Chapter Thirty-Two
-- February, 1979
Art Garfunkel – “Bright Eyes”
In a rowdy, Irish pool hall named Reilly’s, Nick came out of the bathroom followed closely by a veteran waitress busily tying her apron back on. She was in her late forties, a bit grizzled. As Nick returned to his pool table, he shook his now empty drink. “Can I get another, honey?” The Waitress looked at him skeptically, but Nick was already focused on the two out-of-towners he was playing. “Now then, where were we?”
Chuck, the taller of the two men, glowered at him. “You must be awfully confident to leave the table for so long...”
Nick smiled. “Maybe I’m just trusting. Plus, I got a photographic memory. Nothing escapes me.” He snuck a peek at the back of his hand. “Jesus! Where did that mole come from?!” It got a laugh from the fellas.
“It’s your shot,” Chuck said. He moved so that he was directly across the table from Nick, staring him down. “You know, Chili here thinks you’re hustling us.”
“Really? How so?” Nick did his best to keep it light, but he could feel the tides turning.
Chili stepped forward. He was heavy with a broad forehead. “You come in here drunk and stumbling, you play with a house cue...”
“Hustling, huh?” Nick fired off a quick shot that just missed the corner pocket. “Not with a shot like that!” he said, good-naturedly.
But Chuck just kept glowering at him. “Would you look at that... you went and blocked the pocket. Now it’s me who’s fucked...”
Chili tightened his grip on his pool cue. “You sand-bagging us?”
“Guys, come on...” Nick simpered, unconsciously backing away.
Chuck kept pace with him though. “You suck ass for five games and suddenly you’re on a hot streak?!”
Nick could only shrug. “Fellas, I really have no idea what you’re talking about...”
The two of them threw their cues down onto the table and made to run at Nick, when the waitress, in a spell of perfect timing, dropped a bill off between the three of them, saying “pay whenever.”
Nick yelled to her departing backside. “I was kind of hoping that what we did in there would have paid for it...”
She responded, over her shoulder without looking back. “That was just the tip.”
Nick turned back to the boys, at a loss for what to say.
Moments later, he hurried outside, pulling his coat tight around himself. It had just started to snow when the two shitkickers from the bar rounded on him in the alley. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?!” Chili yelled.
Nick held his arms out. “Look guys, no harm no foul. No money exchanged hands, so--”
“Oh, that’s true we have our money, but now we want yours.”
“I’m not giving you my money--” Before the words had escaped Nick’s mouth, he was sucking in air from a gut punch. He hit the frozen sidewalk hard, on all fours. His new friends took turns kicking him in the ribs.
When Nick finally sprawled out on the asphalt, they dug in his pockets and took the measly spare change he had on him.
“You made us beat the shit out of you for this?!” Chuck screamed, before spitting on him. They kicked Nick one last time before walking away, laughing.
By the time Nick returned to his apartment, he was bleeding separately from each eye. He unlocked the door to a small molehill of credit card statements and final warnings. He kicked them into the corner with the others.
In the den, he found Cody in front of their color T.V. watching the CBS Evening News, which would have been out of character, but it was Morton Dean covering the space program, so Cody was rapt. When he finally noticed Nick, he jumped, startled. “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?!” he said, seeing all the blood.
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“Nothing,” Nick whimpered, limping to the couch. He groaned to a sitting position.
“What do you mean ‘nothing?!’”
Nick winced. “I’m fine. I just need an aspirin. Do you have any coke?”
Cody squirmed. “I do, but... I mean, it was one thing when you were doing it with me...”
“Look, I’m good for it. Are you gonna sell to me or not?”
“How are you good for it? You owe me six months back rent...”
“Not this again.”
“Maybe if you were staying in--”
“I told you, I got places to be.”
Cody nodded, spurned. “In that case, you could always try the rambles...”
Nick looked up suddenly, becoming very still. “Never.”
“That’s my only idea.”
“Yeah? Well, fuck you then!” Nick grunted to his feet and headed for the door.
Cody yelled after him. “Oh, because I won’t give you drugs, you’re done with me?”
“Yup!” Nick screamed, refusing to look back. He was almost out the door, when it occurred to him that he was broke. He stared furiously at the ground but spoke directly to Cody. “I need twenty bucks.”
Cody glared at him. After what seemed like an eternity, he sighed and fished in his pocket for his wallet. He rose silently and gave his old friend a twenty before heading back to his own room.
Nick hurried downstairs. He was near the park. He looked in at the rambles briefly, but couldn’t make himself go in. Turning the other way, he headed down fifth avenue, bracing himself against the cold. Around 34th street he found a guy who fit the bill, chain-smoking in his street-stained levis and oversized grey athletic hoodie. He presented himself to the street in a way that only streetwalkers and pimps did. Nick sidled up to him. “I got twenty...”
“Twenty of what?” The guy asked, innocently enough.
But Nick didn’t have time for this. “Do I look like a fuckin’ cop?”
The man gave him a once-over and nodded. “Whatchu looking for?”
Nick motioned around them at the falling snow. “More of this.”
The man smiled. “Oh, I got something a lot more fun than coke...”
“What is it?”
“This is new...” he said, showing Nick a baggie of what looked like glass shards.
“Is it good?”
The man laughed. “Fuck being high for twenty minutes – how’d you like to be high for two days?!”
Nick slipped the twenty into the guy’s hand and palmed the broken glass. He hurried off thinking about where he’d do it. He considered doing it at home, but the thought of having to deal with Cody’s judgmental face was too much to bear.
So he found a dim and dusty, highway overpass to crawl into. He emptied out one of his cigarettes, filling the husk with this new stuff. He realized in the first hit, in the first moment, that this - however shitty, however stepped on - was something special.
Whereas moments before he had felt ill, now he felt superhuman.
He spent the next thirty-six hours awake. Returning to the apartment, Nick barricaded himself in his room. He laid down on his bed and saw snakes crawling up the walls and bugs coming out of the power sockets. They crawled across the floor and up onto his mattress.
He decided to barricade the door frame with duct tape and cardboard. Still, he could feel them skittering up and down his skin. He started to scratch at them, doing a number on his flesh. There were bits of blood under his fingernails.
When he finally came down, it was the worst feeling he’d ever felt. And he needed to remedy it fast. He pulled on yesterday’s clothes and exited his building. Only when he was outside did he remember that he was broke. If the city had taught him anything it was that the money always ran out.
Somehow, he got it into his head to check back at that art gallery that showed his work a few years back. He hobbled downtown, heavily constipated, very conscious of the fact that he hadn’t crapped in days. He passed beneath a billboard featuring Simone on it. She was hawking some high-end perfume.
At Desnudo, it took Nick talking to three different people in the office before one vaguely remembered exhibiting his work. Nick let his breath go victoriously, then asked if he could get a cash advance on his next couple paintings. Sure, he hadn’t painted in a while, but they didn’t need to know that.
The woman who barely remembered him said that his paintings hadn’t hung there in some time and that was not how they did business. As Nick hobbled out of the gallery, she wondered aloud if that hadn’t been that guy who stole their petty cash some years back.
Hoping to borrow some cash from his mother, Nick hopped a train at Penn station. It was almost quitting time, so the train was filled with commuters, standing room only. Once he was onboard, Nick realized with a start that his parents had moved. But another idea quickly presented itself. He got off the train in Summit and hurried across the street to the public library. With any luck the guy still worked there...
As if frozen in time, there sat the librarian in the same ironed overalls and train conductor’s hat. Nick quietly walked over to him. “Listen you might not remember me--”
The librarian cut him off without looking up from the book he was reading. “Sure I do. Cody’s friend...”
Nick nodded, encouraged, and leaned in to confide. “Yeah man, listen I don’t have any cash, but I can like pay you back or run errands or restock books, I don’t know...
“Pay me back for what?” He asked, a smile on his face.
“Look, I’m just tryin’ to get right.”
“We all are. And don’t worry about the money. We’re friends.”
“Well, what do you want for it?”
Nick left the library fifteen minutes later, wondering how he could get the taste out of his mouth. He ran to catch the train back to the city. On the way, he did the paltry amount of coke the librarian had given him. The high barely lasted until Secaucus.
By the time he reached the park, he was jonesing. He looked in on the rambles, a collection of secluded, pricker-bushes, and this time didn’t bat an eye...
He went right inside.