Two Years in New York (Michael Mohr's "fictional memoir" chapter 6)
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Chapter 6
I had moved apartments. I was still unsure about how long I’d stay in New York City—or if I’d stay longer term—but I knew I wasn’t yet ready to leave now. After tireless hours of searching the AirBnB website, I’d scored a small room in a four-room 4th floor walkup across town on the west side, and way further north, in Hamilton Heights (upper West Harlem), at 147th and Broadway. I could walk a block-and-a-half south to 145th Street to catch the 1-train into downtown Manhattan.
The apartment was rented out and run by a Kenyan woman in her mid-forties who had a five-year-old daughter, Almasi. The woman’s name was Makena. She’d come to the States when she was just eighteen, fleeing the poverty and lack of opportunities of her small hometown village. She’d married soon after, had a baby, and then they got divorced. The apartment consisted of a long narrow hallway, a room to the right of the door (mine), two rooms in the middle, and the room where Makena and Almasi lived, at the far end of the long narrow hall. She rented out the three other rooms via AirBnB, so people were constantly coming in and out, staying for days or weeks and then fleeing again, back to whatever European or Asian or South American country they came from.
This was the first time I’d had roommates—minus two-and-a-half years living with Adinah—since I’d gotten sober and briefly lived in Portland, Oregon, in late 2010. Some people loved roommates. Some people needed independence and their own space. I was of the latter kind. I knew this would be a challenge. But it was cheap. It would only be for a month or two, I told myself.
In a way I missed the lower East Harlem apartment. Rough as the area had been, it’d slowly grown on me. Even the raucous noise at all times of the day and night on 2nd Avenue. Lucius had even stopped being afraid of it; he’d started sleeping on the bed with me. I liked the atrociously tiny Vietnamese restaurant/hipster coffee shop next door. I’d enjoyed wandering around Harlem and the Upper East Side, gazing at the houses. Walking had always been a passion of mine. Night walks were the best. Even when I was still a fully active, disaster alcoholic, living in San Diego, I’d stroll around the suburban neighborhoods where I lived, near North Park/Hillcrest, and look at the pretty craftsman houses. Even then, hard as I pretended to be, I had that expected yet ironic inner craving for what I told everyone else I didn’t want: Money; stability; middleclass luxuries; a real, warm sense of Home. All my externals were harsh and cold. All my internal desires were warm and safe.
In 2016 after a month traveling western Europe with Adinah, she flew back to El Cerrito and I stayed in Europe, moving by train along the French Riviera and into coastal Spain. Eventually I’d end up walking the 500-mile French Way of El Camino de Santiago, “the walk of St. James,” a spiritual path in Northern Spain that had been religiously walked since the Dark Ages to the remains of Saint James. It had taken me a month to walk. I met people from all over the world. It changed my life. It made me discover “why” I walked. It seemed symbolic, like Robert Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.
Living in New York City—walking around the island—was becoming my Urban Camino. I walked it out of a sense of writerly romanticism.
My room was miniscule, to say the least. Lucius had very little room. Four white bare walls. A queen-sized bed. A chair. A desk. Windows above the bed facing a red brick wall. I wheeled my giant black suitcase inside. Set up Lucius’s green bin; poured litter into it. Lucius meowed at me, confused, probably wishing to have the loud noises of 2nd Avenue back, and rubbed against my leg. I bent down and picked him up, holding him over my shoulder, as if we were hugging. I pet him. He purred rapturously.
Soon the days started to once more rush by. It was grotesquely hot and humid out. Late June now. I learned to wear a thin white T-shirt but still, foolishly, sported tight blue jeans. A terrible habit I’d had forever. (I even backpacked in them.) The neighborhood was alive with culture. Where Harlem had been primarily black, Hamilton Heights—becoming popular as a haven for TV/film people—was a mad mix of black, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Mexican, and other Central and South American peoples. People played craps for cash on the streets. Men sold wares along Broadway. I shopped at Latin grocery stores. Boomboxes played Salvadoran music loudly. Steam billowed from sewer tops and you smelled the trash, yes, but also the empanadas, maize, fish and refried beans from nearby restaurants. The energy was more relaxed here than in East Harlem. In Harlem the young men eyed you viciously. Here, they ignored you altogether. Everyone generally commented that the west side was safer than the east side, when it came to far uptown. The culture reminded me a little of my trip to Mexico City in 2017.
Sophia still had not emailed me. I hadn’t gone back to that meeting. Aldous and I hadn’t mentioned her. I had, however, Googled her. I found photos galore of her online. And her artists’ webpage. Her art was incredible. Apparently she’d won several big awards for her work. She struck me as sort of a big deal, a rising star in the art world. And she was here, in Manhattan, where Art Thrived. There was one painting specifically that I cherished: Purple Passion Hotel. It had won her the 2019 Hohenberg Award. It showed a couple entangled on a red bed, in a white sheet, the background of mountains out of an open window beyond. The woman had hyper-blond hair, the man deeply blue-shaded eyes. They were naked minus the white, nearly translucent sheet. He was either side by side or on top of her; it was oddly hard to tell. It was a realistic depiction, yet clearly not a total realist reproduction. Vaguely, things were slightly off, slightly surreal. Impressionism. It made me think of Van Gogh, Monet, Diebenkorn. There was something almost soft and yet like a punch to the face about her art. It was hard to explain. It affected me, that was obvious.
I got onto online dating. Ok Cupid at first, and then Tinder as well. Right away I noticed how different the womens’ profiles were here compared to the Bay Area. The women here seemed to mostly be obsessed with money and height: They expected the man to be at least 6’0, and basically a hedge-fund manager. They lusted for conventional success. A full head of hair. They all said they wanted a guy who “didn’t take himself too seriously,” and yet they clearly took themselves incredibly seriously. They wanted the guy to propose some infuriatingly profound first date, which never made sense to me since you were meeting for the first time. I always thought, Get coffee at noon on a Saturday the first time; see if you even click. But what did I know: I was a “starving artist” (James Joyce watch out) with some romantic fantasy about New York that surely couldn’t be realistic. A Californian “country bumpkin.” A young man who’d read too many classic novels by white men about going to The Big Apple and had seen too many movies which take place in Manhattan. (Though also James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, about growing up poor in Harlem in the forties, and let’s not forget fiction by Zadie Smith and of course the brilliant, classic memoir, Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
I stood out like crazy in this bustling town. With my tight jeans and my big brown REI hiking boots—same ones I’d used on El Camino—and my bright-red insulated Columbia down jacket, not to mention my ever-growing Mountain Man reddish beard. I’d gotten to know the young, attractive German graphic designer who moved into the room next to mine. I’d had conversations with Makena in the little kitchen down at the other end of the hall, near her room, first thing in the morning. That was the hardest transition for me. I was used to living alone: Waking up at my leisure; walking around naked; making whatever noises I wanted; making Irish Breakfast tea; showering; reading.
But here—with roommates and Makena—it was different. In order to get to the shower I had to walk down that narrow hallway. I got into the habit of tying a thin yellow towel around my waist and yanking a T-shirt on and tiptoeing down the hall to the kitchen, usually around eight, eight-thirty am. I’d quietly boil water for tea. Pour it. Add half-n-half. But by the time it’d cooled enough for me to sip my first dribble of sacrosanct caffeine, I’d see Makena’s doorknob jiggle and there she’d be, her African braids piled snake-like on top of her head like a thick, layered black hat.
“Hey, Michael,” she’d say, too loud and too warmly—consistently warm/happy people always scared me; they made me suspicious; what were they hiding?—“What are your plans for the day?”
In general this line of questioning would be more or less fine. But early in the morning…before caffeine? No. And yet, being the nice sober Californian man that I was, I dialogued with her. She asked me about my family. My cat. California and the Bay Area. My writing. I’d respond, sipping my tea faster and faster, slurping wildly. I was anxious the whole time, knowing my naked body was just beneath the ratty yellow towel she’d given me to use. It was sometimes almost erotic. She wasn’t exactly attractive, but I could tell she once had been. And she was friendly. And kind. (If not annoying.)
She’d then tell me—I always felt obliged to ask—about her home country. She weaved in stories of her youth growing up in Mombasa, on the southeastern coast of Kenya, along the Indian Ocean. She told me about her older and younger brothers. About the corrupt tribal governments. About her strained relationship with her parents. Coming to America. Meeting her ex husband. Birthing Almasi. Moving to Hamilton Heights. Running the AirBnB. Everything. Eventually, each morning this happened, I’d finally, after forty-five minutes and two huge mugs of tea, have to interrupt her mid-sentence (screaming internally) and say, “I’m sorry. I’m really enjoying this conversation, but I’ve got to get moving with my day.” She always acted as if I’d been the one who wanted to talk in the first place: “Of course, of course,” she’d say, adding, “I’m taking Almasi to Central Park today.”
Exploring on the west side was, for me, much more enjoyable. I’d take the 1-train south to 72nd, say, and wander around Amsterdam and Broadway on the Upper West Side. This was my favorite part of Manhattan so far; it’s where I was the most comfortable and seemed to fit in the best. The puzzle space was created just for me, it seemed. Manhattan is one geographically small but culturally diverse island city, yes, but it’s also a divided grid of smaller neighborhoods, and each one feels unique and different. The Upper West Side, to me, was like the Ojai or Santa Barbara of Manhattan.
I loved going to random coffee shops like The Hungarian Pastry Shop, a famous spot on 111th and Amsterdam where famous writers had penned famous works, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, which I’d read half a dozen times. Or I’d wander lackadaisically around Columbia University up on 114th to 116th. Or else I’d be at the classic Westsider Books, a well-known used bookstore on Broadway between 80th and 81st. Or else Shakespeare & Company on Broadway and 69th. Or I’d write and read at Irving Farm Café on West 79th. There were restaurants of every persuasion all over the place. Pizza joints were ubiquitous. AA meetings happened night and day and I often went to some on Broadway and 96th—where Sober Authors happened—and on West End and 94th, and on 71st between Amsterdam and Central Park West. I trudged around Central Park down there. I walked west to the Hudson Parkway and stared at the Hudson River.
I missed California but in an achingly poignant and yet positive way. I wanted to miss my home state. I loved California, but this was something so vastly different and treacherous that I could only be present here, now, in Manhattan. I thought about the past still sometimes, of course, but not as often. I thought about Adinah and our four and a half years together. I thought about the hiking trails in the Bay Area. The empty house in El Cerrito. My mom—ever concerned about money—had told me to rent it out. She was right, of course, but still I resisted the idea. Not until I was sure I’d stay. I’d saved up about ten grand during 2018 by working feverishly, but that money was dwindling faster than I’d naively expected. This was a pricey town, even if my room was cheap. It was easy to blow a hundred bucks in a day if you weren’t careful. This city sucked money into its bosom like a hungry, greedy octopus, its tentacles pulling the dough from you like candy from a resistant baby.
My time here had been like an adventure. And I didn’t want that feeling to change. The women were out of reach. The buildings were impossibly tall. The trains were excruciatingly loud. The locals were rushed and distant. The traffic was insane. The noises were appalling and constant. My little room was too small, stifling. But none of that mattered. I was having an experience.
I got bold and started leaving my bedroom door ajar sometimes, allowing Lucius to walk out of the room into the hallway. At first he only sniffed around tentatively. But, as the weeks dragged on, he got more and more curious, and at last he began walking around the hall. Makena would pet him while talking to me. Almasi enjoyed but scared the crap out of him, with her small lithe body and high-pitched child’s voice and grasping, pincer-like hands. I got used to talking to Makena first thing every morning. Checking in. In a way I liked having roommates. The German woman and I chatted when we saw each other at night. The other two rooms filled up and then emptied out, again and again, like a hungry, hyper mouth swallowing new food.
By early July—the heat and humidity now nearly unbearable—I decided. I’d been writing every day, and editing a book project for a few grand. My funds were running low. Though I liked this room and this neighborhood I knew I couldn’t stay here forever. I had to rent my house out, to get that income if I wanted to stay. And then I’d get an apartment—a real one, just for myself—somewhere in the city. Excitement and fear pumped through my body. I didn’t even know where to start. I scrolled around on my phone and found a property management company in the Bay Area called Regional Rentals, Corp. I’ll call them tomorrow, I told myself.
But before I describe what happened next, I have to describe the following:
Sophia emailed.