“One great thing about New York is how you can lead two different lives”
My first friends in the city provided a primer in the promise, and the perils, of radical self-invention
The die was cast during my first week at 78 Washington Place. Jeff, the building’s middle-aged and mega-eccentric superintendent, offered to show me “some good cheap restaurants only I know about.” Accepting his invitation led to persistant daily requests. So as a compromise, throughout the summer of 1981, I joined Jeff for dinner once or twice every week.
Jeff Reidel was a creature of habit, orbiting around a select group of a dozen homey favorites (mostly Greek-American diners or Cuban-Chinese “rice & beans” joints), while keeping his eyes peeled for the occasional off-night discount or “all you can eat” special at slightly more costly eateries. Getting him to leave even the skimpiest tip anywhere required the application of a full-on guilt trip.
In Chinatown, Jeff introduced me to another side of the city, a world within a world, at once alien and alluring, delectable and disgusting. Chinatown offered a melee of sights and smells. Mott Street, the main drag, contained restaurants, bakeries, takeout stands, souvenir shops and outdoor market stalls stocked with unfamiliar fruits and root vegetables that looked to me like unearthed tree stumps. Fishmongers stacked rows of fragrant specimens on ice along the sidewalks, heads and tails intact, dozens of species set out in the sun alongside barrels of edible shell creatures ranging from shrimp to snails to wriggling live crabs. Until then, I’d only shopped at chain grocery stores in the Cincinnati suburbs, and the brown-rice-and-raisin hippie food co-ops in Ann Arbor.
Jeff knew his way around those twisting streets. He favored a tiny basement restaurant that specialized in dense noodle soups, with islands of meat and bone floating in the fatty broth. I never felt comfortable there and considering that we were always the only Caucasians in the place, I understood why the service was reluctant. I much preferred the row of Szechuan restaurants on East Broadway. The best one was practically underneath the Manhattan Bridge; it was called Shanghai-something if I half-remember correctly. The walls were papered with dozens of signs advising patrons on the specials of the day in Chinese characters, though the regular menu offered basic translations: “Lions Head” was a giant globe-shaped pork meatball served on a savory bed of soft-cooked cabbage. Bony chicken nuggets in sauce had an addictive sweet spicy tang until you accidentally bit into one of the painfully hot red peppers dotting the dish like land mines, and lost your sense of taste for an hour.
Jeff insisted on practicing his beginners’ Mandarin there, and at every restaurant we visited, to the consistent befuddlement of waiters and countermen all over Chinatown. Something was off with his delivery. Jeff never seemed to establish the common ground upon which basic conversation is built; he’d proudly deploy the vocabulary words he’d just defined for me and the targeted Chinese-speaker would invariably grimace and shake his head.
“No.”
His geeky enthusiasm for Chinese culture was, uncharacteristically for Jeff, straightforward and sincere. I almost found it endearing, or perhaps it just made him more endurable. Another hat he wore (his phrase) was that of ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, a tutor for recent Asian immigrants. Apparently, he managed Mandarin well enough to be understood by his students, if not restaurant waiters. Despite my growing skepticism about Jeff’s character, between his constant evasions and clumsy money-hustling schemes, I registered something resembling 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 meet some other potential volunteers, i.e. 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 Reidel 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, one great thing about New York is how you can two 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 an unconscious 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. Moving to the city was a step toward fulfilling my destiny — living the dream. Juggling separate identities, as Jeff did, took this process to a whole other level, a place way beyond my comprehension.
Jeff and Frank, the other 78 Washington Place neighbor I befriended that summer, taught me an invaluable lesson in the long run. My first friends in the city provided a primer in the promise, and the perils, of radical self-invention. The process of making yourself up, if taken too literally, could obscure or corrupt your essential humanity.
The two apartments on the ground floor of my first home in New York were two-room suites; the other three floors each contained three small studios. 1A was the super’s, naturally. At first I wasn’t exactly sure who lived next door to Jeff. Several different people seemed to come and go out of the back apartment. After awhile, I noticed how Jeff spoke about two of the other tenants as a pair, as though they were roommates: Frank and Robert, an Italian guy from Brooklyn and an African-American just back from Paris, respectively. They lived in 1B, I ultimately deduced.
Overall, security in the building was non-existent. From the start, the lock on my front door was worrisome. Its flimsy latch was a joke. Wasn’t a forbidding dead-bolt system required by law in all New York apartments? Sure enough, one evening in early June, I returned from work and found the door ajar. My only valuable possession — an IBM Selectric typewriter, a graduation gift from my parents — had vanished.
I summoned Jeff to the crime scene, only to be frustrated and then infuriated by his seeming indifference to both the theft and the prospect of installing a better lock. He had the nerve to insist that I pay for a new one! But that was only his first entry in the pissing-me-off sweepstakes. The next evening, over his liver and onions entree at The Courtney Diner, Jeff solemnly informed me that he was “almost certain” who stole my typewriter though he couldn’t divulge the suspect’s identity since it was somebody who lived in the building. I ripped into him. When I threatened to notify the cops, he finally relented. Robert was the thief; a heroin habit was the legacy of his expatriate sojourn. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I grudgingly paid for the new lock.
Without a typewriter, my rock critic dreams were temporarily shelved. Frankly I was still adapting to my lowly job at the trade magazine Railway Age, and feeling defeated by the subject matter. Even if I’d felt confident enough to wrangle a freelance music assignment that summer, which I didn’t, the challenge of stealthily working on it at the office, or attempting to write at 78 Washington Place, would’ve proven to be insurmountable.
*
After the break-in, oddly enough, I lowered my guard a bit and started talking to neighbors other than Jeff. Late on a humid Saturday afternoon, I strolled the half-block back home from the park and to my surprise, heard my name being called down the street. Mark Coleman! Hey, Mark! There were three men hanging out on the front steps of 78 Washington Place.
On closer inspection, I recognized Jeff on the steps with Frank. Robert was standing at the top of the steps near the door. Over the last month, I’d estimated that Frank and Robert were in their early 20s, though they both appeared to be older, and of course were far more self-assured than me.
“Wh-where were you at the park?” asked Jeff. “I went up there looking for you.”
“Oh I moved around, reading my book, staying cool in the shade.”
“There are more interesting places to waste time.” Robert said without a smile.
“I’m sure there are. But I wanted to get out for a bit. Hey, no offense Jeff, but it feels hotter in our boxy rooms than it does outside.”
“He’s right about that Jeff.” Frank now turned toward me. He looked me up and down as if we’d never laid eyes on each other before. I felt like a Marine being inspected by his sergeant.
“Oh Mark,” Frank exclaimed, “you’ve got to get an air conditioner.”
“Frank, I-I-I told you that might not be possible in the other apartments,” said Jeff. “An air-air conditioner might blow a fuse.”
It occurred to me that had an air conditioner been feasible, Jeff would’ve already tried to sell me one he’d retrieved from the street.
“Mark, see this is why you’ve got to get out of here.” Frank was adamant but he didn’t sound confrontational. Jeff smiled and didn’t flinch.
“So what are you doing tonight, Mark?” Despite Frank’s warm manner, his query had the tired ring of a rhetorical question.
“Thought I’d go see these two bands, Bush Tetras and the Raybeats, at a club called Irving Plaza.”
“Oh new wave? I’m more into disco.”
“Oh god rock clubs are the worst,” added Robert.
“Come on, Robert, he just has different taste than you.” This time Robert cracked a smile, while Frank and Jeff released peals of knowing laughter.
“The punk scene in Paris,” sighed Robert, “that’s a different story.”
“Do you speak French?” An unbelievably dumb question, but I was trying to engage Robert, desperate to be one of the gang.
“Of course.” His regal aquiline features contorted into a look of snorting, unbridled contempt. He thought I was corny — a square.
Our convocation began winding down. Frank invited me to admire his new Bulova watch, and then announced he’d be back in an hour. Jeff abruptly remembered a standing date with a clogged toilet on the second floor. So Robert and I were left, uncomfortably.
Without the others around I felt emboldened. Here was a chance to grill Robert about the robbery, so I cut right to the chase.
“Tell me, how much did you get for it?”
“I don’t know what you think you’re talking about.”
“Yeah I think you do. The typewriter.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, accusing me.”
“How much dope did you get for it. I’m interested.”
“You’re a fool. You’ll never last in New York anyway.”
“We’ll see. In the meantime, see you around.”
*
Robert disappeared, I mean completely dropped out of the picture, not long after we had our little chat. Jeff demoted his status to “some guy who stayed at Frank’s apartment,” and then stopped talking about him at all. Frank seemed like a nice guy, so I decided not to mention Robert, or hold Frank responsible for his friend being a loser.
In fact we spent a good deal of time together as the summer wore on.
Frank Davol was an Italian-American native of Brooklyn who’d recently made the giant leap across the bridge. Our friendly conversations were sporadic, relaxed and enjoyable on my part anyway. His invitations to hang out in his apartment were unpredictable, impulsive, delivered breathlessly. We developed an easy rapport, talking about our shared experiences: Catholic school, boring office jobs, dreams of making it in Manhattan. But not the same dreams, to be sure.
And when it came to the execution of our ambitions, the reality of making those dreams happen, in other words just how far you’re willing to go once you get here — well, that’s where Frank and I parted company.
Frank was open about his sexuality but respectful of the fact that I wasn’t gay. (Though he pulled a puzzled face when I remarked about his exquisite younger sister, raven-haired and olive-skinned like Frank, after she dropped him off on a Sunday evening.) Frank eschewed the macho costume that still predominated among homosexual men in the city at that time, the so-called (in the gay community) “clone” look. He dressed in meticulous preppy style that accentuated his athletic build. Strikingly handsome and slender at six feet tall, Frank resembled a male model rather than one of the Village People.
His first floor digs comprised a regal spread compared to my Spartan studio. Or perhaps it just seemed more like a lived-in apartment, less like a cheap hotel room. The absence of a kitchen was better concealed. I basked in the blow of his air conditioner, expressing my envy of the extra space, much to Frank’s undisguised delight. Configuring his spread, he had adhered to the classic living-and-bedroom arrangement. Next door, Jeff slept on an exploded sofa in the front room, while his back room functioned as a bottomless closet.
Frank was a congenial, generous host. He’d guide me to the sleek, incongruous black vinyl couch, fetch me a cold soda, and then settle into his canvas director’s chair. From there he’d project images of the glamorous life he intended to lead, a flickering series of slightly clichéd scenarios. Frank didn’t seek to possess wealth and power, necessarily. He fiercely craved proximity to power, access to wealth. Frank was into the deluxe lifestyle, the pleasures and perks. Concepts like accomplishment, hard work and paying your dues were definitely not part of his game plan.
Frank was more than generous, I realized over the course of our visits. Sometimes we shared a high-octane joint he provided. Once he unveiled a hand mirror bearing thick lines of cocaine. Frank appeared to be one of those people upon whom recreational drugs have little or no effect. Nevertheless he kept the stuff on hand, offering it up with a demure “somebody gave me something.” He was naturally wired, buzzed with energy, telling stories, jumping from subject to subject. Frank tried to listen when it was my turn but there were multiple demands on his attention. His attention often wandered. His phone rang. Frequently.
Our socializing was usually curtailed at very short order. I learned to anticipate the crestfallen brow that preceded an abrupt, though genial termination of our meetings. Nothing personal. He was a busy guy.
There was something earthy about Frank, and something earnest, too, for all his displays of presumed sophistication. Of course he could be too grand at times, affecting a lofty air, letting everybody in earshot know he was destined for far better things than our current surroundings. But as far as I could tell, Frank already appeared to get around in pretty high style — especially for a guy living in a dump.
Returning from work on a humid July evening, I paused on Carmine Street. After browsing esoteric disco records at Vinyl Mania, I considered a budget supper at Joe’s Pizza. Suddenly, a loud and suspiciously familiar voice assaulted my eardrums. “Mark Coleman! Hey Mark!” It sounded like Frank but I couldn’t locate him until I turned to look at the stretch limo idling in traffic directly in front of me. Frank’s statuesque head and shoulders popped out of the open sunroof. He was jacked up and cackling like a crazy person. “Mark! Hurry Up! C’mon, Mark! Get In!” When we wheeled north onto Sixth Avenue, Frank yanked me through the sunroof. I felt silly, and exhilarated, as we headed uptown, hooting and hollering like fools. The only thing missing was the ticker tape.
It wasn’t the first evidence I’d seen of Frank’s extravagant whims. But a rented limousine was inexplicably extra, even for him. Despite the obvious clues, I couldn’t quite determine the source of his “mad money.”
A few weeks later I lingered on the front stoop of our building in the evening shadows, watching the two-lane pedestrian traffic flow to and from Washington Square Park. Slinky and suggestive, Grace Jones’ “Pull Up To the Bumper” was the song of the moment on WBLS. From my spot I could hear Sly & Robbie’s rumbling rock-reggae rhythms in stereo, broadcast from passing radios on both sides of the street. Just as I got into the groove a discordant squeal interrupted my reverie. A lumbering, lumpy man in an old army jacket entered my field of vision. He came straight out of the early Seventies, complete with unwashed long hair and drooping mustache. On his shoulder rested a huge boombox. As he passed, head down, I recognized the piercing sound of Lou Reed’s voice and John Cale’s viola. Amid all the disco songs I usually heard in the street, “Heroin” by the Velvet Underground reverberated like a funereal dirge, or a car wreck. “Hey” I shouted. When I looked for him down the sidewalk, he was gone. He was the famous rock critic Lester Bangs.
“Hey.” Before I could process the moment and reflect about a torch being passed, somebody had snuck up on me from the other direction.
“Uh, hey, yeah. Yes?” I turned to face the man at the gate.
He was thickset, graying blond hair, suit and tie. The likelihood that he knew somebody in the building was, in my estimation, slim to none. This guy must be a salesman or something.
“So can I help you?”
“Could you open this gate? I’m here to see Mitch.”
“Mitch? Look there isn’t anybody here named Mitch. Sorry.”
“Mitch, you know, he lives in the back apartment.”
I started to reply, and then stopped myself. Swinging the gate open, I stepped aside as he ambled up the stairs to the front door.
“The doorbells, ah, those buzzers don’t work.”
At this, he turned around and glared at me.
“Take a look at the names on the intercom and see if you recognize Mitch’s last name.” Now I was trying to be helpful.
When the front door opened, seconds later, I watched in amazement as Frank waved the man in. Shooting me a look, my friend apologetically rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut.
*
The dangers of living in such a decrepit and neglected building, so obvious in retrospect, never occurred to me until it was too late. Around four on an August morning, I awoke from a womb-like slumber and automatically got up to urinate. When I opened the door and headed toward the communal bathroom, it seemed like I was still asleep, dreaming. A choking mist filled the hallway. I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. As I stumbled back into my room, the acrid smell in my nostrils registered in my brain.
FIRE!
Struggling to remain calm, I sat down on my bed, pulled off my gym shorts and put on the jeans I’d worn earlier. As I tied my sneakers, the unlocked door burst open and a fireman appeared. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me toward the door. Wait.
“Are you alone here?”
“Yeah!”
He glanced over at the back window. No fire escape.
“Is there anybody else on this floor?”
“Two other people, no the girl’s not here. Guy across the hall.”
“OK we got him. All right I’m taking you downstairs.”
I fumbled for my wallet, keys. What else should I bring?
“NOW!”
Next thing I knew we were moving down the stairs, one of the firefighter’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, an axe in his other hand. I began to cough like I had emphysema.
“Time to take a break. Get you some fresh air.”
We stepped off the landing onto the second floor. He kicked open an apartment door. I heard the crash and tinkle of a window being broken and then my head was hanging out in the night air. I was still gulping as he pulled me back in and onto the stairway.
“We’re almost done. You’re doing great.”
“Shit! You’re the one who’s doing great.”
“Save your breath.”
When we finally reached the front door, I nearly fainted. In my swirling vision I could make out a fire engine parked in the street, hoses and water everywhere, flashing lights distorting the faces of Jeff, Frank and my other neighbors as they huddled on the sidewalk. The fireman who rescued me went back to the building while another threw a blanket over my shoulders and pointed me toward a smaller vehicle down the block.
Gradually, my head was clearing.
“You’ll be OK but we’re obligated to take you to the emergency room for observation. Smoke inhalation. Don’t worry.”
With that, he ignited a cigarette. I’ve never felt so relieved.
At St. Vincent’s, I spent about two hours sitting around and five minutes being examined by a harassed doctor who didn’t seem to think there was much of anything wrong with me, and said so, caustically pointing out than I hadn’t been shot or overdosed.
Thank God for small favors.
A friendlier nurse guided me to a shower stall, and then supplied me with new underwear, still in the package, a threadbare pair of polyester pants and a Fifties-style short-sleeved sport shirt. My own clothes reeked of smoke and despite my protests, were thrown away.
It was about 8:00 AM when I was released and I had no idea what to do next. I wasn’t ready to return to 78 Washington Place just yet, so I went to work. What was I thinking?
Apparently I still smelled like smoke because everyone in the Railway Age office stared. After telling and retelling my story, it became obvious I wasn’t going to accomplish anything that day. Luther Miller, my boss, made a crack about me wearing some dead man’s clothes and sent me home. For the first time, I failed to appreciate his sardonic wit.
Returning to Washington Place, I felt dizzy when I saw the building. The front façade was blackened and Jeff’s front window was a gaping hole. Most of my fellow residents gathered on or around the front stoop, and I was warmly welcomed. We exchanged war stories, and with rare candor Jeff admitted that the fire was his fault. He fell asleep with the hotplate on, somehow the tablecloth underneath ignited and the rest, as they say, is history. Opprobrium could be meted out later. I was overjoyed that we all didn’t go down in flames together. Just then, a fire engine turned onto the block and slowly rolled to a stop in front of the steps.
Jumping from the sides of the truck, the firefighters were pointing and calling out: “Mark Coleman! Hey Mark Coleman!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The man who rescued me came up and reintroduced himself. He shrugged off my expressions of gratitude with a belly laugh.
“You were scared shitless last night, Mark.”
The captain, a ruddy-faced middle-aged man wearing a dress uniform, emerged from the truck’s cab and pulled me aside.
“You were right to be scared.”
*
I moved out of 78 Washington Place a couple months later, and fell out of touch with both Frank and Jeff a couple years after that. I didn’t think much about them for a long time — most of my subsequent life in New York. By the time I began looking back, and realized how important they were to me, it was too late to reconnect. Frankly, I feel guilty about not keeping up.
We all make our mark on the city, or leave a stain. Even if it’s not readily apparent, some part of us will always remain no matter how high the buildings, or rents, may rise.
