The Pee-Pee Palace

I heard that an old friend's dog died recently.

I knew that Diggity was sick. A mutual friend of ours called to tell me that the vet had found a tumor and had only given the dog a very short time to live. I said, "That's awful." I said, "I'll call." Our friend said, "Good. You should call." I didn't call. And now, through yet another mutual friend, I find out that Diggity went even more quickly than the vet predicted. Obviously, now, I can never call.Diggity and I were roommates a few years ago. I was living in the East Village and bartending around the corner from our apartment. Diggity was living with me because her person didn't have room for her at the time. Diggity and I lived in an old run-down tenement apartment my friends and I named The Pee-Pee Palace in honor of Diggity and her incontinence. The shower stall was conveniently located directly adjacent to the kitchen sink. The bedroom was a cave with one window that looked out over a bricked-in shaft of some sort. The superintendent of the building was a crackhead. Literally. (Smoking Baby rest his soul.) It was one of those places where you could clean for six hours with straight ammonia and still feel that it was dirty. It was one of those places where you walked in and immediately got an urge to wash your hands. I loved it.

I loved the rawness and the New Yorkness of it. I felt like Mimi in Rent minus the heroin addiction and HIV. I slept every day, I went out every night, I could get free drinks at loads of bars, I never paid a cover charge. Plus I was a bartender at a bar where we were encouraged to drink -- for free. Awesome.

In a lot of ways it was fantastic and a great time. And in a lot more ways, it was hideous. I slept until two. I chain smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. I drank non-stop and dropped thirty pounds. I had friends who called to make sure I was eating. And I lived in the Pee-Pee Palace with John the crackhead superintendent who I once found standing outside our building in the middle of about twenty bills wadded up around his feet. He was bent over with his legs spread apart to help him maintain his balance. He kept picking the bills up, wadding them a little more, putting them in his pockets then pulling them back out and throwing them on the sidewalk.

To be completely honest, my first thought was, "I could totally take all of that money and he would never know." But, instead I waited for his back to be turned just enough that I could squeeze past him and get my key in the door before he realized I was there.

This happened around the time that the lights went out. For three months.

I was renting the Pee-Pee Palace from Diggity's owner, Rose. We had a financial deal where I paid her rent, minus $300 a month for 24-7 care of her psychotic, cannibalistic pit bull, and she covered all of the utilities. For, I am not kidding you, three solid months I not only lived in a gross tenement apartment that smelled like dog piss, but I lived there with no electricity. Every time I ran into Diggity's owner she had a new excuse usually with some variation of, "ConEd is run by a bunch of fuck-ups and you should have lights back tomorrow."

And remember, this is around the same time I considered robbing my crackhead superintendent. I had no extra money lying around for things like electricity bills. Especially not ones that were overdue and accumulating.

I spent most of those nights in the bar alone watching TV way into the morning because I couldn't handle going home to that dark apartment. Some nights I'd go around the corner and bring Diggity back with me to keep me company and as a bodyguard. But most of the time I'd just sit there after closing and wait for dawn to show up so I could go home. Once I piled the clothes from the lost and found box on top of the bar and slept there.

In addition to all of this, about once every two weeks, I'd come home to an eviction notice taped to my door, meaning that the money I was paying over for rent -- in cash -- wasn't being paid to the landlord. I was a sucker. But I was also stuck.

I moved to the Palace after 9/11 and being laid off from my job. I had lost my apartment in Bay Ridge and I needed a place to stay quickly. Rose let me stay with her. And eventually she moved out and I had the place to myself. Plus, there's no way I would have been able to find another place in as little time and as little money as I had then.

Eventually, the lights came back on. And, preferring to suffer rather than to create an unpleasant scene with Rose, I just went on with my life, and our friendship, as if those three months had never happened. She and I don't see each other much these days, but when we do, we laugh and talk and reminisce. We always had a great time together. And although I was hurt and angered by what happened, I've been able to maintain that friendship in a peripheral way and truly enjoy it. There is something about her that allowed me to separate the asshole who could let a friend live with no electricity for three months and steal her rent money for who knows what, from the person who was fun to run into at a bar and chat with for an hour or so.

But I can't do it now. I can't separate the person who is suffering because she lost her dog from the insensitive, lying, stealing fuck that didn't pay the goddamn light bill. And I don't know if that's me being vindictive or me taking a stand and not feeling obligated to her.

And I don't care.