Waterfront Journals (7 page)

Canada-bound Trucker on Interstate 90

NEW YORK

I was a coast-to-coast trucker for twenty-five years … lemme tell ya it's hard work … I mean I know they put out these books makin truckin life look glamorous but it ruins ya … if I had the choice to do it all over again I wouldn't choose it but what can I do now … I can't quit it … not with that pension I'm buildin up … I'm forty-five and I gotta do this north-south drivin for another thirteen years before I can retire …

I seen a lot of strange things drivin coast to coast. This one time I stopped off at a truckers' rest stop, this big restaurant refuelin place I would drop by whenever I was goin through Arizona. I stopped off and there were these two kids who couldn't have been more than eighteen or twenty years old. The railroad bulls had caught them ridin boxcars and beat the hell out of them … this one kid had a big white bloody patch over the side of his head. They beat them up with clubs and threw them in jail for a week … so this one kid came up to me and started beggin me: Listen, man, the cops beat us up and run us off the freights and we tried hitchin and got thrown in jail. We ain't got no money and we've been in this stop for three days. We can't go out to the highway to hitch or we'll land in jail again. Ya gotta help us out cause I swear if I don't get a ride soon I'm gonna go out and steal a car. I can't take it no more. I haven't eaten in three days and I got no family to call for help. I felt awful but I couldn't take them. My partner was with me and we had no room …

There ain't hoboes like there used to be … I remember hoboes … real ones … used to be out on the roads all the time … we'd give them lifts in the trucks when we were travelin alone. Boy I'll tell ya these guys had the gift of bull. They'd tell ya stories from here till tomorrow. I'd pick up guys who were dentists scientists teachers doctors, a lot of them had good educations and high-payin jobs at some time or other but then somethin happened and they started on the bottle. I picked up this one hobo once who told me that he had been with NASA at one point. He was with them when they were buildin the first rockets to put up into space and he was gettin quite a bundle of money and had a wife and two kids and then outta nowhere he finds out his wife was havin an affair with some guy. Turned out the guy was his boss, the fella he worked for at NASA. He said he and his boss were real good friends too and this was goin on behind his back so he started hittin the bottle and quit his job and left for the road. He told me he was goin on back to Florida soon, that's where his wife and two kids lived, but he wasn't gonna look them up cause he didn't want his sons to see what kind of guy he ended up as … no aims left in the world and no desire to do anything with his life just drinkin himself away …

Ya see somethin happens in their lives and they end up not wantin to do anything but move on get away from everything and everybody. They don't even wanna work again for nobody … they don't wanna be around anybody for too long … just movin on when things get crowded … movin from town to town and drinkin their wine … that's all … that way they don't have to face any of it … they don't recognize any of their past in anything … they consider life one big zero and they themselves show what they think by becoming the same thing … no aim and no point …

Man in Sheridan Square Park Drinking 1:00
A.M.

NEW YORK CITY

I can dance … I can dance … lemme tell ya I can dance … I ain't bullshittin ya … see that corner over there across the street. Well you just keep your eyes on that corner cause in another two or three weeks I'm gonna be dancin there … first I gotta get me a pair of leather shoes though … see these shoes here they ain't shit … they made of rubber on the soles … I need a pair of real leather shoes for dancin … I just got back from Florida … been down there for three years … just got back a couple of weeks ago … lemme tell ya this straight slim … I hope ya don't mind me callin ya slim … see I was a dancer for years … I do real dancin not any of that where you shake your ass and do that boogaloo bullshit but real dancin soft-shoe tap … I can do some mean steps … I'd do some for ya if I had a pair of leather shoes … I could show you some fancy steppin and slidin. Ya know how ya slide on roller skates? Well I could show you a slide on my heel where I do a fancy step like this and then I could slide from here to that manhole cover just on my heel alone … I bet you never seen dancin like that. I learned to tap in the Savoy Ballroom up in Harlem in 1956 … bet you was just a kid then … well I loved watchin them movies with Fred Astaire. Fred was my idol but see I feel bad cause he had the chance I'll never have and I know I coulda outstepped him … I could do a step that would upset Texas … now I'm serious. I could do a step that would have Texas come all the way up here to New York and arrest me it would be so good … see all I'm trying to do with this cola cup here is get a little money up to buy me a pair of real leather shoes … then I'd be on that corner I'd chalk up a square the size of this sidewalk and I'd have me a fine time steppin … I'd have all these people's attention right away … see that? lemme tell ya I seen all sorts of stuff standing on this corner. I just came down from Grant's Tomb and the Jazzmobile this afternoon … I be standing here on the corner and these two men come by and start kissin each other right here on the street … two men … and I be lookin around and here they are tonguing each other. Now I'm lost … I don't understand that shit but that's their game I won't be callin them up on their game. Hell I'd be in a whole lot of trouble I'd have some argument on my hands if I woulda said somethin so I just kept lookin around don't pay attention to none of it … but it ain't my scene lemme tell ya slim … if I had me a pair of leather shoes I'd cut that shit out right away … they'd be forgettin about kissin and watchin me … lemme tell ya I know how to dance … I was a star once … hear this slim, for a while all you see is stars and then ya don't see nothin … that's how it goes …

Boy in Horn & Hardart's on Forty-second Street

NEW YORK CITY

There's this guy who hangs out down here, usually hangs out with a bunch of gangsters. One of the guys he hung out with had his own private phone at a window table in the Child's Coffee Shop across the street. About a week and a half ago I was cutting school and I ran into him in Nathan's. He bought me a cup of coffee and we talked for a while and then he invited me up to his place … he lived up in the Eighties somewhere between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenue so we went up there and got into bed, this was about five o'clock, we were having sex when there was this pounding on the door. We stopped and kept real quiet for a few seconds then he says: Who is it? and there was some more pounding and someone yelled: Open up it's the police! I said: Oh shit what'll we do? The two of us jumped up and started pullin on our clothes and I kept thinking: Oh god what'll my parents say when the police call them up and I pulled on my pants and didn't bother with my underwear and he was whispering something about being on parole for something. The police started ramming the door like they were gonna break it down so I grabbed my sneakers and my socks and put my shirt on and ran to the back window … we were on the second floor and his windows opened onto a big courtyard it ran the whole length of the block and there was no way out except through cellar doors … there were a whole bunch of fences and private patios. I threw open the window and tossed my shoes and socks and underwear down onto the concrete and he helped me out and held my arms and lowered me as far as he could reach and then I dropped the rest of the way. I thought I was gonna crack an ankle but I didn't. I picked up my stuff and jumped over the first fence and then a whole bunch more … I kept trying basement doorways but they were all locked and I was afraid if I pounded on them someone would call the police so I ran almost the whole block and finally I went down this alleyway that came to a brick wall and there were some boards laying on the ground. I propped them against the wall and hid behind them. I left a little crack between them so I could see if the police came down the alley looking for me. After about twenty minutes I remembered my subway pass in my wallet so I got up and hid it under some other boards further away in the alley, then I crawled behind the boards again and sat there not moving until it got dark. I kept thinking the police would come any minute. When it got late I crawled out and started walking back through the courtyard trying doors on the opposite side. I finally found one building that had been burned out and I could walk through it to the front but there were iron bars over the window and an iron door that had a chain wrapped around the bars with a padlock on it … I thought I was gonna go nuts … I could see people pass by on the street and I could hear the traffic but I couldn't get out. I went back into the courtyard and turned to the side of the building to try other doors when I saw a light on in a basement apartment. I peeked inside and there was a guy in there sitting in a chair and he was naked and talking on the phone. He was really handsome and I started getting excited. I wanted to knock on the window but I didn't know if he would call the police thinking I was a burglar so after a while I went back into the burned-out building and checked all the window bars to see if there wasn't some way to kick them out. Then suddenly I saw that the padlock on the chain wasn't snapped shut so I quick undid it and opened the iron door and stepped up onto the sidewalk. I walked real slow to the corner and as soon as I turned it I started running … I ran from the Eighties all the way down to the Village where I lived …

A Kid on the Piers near the West Side Highway

NEW YORK CITY

He's got me down on my knees and I can't focus on anything I have no time to understand the position of my body or the direction of my face I see a pair of legs in rough corduroy and the color of the pants is brown and surrounded by dark shadows and there's a sense of other people here and yet I can't hear them breathe or their feet move or anything and his hand suddenly comes up against the back of my head and he's got his fingers locked in my hair and he's shoving my face forward and twisting my head almost gentle but very violent behind the gentleness and I only got half a breath in my lungs the smell of piss on the floorboards and this heavy bulge in his pants getting harder and harder as my face is forced against the front of his pants the zipper tearing my lips I feel them getting fat and bruised and all the while he's stroking my face and tightening his fingers around the locks of my hair and I can't focus my eyes my head being pushed and pulled and twisted and caressed and it's as if I got no hands I know I got hands I had hands a half hour ago I remember lighting a cigarette with them and I remember how warm the flame of the match was when I lifted it towards his face and my knees are hurting real bad from the stone floor hurting because they banged on the floor when he dragged me down the cellar stairs I remember a door in the darkness and the breath of his dog as it licked at my hands when I reached out to stop my headlong descent its tongue licking at my fingers and my face slams down and there's this electric blam inside my head and it's like my eyes suddenly opened on one huge bright sun and then went black with the switch thrown down and I'm shocked and there's pressure on my face on my forehead and something cold and wet and his arms come swinging down he's lifting me up saying looking for me? and he buries his face and I feel his saliva running down into the curve of my neck and my arms are hanging loose and my head is way back and I can see a ceiling and a dim bulb tossing back and forth and suddenly I'm on my knees again and my face is getting mashed into his belly and sliding down across rough cloth and the metal zipper and there's this sweet musty smell and I can't breathe and my head is pulled back and his dick is slapping across my eyes and being rubbed over my cheeks and bloody lips and suddenly it's inside my mouth and his hands are twisted up in my hair cradling the back of my skull shoving me forward and I feel his dick hit me in the back of the throat and I start feeling pain for the first time like the open pants are in focus and he's pulled his dick out of my mouth and I'm choking and he's running one big hand over my face putting his fingers in my ears in my mouth dragging down my lower jaw and forcing his dick in between the fingers and the saliva and blood and shoving in and out and pulling on my hair and everything goes out of focus my eyes moving around blindly the smell of basement water and raw sewage and mustiness and he's slapping my face like he wants to wake me up and I realize I'm crying and he tells me that he loves me and he lifts me up and pulls me towards him in a big hug and he puts his lips over mine and sticks his tongue in my mouth and buries his rough face down into my collar and licks and drags his tongue over my neck and shoulders and his hands are up inside my shirt and he's rubbing them back and forth across my chest and belly and taking quick handfuls of flesh and twisting and pulling and then his hands are in the back of my pants to the sides and he suddenly rips apart my pants and punches me in the side of the head at the same time pulling my hair and pulling me back down on the floor and I'm on my belly I feel cold stone scraping my skin and he kneels down onto the center of my back and it hurts and I try to scream but he's shoving my underwear into my mouth and I'm hit with such a feeling of claustrophobia and fear that it's hours before I realize that my hands and legs are tied together and that I'm lying on my side and the rag in my mouth is soaking wet and making small bubbling sounds each time I breathe …

Hobo in Train Yard

PASCO, WASHINGTON

I tell ya … if ya got a good story and an unknown face you can pick up ten or twenty dollars' worth of food stamps from this welfare office about a mile from here in town. One time I found this old crutch somebody lost so I limped into this office where this woman was workin and I sat down and told her how my car broke down about ten miles down the road … I said me and my wife and my three kids had been drivin for days and we ran outta money … I told her that my wife was real sick and needed to go to a doctor and my kids ain't had nothin to eat for the last couple of days … I tell ya I almost had that woman cryin … she was about to reach into her own purse and give me money when this guy comes in who works there and he starts questionin me and after a while they caught on that I was tellin them a story and they told me: Man, you get your crutch and you use it to get out of town cause if we see you around here again we're gonna have you arrested. I was embarrassed and I got the hell outta there as fast as I could. Yesterday I met two young hitchhikers just like yourselves … they took me out and bought me a nice breakfast and a couple jugs of wine. They were real nice but that wine made me sleepy. This mornin some guy comes into the car bangin on the wall and says: Okay I need me four guys to unload a truck … take ya about two hours and I'll pay ten dollars. I rolled over and went back to sleep … unloadin a truck in that condition? Well, excuse me … I gotta go see if my buddy got paid … maybe we'll go into town and bring back a nice bottle of wine …