Well this isn't the first time this has happened. I find if I don't spread some kind of bug killer around the perimeter of my room the bugs descend upon me. And I guess I missed doing it because I ran out of the stuff.
So determined to get more Boric acid (the only thing that seems to work), I also grabbed a handful of business cards that state the name of my novel, Seven Murders In Sussex, and also mention where to get it, at http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Murders-Sussex-Richard-Smiraldi/dp/1461080967/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304464220&sr=8-1, I head out. I find myself handing cards out the the barber shop owner and some of his customers. Nobody up here speaks any English but as the "gringo" passes by they smile and nod at me. Maybe they can use the card to pick dinner out of their pearly whites? I don't know. But it's an effort.
I continue on through what a friend calls the BARIA and go into the grocer and get the Spanish version of Boric acid. The cashier, a lovely obese woman with gold teeth, smiles at me and says something in Spanish which I'm sure means roaches. I smile back and say Gracias. I'm probably all wrong in my inflection.
I then drop a few more cards off and walk back to my room in a boarding house.
It isn't at all what I thought it was when I read the add in the Times about renting a room. I asked the Mexican landlord about how many people there were on Welfare and he said only 5%.
I think he meant only that amount aren't received social service. I'm not one of them. They don't give single white, hash slinging writer types like me help. Although I think any day some benefactor will fall from the sky. But until that happens I keep pushing my book.
It wasn't hard to make the business cards. I just bought some at the stationery store for about seven dollars and then went over to the Public library. I was able to download a template and print them out. I'd saved up a little money from collecting tin cans on the street and around the Columbia quad and cashing them in at the grocery store. A few sweet girls gave me some dollars when they saw me scrounging for cans. I told them that I was a writer.
They offered to bring me into The Plex for something to eat, but I declined.
I must look just awful. I don't really eat very much. I don't like hash after slinging it all day. And so I usually eat whatever I can cook in my tin percolator pot on my lone burner. They call my room a kitchenette which means I get a little square refrigerator and a hot plate. There's a bathroom down the hall that I share with the other floor mates.
I don't have a television. Mostly I just open the windows. I have two overlooking a courtyard. I can see across the way into a better building where some young recent college looking types are having awards party and drinking martinis and cosmos out on their fire escape. They can't see me as I watch them in the darkness of my place.
I think, someday I'll have a nice light instead of this clip on reading light. But for the time being it's what I live with. Every day the same. I've been lucky. I have been able to make the rent. I pay by the week. The room costs 150.00 a week, which isn't bad for the upper west side. And I'm near the C train which if I have enough money I will treat myself to on the way to work.
I have some wonderful neighbors. Nobody my mother would approve of though. Down the hall is Gerard. He's a man of color who graduated from Brown, or so he says, but lately he's just a crack addict. He's on welfare. He has to come up with 25. a week for the rent and the government pays the rest. He does moving jobs. Sometimes his "cousin" stays with him. I don't remember her name or what she calls herself, but she always has crack because of what she's willing to do for it. I only know them because smiling Gerard will come by and say a few eloquent words to me as he hears me typing away on my laptop. It's so old it has an "a" drive. I take it with me everywhere so it won't get stolen and then upload everything to the Internet when I get some time at the library. I don't think we are supposed to do it, but I need to share my experiences with someone, anyone out there in the planet. Because I believe in my book and also it may be my last best chance of getting three meals a day and a better place to live.
I'm not complaining. We've plenty of heat in the winter. And when it's hot like this I can sit in Central park and write for hours. I'm working on the next mystery. It takes place in Manhattan. I find I can escape in the lives of my characters who dine at 21 on West 52nd street and go to all the best parties. They are clean and washed and live in well lit homes with central air.
It'll be hard to sleep tonight. Last night I thought I heard a gun shot. And the fleas were biting at me. But now with the bug killer in hand, I'll be okay.
I never did tell you about what I have to do every morning before I go into work. Because of the varied and assorted lives my floor mates live, I have to scrub down the bathroom each morning before I feel safe enough to take a shower or use the commode. I bleach everything. Sure the bleach comes of my food money. But I think health comes first.
My ribs are showing again. Sometimes when I get real hungry, like I am tonight, I'll drink a few glasses of water and trick my mind in to thinking that my stomach is full. Sometimes I think if I have enough energy I could walk down to some of the galleries in Soho for the art openings and get a free meal, well hor's deorves anyway and usually wine or vodka. But my suits don't fit me. I think they'll think I'm on heroin.
I'm not. But being this thin does have it's disadvantages. They never think writer. They think you have either Aids, or you're a drug addict. There's no honor in being a poor writer on the upper west side anymore, living on your wits.
Back in the day I could make a good living doing temp secretary jobs. But they just don't exist or I've gotten too old and too thin.
But we do what we can to survive. And the writing goes on. I don't choose to do it. It chooses me. So maybe some of the drag queens on the corner will use my cards. They used to call me cutie. They don't anymore. But they took the cards, I think out of pity. I don't care. I just hope somebody somewhere reads the book and that it is as good as I think it is.
I tried at literature. And someday if die in this place, at least somebody somewhere will know that I tried.
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