A Sort of Mentor
Moving into 78 Washington Place, during early spring 1981, didn’t take long. My possessions consisted of two suitcases, briefcase, clock radio, electric typewriter. Apartment 3C came furnished. The metal bed was fitted with a thin mattress and itchy blanket, reminding me of the bottom bunk at summer camp. (It proved to be considerably less comfortable.) There was a reasonably clean and functioning mini-refrigerator, the boxy kind found in college dormitories. The institutional-beige paint on the walls smelled fresh. Nudging the shadowy corner wall were a flimsy-looking wood table and mismatched kitchen chair. Dirt encrusted windows didn’t admit much sun and a lonely overhead bulb barely helped. An antique hotplate sat on the table, its twin burners supporting a dented kettle and warped frying pan. The shallow closet was the size of a cupboard; a chipped porcelain sink clung to the wall beneath a mirror dotted with paint drips. As advertised, the communal toilet and shower facilities were located near the stairway in the hall.
My first day began on an industrious note. I deposited the teapot and filthy frying pan in a garbage can on my way out to grab a cup of coffee. Later I took a ten-minute stroll up to West 14th Street and stumbled on a block of rock-bottom discount stores between Sixth and Fifth Avenues. There I purchased plates, a small pot and pan, a pair of place settings plus a serrated knife, two drinking glasses, a cereal/soup bowl and a large mug for coffee or tea. The whole deal me back $15 with no mention of tax.
At home I tried to draw up a grocery list, but it was hard to determine what I could actually cook on the hotplate besides an egg or can of soup. Frying bacon or a burger would no doubt trigger the lunar-shaped smoke alarm on the wall. The severe limitations of this minuscule “studio” sunk in fast. My first apartment was no more than a room. The panic switch in my stomach flipped for a few swirling seconds, but I vowed to hang tight.
Just then I heard a knock on the door, followed by a voice instantly familiar from my first visit to the building.
“Mark, hi Mark? It’s Jeff, Jeff The Super, you know…oh Hi.”
“What’s up?”
I must’ve looked distracted because he blanched and hesitated, waiting a few seconds before edging his way through the open door.
“Well I heard the radio so I knew you were in here. Where did you go earlier? When I came by before, there was no answer.”
“Yeah I walked up to 14th Street and bought a couple things for the place, like some glasses and stuff. A new frying pan.”
“Wha-what was wrong with the ones here? You bought new…”
His eager green eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“Jeff, the glasses in the cupboard had spiders living in them.”
This seemed to placate him for a moment.
“You know, this apartment did sit vacant for awhile. Glen, the guy who lived here, he ah died a couple months ago.”
Here Jeff went silent for a moment, reflecting. I anticipated a memorial of sorts, some fact or anecdote about the late tenant.
“That’s why you got this nice new paint job.”
I noticed that Jeff had a plastic shopping bag in hand.
“Looks like you went to the store, too.” I nodded at his bag. This forced social encounter felt like visiting one of my elderly great aunts.
“Oh this,” he replied, hoisting it aloft. “That’s why I stopped by. Thought you’d need some toilet paper.”
Four individually wrapped jumbo rolls tumbled onto the table.
“How about some toothpaste? Do you have a toothbrush?”
Whatever illusion I had about Jeff’s visit as an altruistic get-acquainted session went straight out the window. The toilet paper was no welcome-wagon gift. This old weirdo was trying to hustle me!
“Jeff I think I’m set on toothpaste and stuff. I never thought to ask about toilet paper, though, doesn’t the building provide it?”
“Oh no,” he said with an ashen look.
“Well I can pick some up when I go to the grocery. Thought I’d try the one you told me about — Sloane’s — over on West 4th Street.”
“B-but you’ll be needing toilet paper.” Suddenly Jeff was upset, almost shaking, plainly offended by my polite demurral. So I wound up paying him $4, undoubtedly an absurd markup, mostly because I felt sorry for him. But my blinders had been removed. Or so I thought at the time.
*
How old was Jeff The Super? Somewhere between 40 and 70 was my best guess. But at 23 my perception of aging was vague, unformed. Further confusing the issue was Jeff himself. He struck an elderly stance, carrying himself like a premature geezer. As time passed, I was able to spot him in a crowd because he walked at a crooked slant, unsteadily, swerving across the sidewalk like an imperfectly gripped pencil scribbling on the page. It wasn’t beneath him to accept — or disingenuously solicit — a senior citizen’s discount at an unsuspecting restaurant. And his voice sounded old. He spoke with the same halting cadence and contained sigh as my maternal grandparents, the measured Dutch-inflected accent of eastern Pennsylvania. Though he could’ve hailed from anywhere. Evasive by nature, he routinely deflected any and all of my inquiries. He’d squint and furrow his brow in mild befuddlement for a few teasing minutes, and then flash an indulgent smile at my futile questions. He was careful not to date any of his meandering anecdotes or boring stories. Essentially he was timeless, or misplaced in time like some kind of human anachronism.
Jeff was, arguably, my first friend in New York. Well, next to Frankie Crocker on WBLS-FM. Jeff wouldn’t have argued with that characterization of our relationship. I would have. Still, despite my conflicted feelings about him, from the very start I was impressed by Jeff’s resourcefulness. His not-readily-apparent means of making a living was something he didn’t try to conceal. No, he was eager to share his acumen. The superintendent job provided free rent plus a meager salary. Considering that his duties seemed to consist of collecting the rent and taking out the trash, in that order of frequency, his $25 a week looked generous from where I slept.
“There’ve been weeks when I get by on twenty-five,” he admitted. Even so, Jeff always had multiple “irons in the fire,” as he liked to put it.
Occasionally he claimed professional status as a “printing broker,” an unnecessary middleman between customers and odd-job printers. Dressed for success in his rumpled double-knit blue blazer and Sixties-era paisley tie, he’d leave the building with a spring in his step, hoping to drum up business, only to return disappointed. Since I refused his persistent offers of a custom-designed business card or resume, I can’t attest to Jeff’s abilities in this deservedly obscure field of endeavor. Apparently he didn’t know, or didn’t think I knew, about the existence of copy shops.
His main gig and true calling, his métier, was scavenging. Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the staggering array of flotsam and jetsam just left there to rot in the city streets. He combed the urban beaches, the New York equivalent of those borderline-derelict Florida retirees who used to patrol the oceanfront, wielding their metal detectors like divining rods.
Naturally, Jeff offered to share his finds with me, asking for a nominal fee only after he’d hauled the junk up to my apartment. None of this was desired nor encouraged. Jeff would show up, plunk down a tattered lamp or rusty toaster oven and start to admire it aloud, conducting a sort of hard-sell seduction until I’d finally fork over the suggested $5 or $10 just to get rid of him. Returning all this weather-beaten house ware to the street wasn’t an option, not after his wounded inquiry the one time I tried it.
“You’re not going to believe this but I found another table fan like yours…hey wait a minute…” Eventually, the unbidden furniture and appliance deliveries wound down. There wasn’t any room left in my room.
When I wasn’t being judgmental, Jeff struck me as poignant. Not for what I came to see as his shabby, grasping method of survival but for what his existence suggested: the possibility of growing old in the city, what it might be like after twenty, or thirty years. Spending time with Jeff, I’d get swept up by an unfamiliar surge of melancholy. What troubled me, I understand now, was the prospect of growing old alone in New York City.
*
Consulting Jeff about hot plate cookery would’ve been ridiculous. He ate all his meals in restaurants. How this squared with his frugality is a tribute to his one visionary talent. Jeff was the budget gourmet supreme, an indispensable guide to the culinary underside of downtown Manhattan. He became my guru in the matter of finding tasty, sustaining meals on the cheap. Seriously, Jeff was the first foodie I encountered.
But I avoided eating with Jeff in the East Village. The World War II era décor and cafeteria service at Katz’s Deli suited his taste to a “t”, but at $5 plus their Himalayan pastrami sandwiches were too expensive for anything besides a special treat. And his enthusiasm for global cuisine stopped at the Indian restaurant row on East 6th Street. The Ukrainian and Polish fare on offer in the East Village, on the other hand, was right up Jeff’s alley: starchy, filling and cheap. Unlike the Greek-American diners Jeff frequented, however, east side coffee shops like Kiev, Leshko’s, Veselka, and Odessa were full of people closer to my age not to mention appearance. I’ve never been a fashion maven, frankly, and at first I found my style-conscious peers in the city more than a bit intimidating. Nevertheless after a few months in New York I began to subtly alter my look. Slim-cut black jeans (which I’d never encountered in the Midwest) actually felt more comfortable than my traditional baggy blue Levis. And after my first short-sides hair cut, there could be no return; I was humbled by the realization that my wavy blond locks looked ridiculous in a shaggy Seventies hairdo. As I began to fit in the East Village scene, or at least not stand out quite as much, I became aware of how incongruous Jeff appeared as my dining companion. We were one odd couple.
Jeff was confused and hurt by my sudden reluctance to discuss the day’s New York Times over leisurely dinners. Looking back, I’m stunned by my callow behavior — bordering on cruelty — toward the helpful if eccentric mentor who’d taken me under his wing: “showing me the ropes” of city survival, as he put it. But as my raw hunger for human company abated, or became sated in other situations, socializing with Jeff started to cramp my style.
*
Jeff’s geeky enthusiasm for Chinese culture extended well beyond food.
Another hat he wore (his phrase) was that of ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, a tutor for recent Asian immigrants. Apparently, he spoke Mandarin well enough to be understood by his students, though not the waiters and countermen he practiced on all over Chinatown. Despite my growing skepticism about Jeff’s character, between his constant evasions and clumsy money-hustling schemes, I registered something close to compassion in his quavery voice whenever he spoke about his handful of ESL clients.
Later that summer Jeff asked me to attend an evening meeting with him, a recruiting event for his ESL volunteer- teacher group. I told Jeff, half-truthfully, that my job kept me plenty busy and wouldn’t have any time to donate until I paid off a debt to my dad. But he didn’t let it drop and I didn’t have anything to do when the date arrived, so I went along thinking I could get a free beer or glass of wine, and a peak at the other potential volunteers, i.e. hopefully people close to my own age for a change.
The party took place in a loft ten floors above Broadway near the Flatiron Building. As we waited for the rattling antique elevator in the litter-strewn lobby, Jeff beckoned me closer to him, suddenly whispering in a nearly inaudible voice. There was nobody else around.
“You might hear some people tonight call me Jed.”
“What, as in Jed Clampett?”
“Wha-what do you mean?”
“It was a joke, never mind, what’s the deal with this Jed business?”
“Well it’s another name I use. Jeff, Jed, Jay sometimes.”
“Huh. So this means Riedel isn’t your real last name.’
“It is now. I’ve used other variations.”
“I know this is a stupid question, Jeff, but why bother? Doesn’t it get, well, you know, complicated, maintaining these different identities?”
“Mark, the great thing about New York is how you can lead different lives.”
Just in time, the elevator doors opened with a thud. I don’t recall the party but I’ve never forgotten Jeff’s line about using different names. At the time, it threw me for a loop. Though I was not yet conversant with the term self-invention, I grasped the concept on a subconscious level. That was why I came to New York in the first place: to begin a new life. Yet my identity was already set; it had been ever since I’d learned to read. I’d always considered myself a writer. Juggling separate identities, as Jeff did, took this process to a whole other level, somewhere far beyond my comprehension at that time.
*
“Hello? M-M-Mark? It’s me, Jeff. Your old super.” He always spoke haltingly, but this time Jeff sounded downright nervous, stuttering. It was fall of 1982 — a solid year after I escaped 78 Washington Place.
We’d kept in touch for six months or so after I moved, though our dinner dates soon grew infrequent and increasingly strained, at least from my perspective. When I literally didn’t know anyone in New York, Jeff supplied a psychological lifeline: for all his cagey weirdness he was intelligent, and intellectually curious. Apart from reading the same newspaper, however, we had nothing in common. And as I began to make a life for myself in the city, spending time with Jeff became an irritant. After I abruptly turned down a series of near-pleading invitations, he had finally stopped calling. Until this autumn day.
“Have you h-h-heard of this play Torch Song Trilogy? It just moved to Broadway from Circle In The Square in the Village?”
“Sure I read about it the Times. Harvey Fierstein, right?”
“He’s marvelous. Well I got two tickets from the language school and I’ve already seen it so I could let you have them for $10 each. Too bad we can’t see it together.”
This was one of Jeff’s fund-raising schemes; he’d re-sell the free theatre tickets and museum passes that were intended for his English as a Second Language students. I’d always resisted his offers in the past, but a young woman I’d recently met had expressed interest in Torch Song and I had never been to a Broadway show. The price was right.
“I’m strapped for cash these days but I would like to see it. So yeah, I’ll take ’em off your hands. Hey, wait, when’s the show?”
“N-N-Next Saturday night. We…well…why don’t we meet for dinner tonight at the Courtney and I can give you the tickets there.”
“Just like old times. OK, Jeff, I’ll see you there at seven.”
“Thanks, Mark. Don’t forget the $20.”
*
It was cold for an October evening; I shivered in my denim jacket as I walked across 14th Street. Gus the counterman greeted me with a big smile when I entered Jeff’s favorite coffee shop. I still ate at the Courtney, though I carefully calculated when Jeff wouldn’t be there, so I’d go for a late morning breakfast or early lunch. I felt pangs of guilt about avoiding him, but running into Jeff would have been even more uncomfortable. That’s how I felt then, anyway.
I slid into the cramped booth in back and splashed milk into the scalding cup of coffee that Gus delivered seconds after I sat down. I faced the door so I could see Jeff arrive but his entrance was still a shock.
He showed up in what appeared to be a woman’s coat, a tan number with fur collar, ragged cloth, a size too small. I supposed it was warm if nothing else but he’d buttoned it unevenly so the collar hung open in a way that suggested depression, desperation, and derangement. Clearly this was an act of pragmatism — of survival — rather than a failed attempt at cross-dressing. Jeff’s discerning eye for functional cast-offs didn’t extend to clothing.
We got through dinner and made our exchange. I can’t recall what we ate or talked about; I know I didn’t say much. All I remember is how lost he looked, this bent bony stork of a man in clothes the Salvation Army or Goodwill would’ve rejected. It was like seeing him for the first time. That spring day when we met just 18 months before felt like a lifetime ago. Whatever debt I owed him was paid, I quietly decided to myself.
I never saw Jeff Riedel again.
Looking back I’m shocked by my younger self, appalled by my indifference. Jeff’s repeated attempts at hustling me out of a few bucks hardly justified my harsh assessment — and dismissal — of our relationship. Though it’s no excuse, perhaps the wear and tear of baseline city living coarsened my sensibility, eroded my sense of empathy. Apparently my attitude toward Jeff curdled into: you use me? I’ll use you. Eventually I learned this is not a pleasing — or useful — approach to human interaction. When I moved to New York, Jeff took me under his wing (as he might’ve said) and instead of thanking him by keeping in touch, I ghosted him. Though it’s far too late for redress or regrets, now I see all he did for me.
