New York, Sept. 10, 2001
New York, Sept. 10 2001
By John Curran
I had been given this middle passage sort of time to figure a few things out while my case was being resolved. Still, I’ll be homeless again pretty soon, twenty five years later, from when I was in New York, homeless there too, but the time, situation, and circumstances were a lot different. For one, I had my good friend Steve steering me through it all.
New York New York. I had just arrived, first timer, up from Florida, where I was pretty much done. New York was for sure another rung to another era of the narrative, and even though I was a homeless guy I had means. Steve had a basement place we’d sneak into after dark, and the city itself was pretty darned good at social services. Steve was a working guy and had been in the city for a while. He’d done a few things, bartender, odd jobs, various things, but his main talent was as an expert on vegan cuisine. He was a full on vegetarian and knew a lot about all that. His was a living example of how healthy vegan eating is. He could whip up the greatest meals, totally vegan, and you would be satisfied. He had a job at the neighborhood health food/ grocery store situated right there, a block in from the famous Tomson Park, in the East Village, the heart of everything.
Steve knew a lot of people, homeless and otherwise. One of these “other-wisers” was this chick who I never met but was some acquaintance of Steve’s in some way or another. And this girl was a model, worked at it, got paid the real money, and had a actual apartment in a decent area up on like, the eighth floor of a nice complex. Swank place, great city view, lots of plants. So this chick she was gone somewhere for a few days, possibly a modeling assignment, I didn’t know. Anyway Steve was given the key and the deluxe gig of taking care of her plants while she was gone.
And so there we were, for a coupla beautiful early fall days, housesitting like kings, watching the U S OPEN on TV while the real tennis show was going on that moment live, right across the river in Queens. And Steve he took the job seriously, he watered them damn plants. I should mention this guy was a flat out genius with plants, he had a sense about them like nobody I’ve ever seen, and could grow anything, or figure out how.
I never got to meet this girl. I knew she was a cutie though, her framed professionally done model shot looked at us from the coffee table, and I never asked nothing, just glad to be there. Yes and for the moment we were happy with our little trickle down bit of cool comfort. I’d been in New York 12 days now and it was still all so new and exciting. And now, looking at homeless again all these years later, not too exciting, a slog, not really enough monies to just not worry about it, gotta hope I can find something at this poverty fixed income level, an old man now with a health condition. And I sure do miss my good friend Steve, one good friend he was, at a crucial time, I hope he’s doing OK.
We had a great time we did, in a time that was gonna really change, tomorrow.
