No Sleep Til

This August I will have been living in New York for 10 years. Before I moved up here, I was living in Tallahassee, Florida, teaching at Florida State University and was a thesis away from earning my master's degree. Lupe (not her real name), a friend of mine from Study Abroad, had recently divorced her husband and had just bought a building. One day she called.

Lupe: I need a roommate, you should move to Brooklyn.
Me: Okay.

Two weeks later, my CRX -- stuffed to the point that there was barely enough room for me to drive and smoke without destroying all of my worldly goods -- and I were on our way to New York.
I crossed from Staten Island into Brooklyn via the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on August 28, 1998.

I got a parking spot directly in front of the apartment (not realizing at the time that this was a miracle) and I started unpacking. When I took the first load to the door of what I thought was my new apartment, I learned that actually I was moving into a work-in -progress. A construction site, if you will. Complete with saws and lumber and a huge piece of steel covering the hole in the floor. Even better ... there were construction workers.

First there was Geoff. Geoff was a fantastic carpenter and could sheetrock like you can't believe. Geoff was also a fierce heroin addict and spent a lot of time in the bathroom with the water running, frequently followed by long sweaty "naps" on the couch which were then followed by frantic chocolate binges. Apparently, this is the way of the heroin addict.Then there was Jeff. Jeff was an average electrician who liked to boast about his ability to accurately bend pipe. Apparently this is a huge deal with electricians and so he was very proud of this fact. Jeff also was a bassist in several music endeavors all of which he was sure would be his big break. Jeff also had a heroin problem. Though he smoked it, so he viewed himself as being above Geoff who injected it. As a bonus, Jeff was an alcoholic with a cocaine problem.Jeff was what one would call a junkie.

Then there was Kevin. Kevin was someone who Geoff had hired as a general laborer. He had no drug or alcohol problems to speak of. He just had nowhere to live. Occasionally Kevin would ask to stay with us -- me and Lupe -- on cold nights. We never let him. Lupe was pretty strict about who could or could not even visit the construction area. (You could tell by her strict selection process for hiring workers.) There was no way she would allow some homeless guy who seemed nice and did help out a lot, but who might turn into a psychopathic rapist killer to stay overnight. Where would we be then?

Raped and dead. That's where.

After I unloaded the CRX and got settled in, we all gathered in the kitchen for Budweiser and Camel Lights. Me, Lupe, two heroin addicts and a homeless guy. I could not have been more thrilled. I was starting a new phase in my life. In this "apartment" I went on to learn how to rip up and install a floor. I mean from dirt, people. I also learned how to re-frame a window and hang closet doors. Plus now I can spot a heroin addict from 18 blocks away.