hard copy - rough draft
june fifth - 06
weather - cool mid 60s
light rains
heat - moderate
itch - low
the twenty thousand dollar hospital bill and counting...
>>> i think ive been back from florida four days...
I'am not sure. when you don't work, you lose your concepts of time. you sleep when your tired. you eat when your hungry. youve got no where special to be most of the time.
the "re-entry" into manhattan was rough. it always is. it's always difficult to come back to a small space. the bills, the phone calls unanswered. the life you left. the sex energy permeating the space, roaming around stale and trapped within the walls...
the ghosts in the cieling and the skeletons under the bed...
welcome home.
the corners of the building soaked full of urine when this building was a giant crack den: a smell that never seems to lift. the first floor "sprayed" by the "super" who has been continually - "almost drunk" for the last 17 years...and frankly either thinks no one knows or he just doesn't care...
his door always slightly ajar, three large screen tvs blar newscasts or cartoons...there is a smell of cooking emmanating from the space but nothing that ever smells like youd want to eat it...
the despair that reeks from this apartment is truly mind-boggling. my apartment sits right above his and years ago i could hear he and his wife fighting. oftentimes she would come upstairs to try and get me involved. pans were thrown. screaming. tears. on and on...
better than a spainish soap opera...
i tried to explain in broken spainsh to her that her husband was an alcoholic and needed help. "he needs a doctor..."
"your husbands an alcoholic -- me no help - you -- "
she got the message and stopped climbing the stairs.
she happened to peer inside the door one particulair sunday of gay pride weekend years ago to see a whole lot of fags listening to disco and davey lowenstein in drag camping it up....
i smiled.
"ah - its our ah - yeah...pride..." my voice trailed off...
right above her head: the apartment above her were hells kitchen fags carrying on...
she never came back.
she was always real polite after that on the street.
welcome home...
all your favorite memories are here.
all the tricks and boyfriends and heartaches and losses...
etched into the wood of the floor slats...
i'am dangerously close to becoming the "old guy" in apartment five. the old fag whoose been here since the 80s..."
18 years of staying sober. all within three tiny rooms...
a sanctuary on mot days and at other times a private hell...
apartment five...re-entry.
it took a few days but now i'am back.
it's time to deal with the bills...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
today i decided to deal with the 20,000$ something hospital bill that seems to grow everytime i get another bill...
another bill for an x-ray, another test, is there a rolling tab?
do i add them all up? twenty four bills in all. some saying that the hospital will settle for only 703.00 $ dollars??
other bills are billed from different offices throughout the city. it's confusing. i try to call medicaid. they give me this excuse and that. give me a list of numbers to call. offices to visit. well send you the papers....blah, blah, blah...
i decide to go down to the closest office on 34th street.
the address is 330 west 34th but when i get there the actual address is 340 west 34th. i step inside the door. the whole aura screams of institutional-government insanity...the cheapo peeling paint. the handwritten signs everywhere. the gaggle of people asking questions. all in some frenzy of panic or despair. many standing in line twisting this way and that. yelling at their children who are sitting on the floor. talking to themselves. looking at papers or trying to fill them out.
there are six windows with lines filing out the door.
i explain that i'am trying to "backdate" the eligibility of my coverage to include the hospital stay...
i expalin this to a security guard near the door.
"ok line four..." someone says to me...
just like in 1992 when i had my breakdown and was applying for public assistance, for rent and food stamps, it was the same insanity, the same, waiting in the wrong line. the wrong office. the wrong person...
back in 1992, paper was everywhere. the offices didn't run exclusively on computers. files were piled everywhere. you just prayed yours never got lost and it did many times....
"youll have to come back next week...in three weeks, tomorrow."
today thirty fourth street flashes me back...to "the zoo."
back to 1992. fourteenth street. the hieght of the aids panic. my first breakdown...it all seems the same...
same people. same broken down panic and desperation. same confusion and alcoholism...it's everywhere; in the way the system works. in the way you get paid. in the random chaos of a buerocracy spilling toward you...abusive, bloated and neglectful all at once.
if our religion is hard work then the sin is to be out of work.
your punishment is having to ask for help. i paid into this system. paid my taxes and don't complain about that, everything seems like a big mess of humanity, begging. fighting.
it's a free for all.
i wait in line four all of two minutes and decide to leave.
I remember - the "zoo." on 14th street from 1992. thats what the welfare office was known as on the street.
"oh yeah man - " the zoo..." "right upstairs..."
it sure was....
today's medicaid office is a smaller version of "the zoo."
>>>let me tell you about the 14th street welfare office...
back then: even to this day its one of the highlights of my ny experience...
not to be missed -- of course was my case worker.
miss cat-lady.
it took six weeks to get "miss cat-lady" as my case worker.
i wanted someone else. they said it would be another six weeks if i wanted to be re-assigned.
ok. miss cat lady it is.
miss cat-lady had smeared orange lip-stick that was always cracked on her lips. she wore a blonde buffuant wig that was sprinkled with black cat hair that occasionally would fall off onto the pile of papers she was looking through. she would simply wave the hair away and then pat the papers with an open palm and then look up through the fallen bangs of her wig.
i never knew what cat ladies eyes looked like. she wore three layers of clothes at all times and the final layer touching her skin was a nightgown.
i'd sit there with my arms closed off. looking at her like - you are joking...aren't you?
she wasn't.
she always had a greasy brown paper bag on her desk filled with half-eaten food. and while she looked over the papers shed take something out of the bag and put it near her mouth...never quite getting it inside.
crumbs - juice - remnants falling onto the papers below -
she would push the crumbs or juice away and then pat the papers in my file with an open palm, then peer at me through her wig. which had a life of its own.
she was really more like a talking wig. and every so often crumbs of food would fall sonewhere in the vicinity of her mouth or shed speak while trying to swallow. powdered sugar blowing toward me...
"ok this is your file..." id hear her mumble and then she would bob her head on occassion. she had to be heavily medicated by my guess.
she mumbled everything and then got angry when i asked her to repeat the instructions...
shed abstract and talk about other cases she had and that she was behind and always seemed confused and scared....
I'am sure a few of those guys in the zoo either told her off or threatened to hurt her. she jumped when i began to get angry...
almost fliching from the memories of being abused by someone and this would throw her back and shed pause and fade like she was gone...and look down for a minute and mumble some more. she was really one step above a homeless person...
i was amazed. truly. but thats not the half of it.
it is here that i'am instructed to inform you if youve never lived in manhattan that every apartment rental building built before elevators has a "cat-lady" for a tenant...
>>>the making of a "cat-lady."
many years ago she was an "actress."
she met a man. they drank together and had some fun, perhaps got married. he began slapping her around. she kicked him out. they got a divorce.
she got a few cats...
she stopped going out...
add thirty years and well...there ya go...cats, cat urine, cat food and cat calls. the smell alone - thats how you know.
the cat lady in our building was "alex" god rest her soul...
and of course she choose me to help her carry her groceries up the stairs. like the fool that i was and the newest tennant who didn't know any better: i agreed.
i figured maybe shed have some stories to tell about the theater in the 70s, some interesting tales of her lovers. what the neighboorhod used to be like or tenants that had come and gone...
"she's CRAZY--" the guy across the hall told me - "oh god - when you see her close the door..."
sure enough...
once she knew she knew my apartment number she knocked on my door every day for months...telling me there was
"a rooster" in the back yard and that no one will believe her...
the rooster it seemed crowed at dawn.
it took her three months to get it together to buy a tape recorder. a small black hand held model which she turned on and pushed into my open door one day - mumbling -
"see i told you..."
"ok i hear it..." i didn't know what else to say.
"well, so what do you want me to do?" i ask.
"i don't know..." she cries, deeply disturbed and scurries away talking to herself...
trust me.
the worst mistake you can make is showing someone like this some understanding...trust me. all hours of the day that wretched knock on the door.
the cat-lady lying in wait to spring her next drama...
the tradgedy is that you have to watch her and people like her deteriorate. one can only imagine the ghosts that awake her each night. the cats swirling around. meowing. even they don't want to be around the cat-lady...
"what ever happened to baby jane...?"
she's upstairs in apartment 17...
now that were on the subject, i could go on about the creepy meth smoking "shut in" next door who had his drugs delivered nightly by a band of thugs who also serviced him with rough sex and beatings...thuds and groans seeped through the walls for years...the meth smoke billowing through the shared wall and the floor boards. drug addicts always seem to console themselves by affirming that: "i never hurt anybody but myself..." wrong.
the meth aura pervading into the halls escaping; seeping, into the walls...i got addicted to it, to him smoking it.
finally one morning, after three years that was it, i had enough: i beat the walls with my fists:
"your the devil! your a fucking devil and i know what your doing. FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU---IVE HAD IT!"
two hours later a moving van pulled up to the building. they carted off some furniture. he got into the van and left forever...
and then theres -
the guy in the apartment behind me.
ive prayed for him: for years...he has the specific problem of not being able to throw anything away. its truly heartbreaking. although i like him and he never bothers me so i prayed for him everytime i passed his door...
"dear god - please let this man find some peace..."
one afternoon the super had to fx the door to his apartment. i walk by, the super waves me over and points inside...it was like a scene from the film "Seven." i couldn't believe it. a lone piss stained mattress thrown on top of junk. newspapers for carpet and the bathroom hadn't been cleaned in over twenty years...it was truly hard to believe...
i just started praying for the guy...
and months later: amen. he began throwing garbage away. first leaving it in the hall next to his door. a glimmer of hope. then boxes and bags and more bags...
miracles do happen and i was glad one happened for him.
no one deserves to live like that...
no judgements. but its called "alcoholism..."
the lucky ones make it to detox. the rest remain trapped inside their own insanity of self abuse and pain...
watching all of this happen is enough to drive a man to drink.
but i haven't.
i don't want to.
i don't want to become like that...
another sad story behind a closed door...
no.
i offer my pain - fear and dis-ease up to god...
please keep me sane...
>>>>>>
back to the zoo -
back to cat-lady number two, my caseworker and the fourteenth street welfare office.
the main office was on the second floor ascending to a small platform with a pay phone. the rise of the stairs was very steep: wide enough to accomodate five across...
as you entered the building you could see streetwalkers smoking at the top of the stairs. people fighting over the phone. someone had graffitied "the ZOOOO....here" with an arrow pointing upwards toward the landing...
if you could get passed the pros and drug dealers youd turn the corner and then what a sight...
the ceiling was partially knocked out in the main waiting room from water dammage. pigeons had somehow crawled into and nested in ceiling and occassionally without warning would fly down to pick some pork rinds or cheetos on the floor...and then fly away back into the ceiling.
on any given day there would be women surrounded by children crying. people sleeping. bagmen with bags. ghetto queens in fur coats with a pimp mobile parked downstairs.
an heiress crying and reading vanity fair...
newspapers strewn about the floor. the smell of garbage. empty styrofoam plates with dried sauce pushed into the corners...people pacing about. a few street fighter types. a couple of pregnant woman sat patiently in the back...
there was a red line of tape on the floor which said: "do not cross this line until called..."
when you were called by a number repeated over a loud speaker with cracked speakers then you crossed the line into a double row of cubicles - institutional grey felt - and waited again. the cubicles were numbered.
to the right of the cubicles were a row of glass enclosed offices that were lit and never occupied...
every so often a fight would break out in the main waiting room and some tired looking white guy would try to stop it shake his head a few times and then go back to his desk...
everyone was acting out. to put it mildly.
the "zoo."
for three years i went to the zoo a few times a week. then someone on the street - this skinny tall black dude who would take tips for directing traffic so to speak asked me what i was trying to get - "food stamps..."
"ok man - heres the deal - the food stamp office is on 17th street, on the fifth floor."
he gives me the address. somehow i believe him. know hes telling the truth. he extends his open hand palm up - like -
"pay up for the info...bro..."
i give him five dollars.
"17th street - fifth floor ask for jesse..."
sure enough. i go to the address. go inside. the office is calm, clean and quiet. i ask to see jesse. jesse tells me to take a seat and hands me a one page form to fill out.
eighty percent of the people in the waiting area are asian women. everyone from the clients to the staff are peaceful and intelligent. my papers are processed in about an hour...
unbelievable.
back to the zoo...
because i was applying for public assistance under medical reasons the welfare office policy was that you had to be examined by one of their doctors at a different location...
another office, another zoo. this one crammed with the injured, the infirmed, the fakers, the con-artists, the truly dammaged...
the offfice was a series of smaller rooms that snaked around in a semi-circle. each succeeding room had a purpose, a desk and then you were filtered off to the appropriate doctors room where they read your paperwork and looked you over...
the "back-problem" doctor was a lumbering line backer type of man with white hair sweating in a white coat...
"turn around." he states flatly. "pull down your pants..."
i do and then stand there motionless waiting.
he yanks down my boxers and then throws something on the floor at the same time...
i simply stand there.
i don't take "the bait."
the bait is to see if your faking; that is to see if youll turn around quickly after being violated. or
you bend over to pick up what he threw down then surely you are faking your injury...
i knew what the deal was and i didn't flinch. just stood there with my butt exposed and then turned to sit slowly on the chair next to the examination table and pull up my undies and pants. he eyes my cock and i cover it with my hand.
the doc eyes me with suspicion through squinted eyes. i meet his eyes as if to say: "did you like the view??"
then i wrinkled my nose a little as if to say -
"haa - iam smarter than you fuckhead..."
he could have called me on it but the fact that he scanned my cock for as long as he did made him the guilty one.
"can i go?"
the doc waves his hand like "ok give me the papers to sign..."
he signs them.
"you can go."
>>>>>>>>
after that i don't want to go back to the zoo and decide to look for work off the books...but nothing materializes. i wait a month. i still need my back rent paid.
i'am five months in arrears as they say. i apply for something called: "a one shot deal." they pay your back rent - no questions asked once. this begins a whole new process of paper work and questions etc, etc.
in the meantime my landlord has posted the sheriffs yellow sticker on my door. the large 8x10 decale states:
"all property in this space will be put into the street in three days. EVICTION."
the date was december 23.
merry christmas.
i take it day by day trying to get the wherewithall to go back to the zoo and the cat-lady. but i don't want to go...
christmas comes and goes. i had a can of campbells soup: chicken noodle, for dinner that night and played "go fish."
with davey lowenstein.
I wait. nothing happens.
then a few weeks later i get a phone call.
its the landlord. "mr. goode - you need to pay your rent..."
the landlord, mr markowitz, breathes heavily into the reciever. i can tell hes lying down. he doesn't sound like himself;
"mr. markowitz are you ok?" i inquire.
"i had a heart-attack..." long pause.
my eyes widen.
"are you in the hospital?"
"yes." he answers.
"please re-mit your arrears to the office..."
"ok - mr. markowitz - i will. i'am getting a check in the next week."
click.
he hangs up.
i return to the zoo.
cat-lady is not there. i wait twenty minutes or so.
i sit there in cubicle number seven. a blonde woman in her fourties appears. "dirk..." she says softly. looks at me with kindness. hands me a piece of paper. "third floor." and walks away.
god only knows whats waiting on the "third floor."
the third floor.
i open a dark stained door - the only door there. the door has frosted glass framed into the upper portion of the door.
it creaks open. there is a perfect stillness. an entire floor with wooden shades drawn over the windows appears.
the green floor tiles are spotless. there is a row of bank like teller windows from the fourties with bars resting on a wooden partition. behind the partition is a row of desks: metal grey office desks. the entire floor is quiet and still.
the lights are off. in the distance is a door that leads to a lit hallway. i wait here. silently.
a figure walks through the door - a woman - with a check in her hand...she passes me the check under the last teller window. "there ya go."
she nods and then walks back through the door and she is gone.
a sigh of relief. the rent gets paid. my case is closed.
i never return.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
davey lowenstien on the other hand was in and out of the welfare office in about three days...
