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
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