Trying to live homeless in New York City

This is the original and unchanged text of my letter to my sister Pam, which turned out to be a short auto-biographical story.  It was written Dec. 1982 to March 1983.  In retyping it into a computer file, I resisted changing anything in it except for spelling mistakes and the addition of approximately four or five commas.  The excessive use of semi-colons and all of the original sentence structures are unchanged.  I also changed a number of [bracketed] commentaries to (parenthetical) because in this rendering now all bracketed commentary is added for clarification and is not original.  I typed the original letter manually, when I was 25, and it certainly reads as if from the perspective of the youngster that I was.  It tells the truth, though some of the ponderous and “writerly” flourishes are a little embarrassing today, and the story also leaves out many details which would have broadened the understanding of my problems at the time. I hadn’t read this story in 20 years and I was surprised to find it a little disturbing to revisit it.  It was interesting to see how much and how little I’ve changed!  I was also surprised that I hadn’t included more description of my experience on the job as a typesetter at an ad agency on 6th Avenue. This was a good job and the personal conflict and tension that lead me to walk out on it was a key precursor to my mind becoming set upon trying to live on the street.  Except for my sister’s name and the name of my now deceased childhood church choir director, George Huddleston, all names are changed to fictitious monikers.
                                                                       Keith James Thomson 01/01/10




                                                                                         December 16, 1982

Dear Pam,

The date above shows when I began a long letter to you; it since has become more than this as I let these six months unfold.  It also took more time to complete than I planned on.

I arrived in Brooklyn to live with Ron Kervin [ex-neighbor from when I lived across hall from him in Brooklyn four years earlier] on the 15th of April [1982].  I stayed with him sharing expenses until the fifteenth of June, two months later.  I was first hired to work as a typesetter operator at an ad layout office.  I held this job for two weeks, shortly after which I began waiting on tables at a Brew and Burger on seventh avenue and fifty second street.  Having worked for the company before, I was rehired.  The money was bad and the hours not full time so I found three or four weeks later a second night job working in the West Village for The Bagel And - cafeteria style bagels, omelets, salads, health drinks, etc.  Cafeteria trés chic.  This was a fun job that I held almost to the end of my stay in the city.  During my stay on Atlantic Avenue [Ron’s apartment] I had Tabby brought in to live with us. [11 year old childhood cat]  Very much “us” considering it was me, Ron, Louise (Ron’s cat), and the always long list of creatures that Ron harbored; Cesar the boa, birds, the list goes on and on....also plants galore - the apartment, no news to me, a very messy and cluttered place.  I pass up a colorful and unusual description in leaving it at this.  I appreciate Ron and we are still good friends even though we had a falling out.  Living with Ron had become more and more of a strain.  In the middle of June I decided that I wanted to move out at the end of the month.  I gave Ron a two week notice.  He was disappointed because he wanted a roommate which is not always easy to find - and in many ways we had been getting along very well.  After I told him that I was going to move he demanded that I leave the very next day.  This was difficult.  I had a small savings but I didn’t have the resources to properly finance such a move over night (I also had little choice); it would have been pushing it to move out when I originally wanted to.  The next day I did find a place to stay.  I also blew all my savings doing so.

Almost from the very start in the city I was regularly going to Central Park to play the flute, after buying a joint [in the park] and smoking it.  This was both a very liberating and destructive thing.  I played hours and hours over the summer and surely there were people that knew my sound.  I played in all different places.  It was wild and beautiful.  I never solicited money.  I was only interested in properly effecting the environment, and quite beautifully I did at times.  At moments I could hear the park suddenly still right out to the streets, along the edge of the park, and I knew that I was being listened to by many.  After a while I became more brazen and sat on benches along the park walkways, usually down close to fifty-ninth street.  I relaxed a few moments, put my flute together, released myself from inhibitions, and began playing (how I pleased!); melodies from scratch or my own motifs that were secretly variations on popular or known melodies, upon when I desired, drawn into the melody out-right and whom ever listened (with a concerned ear) would be struck to know that they were hearing such or such a tune all along (a constantly key changing variation on the National Anthem pouring down an empty subway tunnel).  One of the most beautiful experiences I had was down by the fountain next to the canoe pond on a Saturday afternoon.  Leaning up against a rock right at the joining of two pathways busy with strollers I played.  Over the rock was a low head of small trees with small birds lighting.  I was wailing in an atonal fashion when a sparrow right above (a mere yard or two) joined in like no sparrow I’d ever heard, crowing long drawn out tones, notes, (Opera Sparrow!) mingling with my flute.  It didn’t last long but while it did we created a fantastic duet.  It was wonderful.  This was not the only time that wild animals showed involvement in my music.  The birds were always interested in what was going on.  It was added inspiration when right after a pause or change of mood or rhythm, a group of birds would dart down in front of me, coming to hear more (Robins enjoyed forming an audience).  On a number of occasions I played for the llamas or the monkeys in the Central Park Zoo.  Once I played hymns right outside a small door in a deep-portalled side entrance of Saint Thomas Episcopal on fifth avenue.  Audacious; I knew it was softly filling the church and overlaying the visitors’ prayers (I grew up on the Episcopal hymnal).  Another time I was playing upon one of the large boulders in Central Park.  Thirty feet before me [almost below me, this was a high rock] was a walkway and a bench.  It was late afternoon.  Playing in public usually attracts listeners and a couple sat down on the bench.  I played and played and they were silent, listening.  After a while they started talking and putting me in the background.  I continued to play, enjoying their ease to ignore me.  After a while they started to argue.  They started quietly at first, just irritated exchange.  I was very much into my playing and did not stop and as I narrated with my musical interpretation it became trite only at the moment that I realized how much apart of their argument I was becoming - I quickly put it out of my mind and continued to play just what I felt.  They continued to argue, they raged and yelled for fifteen minutes; I did not stop, continued to accompany and comment.  In the end they were lovers after all and they found reason to stop and speak compromisingly and forgivingly until they finally left as I played until they were gone, when I soon too left.  It had been a live trio symphony - I scoffing or scorning, laughing or lamenting with one or the other, or both.  It climaxed with something of a love hymn; they had made up, we went home (I don’t think they will forget that argument).

I traded off my first job at the ad-agency for the freedom and indulgence of these experiences (a fact, not an excuse).  After having lost this job [I was not fired, I quit out of pains of personal estrangement while on the job] and out of shock and frustration, and upon the verge with a kaleidoscope of reasons, I  marched from Central Park to forty-seventh street - music store strip - and found a buyer for my flute.  My behavior had scared me and I decided to rid myself of what I incorrectly thought its vehicle was.

Less than two weeks later I got stoned in Central Park and found myself in great need of having my flute.  I went back to the shop to which I had sold it.  Surely looking quite wild I stared at the flutes behind the glass and tried to talk to the salesman with whom I had dealt, asking him how much this or that flute was (mine was not in the window yet, legally waiting the two week period before put for re-sale).  He was uncomfortable and tried to avoid me and I left shortly.  The trauma didn’t last past that day because I realized how I would raise the money to get another; I would sell my record albums on the street, a collection I knew would sell well (I had already sold my quite elaborate stereo system in San Francisco a year earlier).

The next day I went flute shopping and put down one hundred dollars on a three hundred dollar instrument.  The salesman was irritated and doubted my intentions or ability to follow through with the purchase that I said would be completed in three or four days.  He knew I had just sold my flute and had had previous dealings with me: once when I was making prospects on the purchase of amplification equipment that never got off the ground, and also when I was looking for a buyer for my first flute.  The next day I went to a carefully chosen place in the East Village with my three heavy boxes of record albums via cab to a spot with enough pedestrians but where I thought the police would not notice me.  I did well and sold two thirds of my albums in less than two hours; I pulled in two hundred and seventy dollars!  The following day I made my purchase.

I had sold a Gemeinhardt: solid silver body, silver plated keys, with a low B joint.  I bought a used Armstrong: no low b joint, also solid silver with silver plated keys.  I could tell it was in good shape before I bought it, but I did not know until later how good, really perfect, just very tarnished.  Tarnished so evenly and being in such good shape and through finding out from Armstrong (in Indiana) that the instrument is probably around fifteen years old I believe it was played very little, maybe by a child, but mostly stayed in its case turning an even brown.  Anyway, I had no idea I was buying an instrument that would turn out to please me so well, perhaps more than the one I paid so much for brand new.  I did though, under a ground sweeping tree in Central Park when first playing it, find quickly to my delight that I had again the means to continue with this vital expression.  I have since taken the whole thing apart and polished it and I’m very proud of it.  It does lack a low B joint. [okay, LOL, this is a little hilarious]

My search for a new place to stay was not too difficult considering that I found it in one afternoon.  I was looking for a room that I could move into without paying any deposits and one that I could afford and one that would rent by the week, two weeks, or by the month.  Something that was not too hard to find in San Francisco but turned out to be a different story in New York City.  I first went to eighth avenue above forty-second street.  I found a lot of old hotels but none of the rooms had even weekly rates.  From hotel to hotel I went asking if they could suggest another that would meet my needs.  At one point I was sent up to Broadway and the street seventies -- was skeptical because I knew it was a pretty nice area; the hotels I found rented by the week or two but were too expensive.  Finally found the Hotel Riverside and took a room at ninety dollars a week plus tax, paid in two week increments.  I was working two jobs and could afford it but there would be nothing left over.  I had to relinquish my Brooklyn keys that very day and I schlepped my stuff from downtown Brooklyn to the upper Westside by subway; it took me three trips (and three subsequent lighter ones at Ron’s convenience) heavy laden with bags.  You’d be amazed at how much stuff I can carry strapped over me; at this point it was not a new experience.  Of course Tabby was part of my baggage.

To explain the dynamics of how Ron and I did and did not get along is hardly possible here, but he was irritated by the direction in which I spoke of and sought.  During the first month at Ron’s, after walking out on my first job, I decided I was destined to be a street beggar, so to speak.  I told Ron I was going to live homeless in the streets.  He put me to the test and said to go for a week and not to come back for a week, “give me the keys and see how you like it.”  I decided I could turn my flute performances into solicitations if forced to, though all along the emotionality and the sincerity of my musical displays were at conflict with the idea of begging money by them.  Putting a hat at my feet spoiled it; the few times I tried I had to put it away before I could play freely.  At this point I felt it was an adjustment I would have to be making.

I was gone three days and three nights . . . at night I ended up sleeping at friend Al Yuder’s.  During the days I walked and walked.  I don’t think I took more than five dollars with me.  The first two days I wandered stoned playing the flute.  By the third day I was out of money, pot, and inspiration; I still wandered and walked and walked.  I was very tired by the late afternoon and laid down and slept in a small littered park along the Westside Highway at about twenty-ninth street.  I spent an hour there (of course my flute with me in my bag).  I walked down to the Village by the time it was dark.  I was still so tired -- I gave myself a dose of what I was after and laid down on the sidewalk of a busy Village street at Sheridan Square.  I laid up against a wrought iron fence, the sidewalk was busy with pedestrians and ten feet out bumper to bumper Saturday night cars were waiting to get on the seventh avenue.  Curled up in a ball I don’t think I was there longer than twenty minutes.  Finally got up and spent the third night again at Al’s (nights included dinner).  The next time after this that I went to get stoned and play the flute in the park was when I went to forty seventh street to sell it after which I got my second job at Brew Burger.  I’d had my taste.  But two weeks later I bought the next flute.

Still at Ron’s, I had already started to sell on the street belongings that I figured would be extraneous to my coming life style.  I was prompted to do this with relative ease after the first experience selling my record albums.  One early evening Ron and I had a fight about something after which I was hungry for dinner.  I didn’t want to eat there with him.  I only had a couple dollars on me.  For fifteen minutes I sat on my bed not knowing what to do.  Then I bagged up some of my belongings that I would not need anymore, went to the East Village, laid them out on my blanket, made ten dollars and went out to dinner.

Hotel Riverside was only seven stories high but the breadth of five or six brownstones [brownstone apartment buildings].  My room was a small studio, though larger than the room in which I lived for fourteen months in San Francisco.  It had a small sink, a stove, a few shelves, a closet and a single bed.  One wall was covered with mirrored panels, odd in this dingy room but not a bad affect; the effort of a previous tenant.  A large top floor window looked north, down on to seventy-first street on a pleasant tree lined block.  To the left I could see the almost abandoned westside freight yard (a couple times a day a car or two would screech and drag up the tracks); beyond this the Hudson River.  The Riverside Hotel was built between 1910 and 1920 and more recently had been converted to entirely single occupancy studios that range from four walls and a bed to private bathroom and cooking facilities.  There was a mix of people, though mostly older, and more men than women.  It was dingy and lonely but with a fairly permanent clientele (though inside was a maze of halls and doors and I usually made it to my room without encounter).  Prices and the weather in New York prohibit the young and transient as San Francisco was able to abound with.  I liked living so close to Riverside Park; it took me a few days to realize that I could cut around the short side of the block to get down there.  The hotel was on the end of a dead end street where down a forty foot drop the freight yard was.  The freight yard ended a block north where Riverside Park began at seventy-second street (except for two tracks that continued uptown under the park).  Anyway, I could cross quickly up to seventy-second street and the park on a suspended walkway on the side of the building across the street.

During the first week at the Riverside, just home from working late at the Bagel And, I’d bought a joint on the street in the Village on the way and got to my room stoned and depressed -- I looked in the mirror and decided to shave my head.  It was comical, maniacal, and I was beside myself (depression diverted).  I used a dull, two track blade and a finger nail scissors until the track-two just gave out.  I was all shaven except for a big blotch on the crown of my head.  I tied a bandana around my head, put on my glasses and went out to buy a new razor; I found a late hours store and went back to my room to finish.  Of course my hairless head was a shock to my employers and fellow workers.  Bagel And didn’t mind but the manager at Brew Burger did not like it.  He was a seedy creep that I could keep at bay with my manners and wits (both quite foreign to him) so he said very little about it but it really bothered him.  Of course it was also a shock to me.  I’m the one who had to don it.  Not that some men don’t look good this way but I don’t think it flattered me too well.  I had to choose whether I was going to be embarrassed by it or stand up straight and ignore it.  For the most part I chose the latter.  My posture suddenly improved -- I must have walked an inch taller in disregard to my new hair style.  Four days later was Robert Hernig’s [childhood friend who also lived in the city] birthday party to which I had long previously been invited.  I had been looking forward to it until I was faced with my now radical appearance.  Robert’s parents were there, so were Annette Ferrano and some other high school friends.  It turned out alright though.  I had a good time and met some interesting people, including a girl that went to Ithaca College with my cousin, Randa Thomson.  Robert has a lot of photos from the party and I am in most all of them, filling three or four pages of his album with my white head.

So I was working two jobs, had barely any savings in the bank, and was paying a rent that left nothing over to stay in this hotel.  I kept to myself.  Though I continued to play the flute in the park (and around), I was now able in my room to really practice.  I couldn’t practice at Ron’s.

When the first two weeks at the hotel were up I had the money I needed to pay for another two ($185.) but I did not want to spend it on rent; I wanted to accrue a savings.  I was getting the idea that I could keep both of my jobs and sleep in a hiding place somewhere in the city without paying rent; this way by the end of the summer I would have a savings to get me back on my feet.  I had been getting familiar with Riverside Park and had a place in mind.

Riverside Park is a long park that runs on the far west side of Manhattan starting at seventy-second street shooting north.  Starting at the southern foot there is a short section of park that is cut off by the Westside Highway, it narrows down to a footpath and returns under the highway to the main park at about eighty-fifth street.  This smaller section has two open areas with running tracks and a baseball field, but it is mostly filled with trees and paved walks; it meets the Hudson with a promenade and benches.  The center piece of this strip of park is the private boat marina off the promenade, and the access road for cars and the underground parking deck.  The circular parking deck, buried between the Westside Highway and the Hudson is capped by a grand, old, and presently out of use fountain on a courtyard and look-out porch; all which is itself sunken within the ramps that lead off the highway above.  The outer edge of the courtyard is covered by columns and arched ceilings.  From the rear, wide steps turn up to the main park, the front steps down to the water and promenade from the look-out porch.  South of the marina off the promenade is the children's’ playground and wading fountain and the stone buildings that house park maintenance and the men’s and women’s bathroom facilities.  The wading fountain is in use and on warm days park maintenance turns it on and mothers and children come down to cool off.  The design of this cordoned park of shrubbery and stone is grand but now a little decrepit; though with the resurgence of money going into the city’s restorable assets at this time it is looking better than not.  The boat docks have always been in use which has kept the place peopled with established intentions, and I was told that just recently before my discovery of this special spot the night lanterns had been restored to use.  I had my mind on the women’s bathroom building. [gee whiz, read on for explanation]

I was not sure yet that I wanted to move out of my room.  An alternative was to get a bike and make a savings by not using the subways (75 cents a ride) and to stay put at the Riverside.  Then I decided I would still have to get a bike if I were going to live á la outside.  Not knowing exactly which way to turn I called Al Yuder to tell him of my ideas.  He said, “move out of that dump and come stay with me for a while.”  Very good, this would buy me time; of course it also moved me out.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to, nor did I want to stay very long.  Two weeks was agreed upon.  I dragged all of my stuff over to Al’s.

Tabby got the raw end of the deal.  She had been through so much in the big city and the next chapter did not look too promising.  When she first came to the city she was very unhappy, at Ron’s, frightened by Louise the siamese, and by the new territory.  Her fears were exacerbated by the fact that three days after she arrived she was taken for an overnight stay at the veterinarian’s to have her front claws removed.  I’m not sure if that was a good idea for an eleven year old, previously outdoor cat, but Ron wanted her claws removed for apartment living (fearing for his furniture) and I was not adverse to the idea.  It cost me forty dollars.  Tabby came home to Brooklyn a wounded, misplaced and bullied cat.  Sometimes I had to bring her myself to her food dish and litter box because she was afraid of Louise.  She hated the subways and they were hard on her; a couple of times she went almost into shock, panting and eyes bulging, it was terrible.  She was better when she came with me to the hotel, she was content to be alone there and did not seem too unhappy considering that she was not overly happy to see me return from work.  So now I was leaving the hotel, planning to live nowhere and had to find a place for her.  Al would not take her, Ron refused to take her back and so did Mom and Dad.  I called a few animal placement services that turned out to be too expensive or would not handle such an old cat; I even found the option of placing her in an old cats’ home! (New York has everything); of course out of the question because of the expense.  As you know, I ended up taking her to the A.S.P.C.A. on the far east side of ninety-second street.  They destroyed her the very next day.  I miss her very much. [I really thought they would hold on to her longer and I called the next day to see how she was and they had already put her to sleep.  I was pretty devastated.]

I was fired from Brew Burger a couple days after I moved over to Al’s; not for any negligence on my part, I simply bothered the manager Carlos.  My head did not help matters even though by the time he got to firing me my scalp was pretty much covered with hair.  When a waiter and waitress left simultaneously and the breakfast schedule opened up (starts at 6:30 a.m.) I was told by Carlos I must start working it or be fired.  He already knew what my answer would be considering he also knew that I was working at Bagel And until two and four in the morning.  Being fired at one Brew Burger usually resulted in the terminated going to his or her supervisor and being placed in another store.  I chose not to pursue this route being that my expenses were soon to plummet to next to nothing and because I did not want to be placed in another dirty Brew Burger.  I went ahead and bought a new ten-speed Raleigh the next day and finished up the two weeks at Al’s; playing the flute in his apartment in the mornings fourteen floors up in the West Village (he gone to work), riding my bike, working nights, and preparing for the next step.

I went through my dwindling possessions, now all at Al’s except for the remains of my album collection which was at Robert’s and had a couple more sidewalk sales; this time with some difficulty.  The first sale was fairly successful in unloading belongings and bringing in a little money, but the second was stopped short by a cop who drove by.  I called it quits then; all in all I was pretty lucky in this regard.  The remaining belongings could stay squirreled away at Al’s and Robert’s; there wasn’t much.  One Saturday afternoon in Al’s Cadillac we drove to a bargain store near Church Street, downtown.  I had my eye out for things I would need.  I bought a few odds and ends; a nylon ditty bag, small shampoo bottles, and a cheap canvas shoulder bag for $4.50.  The one I had would be too small to keep in it all I’d be needing while roughing it.

I pedaled up to Riverside Park to make sure one of the two stone buildings down on the river would work for me.  They must have been close to fifteen feet high but I climbed easily up the heavy wrought iron fencing that edged the back side of both buildings and gated (gates always open) over to continue fencing all around the wading pool and playground.  This whole tract of land was on an upward grade, slight, directly off the promenade but increasingly steep as it met the Westside Highway above the tree tops, so from the walkway behind the playground you could see the rooftops of the two structures.  This caused a little concern but there were many trees to cut up the view and as I realized further, the stone of the buildings extended about two feet above the tarred and graveled rooftop, forming a short wall.  I envisioned putting my three pillows, blanket and sheet in plastic bags, lining them up behind the convenient ridge, clearly labeled - PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH MY BED.

On the last day at Al’s I packed my suitcase to be kept at the Bagel And, in the cellar.  My clothing was divided into two categories -- to be worn at work and to be worn on the street.  I changed clothing before and after each shift, down in the cellar.  Working for these Arabs and Israelis made it easier than it could have been; they knew how to respect what was different.  It did not bother them that I changed in the cellar or kept a suitcase down there.  Of course they were astonished and curious about my routine.  I worked with many good people at the Bagel And; we had fun and at times were good friends.  Besides the two Arab overseers and Karim the bagel maker (Egyptians), most the others were Israeli.  Both groups had their own native friends that came to talk and fool around at the front tables.

I ended up sleeping on the rooftop two weeks; that had been my minimum goal, after which time I’d have earned back the money I spent on the bike.  Every early morning I biked uptown from work in the Village, locked my bike on seventy-fourth street off of Riverside Drive and walked down the path, through the short tunnel under the Westside Highway, down to my sleeping place.  There were few people in the park at that hour, though the promenade and the boat docks did attract and produce night strollers.  I saw almost no hard-core bums until morning, either they were already hiding away behind bushes or came to sleep later.  I climbed up the iron gate, unfortunately right under a lamp post, knowing that somebody on the hill behind, beyond the sphere of light may be watching me up to roost.  Into the second week I became more concerned about this and found a way to climb up the other side of the building against a taller burned out street light planted on the promenade two feet from the building.  Once I was on the roof I stayed very low; if I wanted to stay up once I was “home” I did it lying down or crouching attentively, hoping not to be seen.  I quietly took my bedding out of the noisy plastic bags and arranged my nest and slept.  It was a beautiful and peaceful location.  The building stood right along the promenade, fifteen feet from the water, high trees bowing overhead, and the water and lights (the Jersey shore across the Hudson at night).  I laid on my side on a blanket folded over me with a small pillow under my hips, and one under my shoulders and one for my head; my flute and the few things I carried with me stayed in my shoulder bag with the strap around me and the bag hugged in my arms.  On some nights a cop car patrolled the promenade and would wind slowly through the gates and around the bathrooms as I saw only the light glide pass below and reflecting off the trees.  I slept fairly well most of the nights; the first was the worst, it was a little cold and damp.  During the first week it rained two nights in a row; I spent the first at Al’s and the second at Robert’s.  I was glad to return and find my bedding unmoved.  Waking in the morning was the best; the birds and squirrels or the park maintenance men woke me; or a couple of times when I slept long and well it was the mothers and children at the fountain.  Most of the mornings before I had my bedding packed away, park maintenance arrived in their truck.  They started their day right below me talking and going in and out of the building to get supplies for their work and to turn on the fountain.  They could not help but to see me emerge down the gate since I landed five feet behind the tail of their pickup truck.  I said good morning and they looked quizzically with their return.

I was off.  Duffel bag over shoulder, dressed loosely, the days were hot, T-shirt and jogging shorts or light drawstring pants.  I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth at a water fountain on the way out of the park up to my bike -- always relieved to see it still there.  Usually for breakfast I had either yogurt and fruit at a stand or eggs in a restaurant.  I had the day before me.  The mornings I spent sober, usually studying my new Hebrew book and practicing the flute.  All along at work Alón and Miriam taught me simple things in Hebrew.  I figured it wouldn’t go too far but that was beside the point, I would learn what I could while working at the Bagel And.  As for the flute I practiced scales and reading music quite privately and sheltered with adequate acoustics under the arched ceilings of the fountain courtyard above the boat docks (I carried my music stand in my bag).  By the afternoon I was usually stoned and playing wildly in the park or where ever I found fit.  I was on my bike a great deal; with no home base (Central Park and the courtyard came closest) I tired quickly of one spot and found something to do elsewhere.  In one day I often made a number of trips up and down Manhattan.  There were days when something would come up to keep me busy -- registering my bike with the police; a flat tire; having my racing handle bars taken off and English touring bars put on (leaving me bikeless for a day and a half); seeking out a level one Hebrew book (considering this was New York, surprisingly difficult); going to the dentist (NYU School of Dentistry); also daily trips to the bank, I carried very little money on me.

By late afternoon it was time to shower before going back to work.  I went for fifty cents to the large outdoor municipal pool on west fifty-ninth street to swim and bathe.  I pad locked my bag in a locker and went to the pool before showering, until I decided I was risking too severely the loss of my flute through theft, after which point I used the facility only to clean in the communal shower room where with plenty of space I used the toiletries out of my precious bag hung next to me on an out of order shower head.  I bathed this way provided I didn’t have a date to work out with Robert at Coles Sports Center of NYU where he worked as an aerobic exercise instructor; he had free guest passes for me (here I ran into my ex-psyche-counselor from Brooklyn days, 1978).  This was a treat; rooftop jogging, nautilus weight lifting, racquet ball and swimming; whichever, but always ending in shower and sauna.  Then I was ready to go back to work.  I put in forty to fifty hours weekly.  As I locked my bicycle in the cellar and changed before beginning my shift, and all through the day I was continually made proud of how I could provide for myself. [really? oiy.]

My decision to call off this outside living was sudden and final as I walked down into the park on the last night.  I toyed with the idea of finding a new sleeping spot but decided out of prudence for my safety to call the whole thing off.  Though my fears were certainly legitimate I also considered this a cop-out.

In the morning, after securing another room at the Riverside I went back to the water front to get my pillows and blankets.  All along I had been so pleased that no one bothered my bedding; I had been able to tell that on some days workers had been up on the roof.  As I approached “my” building I saw a tall ladder leaning to the top and heard the workers above.  What a luxury not to have to climb.  When I landed on the top I took my bags and announced, “I’m moving out!,” and went back down the ladder.  This second room was less expensive and only had a bed, bureau, closet, and a window with an inside view.  I kept my bike locked in the room to some exposed plumbing.  The bulk of my belongings remained at Al’s or Robert’s.

The sequence that follows during my last three weeks in the city is harder to recall.  I was not particularly happy; I had stopped abruptly what was working so well and what was giving me the will to go on.  It had been a good two weeks; now I was back to pouring my feeble resources into four walls, but now with only one job and without Tabby.  The impact of this soon brought my thoughts back to the streets.  This time the job would have to go, it allowed too much comfort.  Here, where as this letter has thus far been mostly chronological description [Really? In rereading now, I find the chronology throughout hard to follow.], I am faced with describing myself and the period of complex inner action that took place.  Here also this letter fails, for in this regard it is not very telling.  So, I was going to be me on the streets of New York and my sustenance would follow.  I gave Bagel And a week’s notice.  They were a little concerned and feared for what I was planning.  I told them I was not going on to another job, I was vague but truthful.  They regretfully let go as I left on my last day.  Had I stayed in the city the bike probably would have been sold also, for without a job and no need to be anywhere at anytime (I could walk to the men’s center in the East Village for a free dinner) it only would have impeded my flute playing for sidewalk money.

I was in touch with Dad on the telephone from the Riverside.  I must have called to let him and Mom know I was living under a roof again.  I imagine my vagueness as to what I was planning alarmed him.  He had news to change the subject.  Aunt Shashie was in the hospital, it was hopeful that she would be out in a few days.  There was concern as to where she would live when released in need of supervision.  I offered to stay and care for her in her Morning Glory Cottage.  Dad liked the idea and suggested that I come in to New Jersey to visit Aunt Shashie and feel out the situation, I should bring my bike and a bag of clothing in case they would release her by the start of the new week.  I left the city on a bus with my bike below in the luggage space.  I arrived in Allentown still hairless enough for Dad to pass me by with a glance while waiting for me at the terminal.  We loaded my stuff into the car and went home.  That night Mom and Dad and I went to visit Aunt Shashie in Somerville, New Jersey.  We met Aunt Beth and Uncle Ken in the hospital parking lot.  I uncomfortably relayed to them what I was doing in New York, sketchy but true; working, bicycling, fluting, and living in a studio apartment.  We all sat around Aunt Shashie in bed.  At one point Dad and I suggested to Shashie that I stay and care for her at her house.  She saw no use in the idea, she would need the care of a nurse when and if she got out (her staying longer than a few days was becoming more apparent).  The subject was broached and disregarded.  The next morning I returned to New York.

Within a day or two Dad told me over the phone that Scott and Alice had offered that I come down to stay with them for a while [Raleigh, NC];  I told him I would have to think about it.  A couple days later I received a letter from Scott and Alice inviting me down.  I had some time left at the hotel and I needed it before realizing that I would go down to Raleigh.  At this point, with the idea of staying in New York I was still paring down for the path beyond what had thus far transpired.  On the day that I finished at the Bagel And I bought a new pair of sneakers and a pair of heavy cotton draw string shorts.  I wanted to devise a small and useful set of gear.  I didn’t have much money left with only my wits to fend for myself.  I was not too concerned for my fears, I was in a constant state of action, scheming my next move.  The next day I went downtown, very close to where Dad used to work, and bought a backpack to keep my belongings in (my new shoulder bag proved to be very tiresome with all the weight over one shoulder), also a pair of ankle high totes.  It is hard to describe these days but however mixed with turmoil, fondly comes to mind.  I felt close to depending on the next moment and only the next moment; I was scared but proud.

I spent my last night at the Riverside.  The next day and night I spent wandering.  Not quite out of money, I was still eating meals; I could not see what I would do when the money finally ran out but I knew I had to get rid of it before I would.  Late that night I cleverly locked my bike concealed within the labyrinth of the deep downtown scape.  I needed to rest somewhere.  I walked out into Battery Park along the lit paths all lined in low shrubbery guarding grass yards.  I laid down at the base of a statue surrounded with higher shrubbery made an island by the flagstone walks.  I was not alone as groups of people and playing radios went by unaware of a man in the bushes.  I didn’t sleep but at least rested.

My resilience [meaning lack of] became apparent the next afternoon when I hopped a bus to Allentown, again with my bike though the reasons why I was returning home were not well defined and my next step was not resolved, this meant trouble.  From the Allentown terminal I pedaled to Mom and Dad’s [Center Valley].  I glided into their driveway at about dusk.  Megan and Russ [my younger sister and er boyfriend] were on the little law by the side door having summer drinks with Sadie [Afghan hound].  We talked for a bit and I basked a little in the surprise of my visit.  Mom finally came out, “I thought I recognized your voice,” she also said she thought I’d be home soon (she had the timing down); my arrival a mixed blessing.  That night I fought with Mom and the next afternoon I took my bike and with hardly more than enough money to pay for the bus fare returned to New York.  Dad slipped me a five as I left.

I arrived back in Manhattan less than an hour before sunset (it was summer time).  I headed for lower Manhattan again after stopping in a Village delicatessen for a turkey breast sandwich and a three bean salad “to go” (Dad’s five dollars).  I watched the sun set over the New York harbor as I ate my dinner on a bench on the promenade at Battery Park.  There were strollers watching the day end and homeless watching the night begin.  One of the latter sat behind me as I ate my sandwich, I felt a little guilty.  Also behind me on the grass was a man and woman and her child; they were obviously vagabond, they too were eating dinner if you could call it that.  The child was pathetically unhappy and monstrously confused and unmanageable.  The man and woman walked away from the screaming child, I think he was hungry.  After eating my little meal as slowly as I could I rode over to lock up my bike in my hidden spot.  Soon I was trying to fall asleep in the graveyard of Trinity Church on Wall Street (guess I spent the night with some famous people).  First I circled the block on which three sides of the property met gated high with wrought iron, looking for the best place to scale and enter.  The yard was large and shaded by a ceiling of black lacy tree tops and by the high broadside of the church, black square stones and oily, sleeping glass.  Enhancing the darkness, the fourth boundary was vaulted by an old brick factory or warehouse that passed above the trees and reached out to the streets on the other side, leaving below the trees and distanced by the head stones low panels of street light and iron gating.  The bell struck (so loudly) every hour.  The grass was clean and soft but damp and chilly.  I attempted sleep, alternating between the buggy grass and a bench at the graveyard’s edge along the fence; though here still out of view and protected from passersby, fifteen feet below, as this end of the yard was above the street level and buttressed with a stone wall -- from here the World Trade Center towered above.

In the early morning I realized that I would take Scott and Alice’s offer.  I stayed in the graveyard well past dawn.  In the morning I was hungry and broke only until I was filled with plans for the next step -- my way out of Manhattan would be on bike.  I had wondered what it would be like to bike out of the city and now I would find out.  With the day’s light I was filled with excitement for the coming change and flushed with emotion at the thought of becoming closer to them [Scott and Alice].  It was settled now and I could go back to Allentown.  I had sixty-five cents.

I did not have a map to help choose the best way out.  I figured the Staten Island ferry was a good first step; I feared asphyxiation in the Holland Tunnel; also it was a beautiful day for the ferry ride.  My choices for getting off of Staten Island were three:  The Goethels Bridge -- too much a part of super highways on either side and surely without a pedestrian path; the Outerbridge Crossing -- most ideal but rather surely disallowed for bikes; and the Bayonne Bridge.  The bridge that crossed over to the least know territory was the best suited for the bicycle.  Though I’d never been on the Bayonne Bridge I figured it was not too large.  I knew its shape from it being pointed out from the Jersey Turnpike, its arched bow above the industrial sprawl.  Though the geography has since been clarified, as I crossed the Kill Van Kull into Bayonne, I didn’t realize that I was headed due north; I thought rather westerly.  I did know that as I stood at the summit of the bridge that I would have to cross the undetermined number of vast and here to unknown waters and industrial landscapes before me and to my left (Newark bay).  After receiving vague instructions from a fellow walking that amounted to keep going in the same direction, I continued on through Bayonne.  I attempted and was turned away from a large bridge that turned out to be apart of the Jersey Turnpike system.  The tollbooth attendant told me to continue north and take the old route 1-9 bridges; with the mention of which I knew these he spoke of:  A set of anonymous bridges seen many times below the Jersey Turnpike just before crossing under the Pulaski Skyway, carrying cars of unknown life in a foreign zone.  Glad to have become a part of it, I crossed them and the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers and joined the Pulaski Skyway traffic and route 1.  The road conditions were not too treacherous but I knew it would become so.  I saw an exit for route 22 and figured it would become safer sooner than route 1.  There was no room for me on the first stretch of 22, an elevated roadway in great disrepair with no shoulder, cars speeding by.  I knew I was saved when I saw an exit sign for route 27; I was so glad I had taken route 22 rather than 1.  From there it was route 27 all the way to good friend George Huddleston’s on the Raritan [New Brunswick].  It was a four hour trip.  I spent the night at George’s and as always when visiting with him he served me drinks and dinner as we talked all evening; he in his chair and I on the couch.

In the morning, George served me breakfast and I was off, bound for Allentown.  I was tempted to stop and visit Grandpa in Middlebush and Aunt Shashie in Somerville but I decided against it because I had such a long trip ahead of me.  I crossed the Raritan, went through New Brunswick and out Easton Avenue to route 287 to 22/78 all the way to Easton, Pa.  As soon as I crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania I was thrown off of route 22  [A construction worker literally stopped me and picked me up off my bike as I tried to dart by him!]  It was just as well, much safer; I found the old William Penn Highway that runs from Easton to Allentown.  This trip took a total and reasonable six hours.  I arrived home tired and hungry.  My sixty-five cents had gone to the Staten Island Ferry and a pack of crackers, all that I could afford to eat during the second day’s journey.


                                                                                         Keith Thomson
                             
                                                                                         March 7, 1983
                                                                                         Re-punctuated and
                                                                                         slightly revised
                                                                                         June 10, 1983