Caveat Emptor (10 page)

I was depressed, run-down, underweight, and dirty, so there was simply no proposition at all, no matter how ridiculous or bizarre, that I was unwilling to accept. After all, what could be more logical than stealing a bathtub in order to take a bath?

“Great, let's go,” I automatically replied. It was one in the morning when we pulled up to the remains of what had once been a fortune-teller's parlor on a street that is known around the world as the home of every bum and failure. I couldn't help but see the irony of the situation. There, painted on the window of the shop, was a gigantic hand, and on the palm were all the lines and their meanings. I questioned what my life had become and what the future held.

Tony carried the tools, while I had the flashlight. The door of the shop was already kicked open. We passed through a couple of stinking rooms. Mattresses, bottles, and debris littered the floor. Then Tony pointed to the bathroom. We had to pry open a half-closed door blocked with a pile of water-soaked newspapers and were flattened by the horrific stench that poured out. The beam of the flashlight revealed a filthy old cast-iron bathtub on one side of the room.

We went to work with the wrenches and crowbars. Tony unhooked the plumbing while I held the flashlight. We pulled and tugged and rocked the four-legged monstrosity until it finally broke free. As Tony cursed and yelled, we dragged it along, through the rooms and out onto the street. In one superhuman effort we heaved it into the back of the station wagon, jumped in, and burned rubber halfway down the street.

The next day, Tony got the two cooks from the restaurant to help him get the tub up the steps to the loft. Tony would let it be known, when it suited him, that he was a construction worker by trade. In fact, he had worked on the Brooklyn Expressway when he was a teen and even set up his buddy “Sammy the Bull” Gravano with a job. At any rate, he did have a collection of tools, and he let the cooks know he was going to install the tub himself. He went out and got some lumber and pipes he needed for the project.

Tony explained that the tub needed to be elevated to tie into a drainage pipe. But I wasn't so sure. He had conceived the same type of thing with his bed, claiming that he liked to sleep high up. But I saw all this as just another manifestation of his Mussolini complex.

The bathtub was finally installed and mounted on top of a rectangular wooden box about four feet high, adjoining the wall. When you sat in the tub, you felt as if you were in some kind of tower looking down. After bringing in lines for the water, Tony ran a drainpipe from the bottom of the tub down into the box and through the wall before finally connecting it to the drainpipe in the bathroom in the hall. The whole thing looked like something an escapee from a lunatic asylum would dream up.

One cold, gray afternoon I was on my way back to the loft from a particularly depressing walk around the neighborhood. I had had my food ration for the day, a lousy hamburger and greasy French fries in a joint on Eighth Street. On my way back home I was contemplating the new splendor of taking a bath in my own place. It had been in use now for only a week and already Tony had nearly killed himself climbing out of the tub while drunk.

When I came through Union Square and around the corner onto Broadway, it was getting dark. As I began to go in the street door, I noticed that the restaurant was closed and dark inside, which was unusual—especially at dinnertime. When I went up the steps and opened the door to the loft, I was confronted with a strange sight.

There was Tony, sitting on a stool in the middle of the dark room. He seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time, holding out his hands and pleading with someone who wasn't there. I slowly approached him. He stank of alcohol, and I could see he was in pain. “What's goin' on?” I asked, and he showed me his arms, covered with red welts and bruises. Then he pulled up his shirt to show me more all over his body. I was horrified. “What the hell happened?” I asked. Finally, pulling himself together, he told me the story.

“I just got up and took a bath! I didn't do anything!” he said. “Then I was just sitting at the table having coffee while the tub was draining, and I heard these big bangs down below. I could feel it right through the floor! And there's all this yelling and screaming. I'm wonderin' what da fuck's goin' on! I thought a stove blew up or somethin'. I looked out the window, and all these people are rushing out into the street. The next thing I know, I hear people charging up the steps and pounding on the door! I thought the place was on fire! When I open the door, those two fuckin' cooks with their yarmulkes come bursting in and start hittin' me with these big ladles! I'm yelling, ‘What the fuck are you doin'?' but they just kept screaming Yiddish curses and hittin' me. Look what they did to me!” and he showed me more welts on his body.

I closed my eyes and asked, “What happened?” At this point, unable to continue, Tony pointed to the tub and broke down in drunken laughter. He couldn't bring himself to say the words, and only made a twisting motion with his hands, like he was tightening a jar, and then threw his hands up in the air as though it all came apart.

Now I understood. Apparently Tony had done a half-assed job of connecting the drainpipe that ran under the wooden box the tub was mounted on. Every time we drained the tub, water leaked out and soaked into the floor beneath. In between the floors was a bed of ash, used in the old days as insulation. Probably the ash, getting heavier by the day as it soaked up the leaking water, became too much for the ceiling to bear. When Tony pulled the plug that afternoon and the tub drained, it must have hit the breaking point. The ceiling caved in, showering the customers with a deluge of water, plaster, and ash, and just at dinnertime when the place was packed. It was a wonder the whole damn tub with Tony in it hadn't gone right through the floor.

I began getting a numb, sick feeling. The restaurant was our landlord. I left Tony in his delirium. I went down the steps and out onto the sidewalk and looked in the window of the dark restaurant. The ceiling had that old-fashioned pressed-tin decoration. It hung down in sheets from the epicenter of the damage. Beneath it on the floor was a pile of plaster and debris. The customers, no doubt fearing that the building was about to collapse, had panicked, trying to get out through the narrow door. The whole place was a shambles, and I was in a state of shock. I knew this meant eviction.

I had to get away, and I started walking. I crossed Union Square and saw Andy Warhol getting into a big black limo with some friends. Again he stopped and gave me a deliberate stare, but I just passed quickly by. I felt his eyes follow me, and the sensation had an unreal, nightmarish quality. I lacked the nerve to go up to him and tell him what had happened.

The following day, the landlord ordered us to be out in a week. Where was I going to go? What was I to do with all my artwork? I saw my dreams of becoming a successful artist going, literally speaking, down the drain.

A few days later, the restaurant was fixed up and back in business. Tony walked in one day to talk to the cook and see if he could smooth things over. When he entered the kitchen, the cook was dicing carrots with a large cleaver. The guy was in such a state of sustained rage and became so incensed at the sight of Tony that he lost control and chopped off the tip of his finger along with the carrots. Tony fled as blood was squirting all over the place and the cook's agonized screams rent the air. The cook was rushed to the hospital, where they sewed the tip back on.

I couldn't stand living with Tony anymore. I was low on money, and I was suffering from psychological torture. Tony was barricaded in his room. He'd been drunk for days and was waiting for them to physically throw him out. I spent the next few days aimlessly wandering around the city, freezing in telephone booths, dialing numbers and getting nowhere. Everybody I knew was either living with someone or already sharing an apartment. The snow, the cold streets, and the fruitless phone calls put me in a state of desperation.

Then one day, as I sat in a luncheonette having a cup of coffee, convinced that it was the end of the world, I was about to pay my bill when I noticed a small piece of newspaper tucked in the corner of my wallet. Something urged me to take it out. As I unfolded it, I saw it was an advertisement I'd saved from when I was looking for a studio and landed the place on Fifth. It read: “Live in an exclusive East Side town house, $40 per week, 35 East Sixty-Eighth St.” and listed a phone number. The ad was so old, it seemed pointless to try, but having wandered all the way up to the East Side, I decided to trudge over and have a look.

I went up Madison Avenue to Sixty-Eighth Street. Number 35 was a magnificent Beaux Arts–style town house just east of Madison Avenue and one house down from Halston's showroom boutique. I stood in the freezing cold, looking up at the house, not knowing what to do. I felt foolish inquiring about an ad that was so old. A massive glass-and-iron grill door opened and a few young people who looked like students came out excitedly talking and laughing as they passed me and went down the street.

The gnawing dread of returning to the loft for another sleepless night gave me the courage to ascend the granite steps and press a big brass doorbell button. I was buzzed in. I entered a beautiful marble vestibule with tall ceilings, a chandelier, and a large marble fireplace.

Seated behind a fine Charles II desk was an elderly lady in a dark-blue dress, the very embodiment of propriety. Directly across from her by the fireplace sat a handsome young man in a comfortable wing chair. I was still not sure exactly what this place was. I approached the desk and politely inquired if there were any vacancies.

“No, not at the moment,” the woman replied as the two carefully looked me over. But instead of letting me walk away, she asked me what sort of accommodation I sought and what I did for a living. The pair exchanged a glance when I mentioned I was an artist. I explained, carefully avoiding details, that, due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to vacate my current lodgings and needed something without delay. Though she flatly reiterated that there were no vacancies, her lengthy explanation of the rental terms and living situation at the residence heartened me.

The town house, the lady explained, was a “residential club” and in original condition, just as it had been built at the turn of the century. Rooms were let, but few had their own baths or kitchens. There was an original basement kitchen for common use. Rooms on the upper floors shared bathrooms in the hallways, and rooms on the lower floors had their own. Different rooms had different prices. Some, like the drawing room and study, were quite grand. They had parquet floors, marble fireplaces, and Louis XV paneling. Other rooms, not as ornate, were formerly family bedrooms. The servants' quarters on the uppermost floor were small and devoid of decoration. An old-fashioned elevator had been installed decades ago and was the only “modern” convenience in sight.

As she was explaining all this to me, I noticed that fine period furniture was arranged around the lobby. Tenants' mail was laid out on a beautiful seventeenth-century Italian refectory table. A pair of Louis XV shield-back armchairs flanked a gilded Louis XIV console that supported a cheap lamp. She finished by quoting me the prices of the various rooms. The small rooms on the uppermost floor went for forty dollars a week, and the large rooms on the lower floors went for double that rate.

The woman who explained all this to me was Mrs. Parker. She was in charge of the house. The young man, Jim, was the super. The house was called the Fergusen Club. As there was nothing available now, my heart sank, but Mrs. Parker suggested I try their
other
club, the Warren Club, down the street on Sixty-Eighth off Fifth Avenue. She thought they might have something, but added that, if not, I should return.

I crossed Madison Avenue and walked over to Fifth. It was bitter cold and the wind was blowing hard. When I reached the address of the Warren Club, I found that it was a large town house with a more austere façade than that of the Fergusen. Despite its exclusive location, the impression I got upon entering the lobby was of a cheap hotel.

In contrast to the Fergusen's stately atmosphere and fine period décor, here was a Coke machine, an old black-and-white TV, and a few boys lounging on broken-down sofas. All eyes were on me as I surveyed the scene. I sensed that I'd intruded upon their private domain. Amid the trashy ambience, I was surprised again to spot a few pieces of fine antique Italian and French furniture.

A sandy-haired boy in a bathrobe and slippers, who appeared as though he was still trying to wake up although it was late afternoon, called someone in charge. Soon a tall, thin boy with short hair and an earring came to greet me. “Mrs. Parker from the Fergusen Club sent me over. I'm looking for a room,” I announced, and the two of them accompanied me to an elevator so small that I could feel their breath on my neck. We got out on the third floor and I marched with the pair to a door near the end of the hall. The boy with the earring made a grand display of producing a jangle of keys from the end of a long chain attached to his skintight jeans.

When he opened the door, I was confronted with a tiny, windowless room that resembled a prison cell. Dumbfounded, I wondered if this wasn't a joke they were having on me. Smiling, they demanded fifty bucks a week. I thanked them and said, “I'll have to think about it.” Back in the lobby I noticed a guy in a biker jacket and a shaved head staring at me on the way out. I returned to the Fergusen Club and told Mrs. Parker that all they had was a small room and I doubted I wanted it. Jim tried to keep a straight face as Mrs. Parker politely said she understood perfectly. She took my name and phone number and said she'd see what she could do.

Several days later, as I sat biting my fingernails in the loft, the phone rang. Mrs. Parker informed me that she had a room on the top floor, plus storage space in the basement if I could commit to stay for any length of time. Without hesitation, I told Mrs. Parker I'd take the room. I loaded up a rented truck with my artwork, told Tony to go fuck himself, and split.