench, head to my apartment, and try to leave that thought in the park.
Rain
Yonkers
