Sax Man's Journal

By Michael Bronte

In 1961 nineteen-year-old Woody Altman gets himself thrown out of Princeton, due primarily to a lack of motivation to follow in his father’s footsteps. Not willing to bow down to his parents’ rules, he takes off to New York with the intention of making a living as a musician. Ending up in Greenwich Village during the Beat Generation movement of the early sixties, Woody earns his way by getting noticed in the gritty coffeehouses of the Village and squalid clubs in Harlem, surviving on sandwiches and apples as he attempts to earn a living doing what he loves. Ultimately, it will lead him to understand the agony he must endure to become successful, often exacerbated by his own weaknesses and addictions. It will also lead to the love of his life, which ends in tragedy, leaving him with a daughter to raise on his own. Told from the perspective of what Woody went through in his youth, Sax Man’s Journal explores the themes of burgeoning sexuality and promiscuity, addiction, pleasure, and regret, all shrouded in the perspective of a seventy-eight-year-old man looking back on his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Bronte
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005424855

Michael Bronte

Michael Bronte is a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and lives with his wife of 38 years in New Jersey. "All of the heroes in my novels are everyday people," says Bronte. "Any of them could by your next door neighbor. None of us really know what we're capable of until the time comes for us to reach beyond the boundaries of our everyday lives. Remarkable feats of courage are performed everyday, by everyday people. It's amazing."​ As a young teenager I remember reading paperback mysteries under a huge oak tree outside my parents’ neighborhood grocery store in Dalton, Massachusetts, a small town located in the heart of the Berkshires. I can recall pulling a book from the rack and getting locked in to those novels as the fragrant summer breeze of Berkshire County tried to turn the page before I was done reading it. I don’t know why, but I was greatly affected by a book titled The Fan Club, by Irving Wallace. When I was done reading it, I can still recall thinking that someday I’d be able to write a book like that on my own; I knew I could do it.Well, the idea stayed dormant for over thirty years while I did what I thought I should have been doing for a living (looking back, it all seems so trivial sometimes) until I rekindled my infatuation with writing novels. Now, many years after that, and many mistakes and many failures later, there are several Michael Bronte novels available for those of you who like mystery, suspense, action-oriented stories with true-to-life characters.

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Sax Man’s Journal

by

Michael Bronte

Copyright ©: Michael Bronte 2021

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Los Angeles, April, 2020

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Los Angeles, December, 2020

Los Angeles, April, 2020

No one writes letters anymore. No one even knows how. It’s all email and texts these days, using silly little symbols called emojis to evoke sentiments rather than using words. That’s why I was surprised to receive an actual letter the other day, with a stamp and everything.

I didn’t want to mangle the envelope, so I carefully slit it open with a letter opener. There was no name on the return address, just an apartment number and street address in New York that I didn’t recognize. I pulled out the letter and could tell by the handwriting that a woman had written it. It was in that precise style where the curves on the g’s and the y’s were perfectly symmetrical, and the sentences were perfectly straight on the paper despite it being unlined. My curiosity getting the best of me, I immediately flipped to the second page hoping to see a signature. I felt my pulse quicken when I discovered the letter had come from Susan. I’ve thought of her mother many times over the last fifty-eight years, and every one of those times I wondered how much she’d told Susan about me, or if she’d told her anything at all.

I’d only seen Susan in person twice since she was a child, the first time being when she’d graduated high school back in 1980. It sounds like yesterday, but I shock myself when I consider it was forty years ago. The second time was at her wedding eleven years later. That was also the last time I’d seen Susan’s mother. Now, Susan was writing me to tell me her mother had passed away. She thought I’d want to know.

I’m not sure about Susan’s motivation for writing me, but I’m glad she did. At one time her mother had meant as much to me as anyone on the planet. I choked back my emotions as I read the letter. If my calculation was correct, her mother would have been ninety-six when she died, or was it ninety-seven? It doesn’t matter. It was still a long life, and for the most part a happy one, I think. Like everyone, she had her challenges. I was one of them.

I’m guessing Susan knew that I was more than a casual acquaintance, but for all I know she’d gone through her mother’s address book and had written similar letters to everyone listed there. It wasn’t until I got to the end of the letter that I thought otherwise.

Woody, Susan wrote, now that my mother has left us, I was wondering if you would feel comfortable telling me about your relationship with her. I’ve wanted to know for a long time.

I calculated Susan’s age, concluding she was old enough to actually use the words long time. She’d be fifty-eight now, certainly mature enough to have experienced the twists and turns that life could throw at a person. Well then. Was I comfortable telling her about things that happened almost sixty years ago? I immediately concluded I was not, although I remember everything like it was yesterday. What Susan was asking for was something that should have come from her mother, and not from me. My thoughts flew to extremes as I pondered her question. It was such a wonderful and sad story at the same time. For me, it would bring back some of the best memories of my life, but it would also open up some old wounds that had never really healed. I wondered if it would be the same for her. So, the question was: should I give her a harmless song and dance to satisfy some lingering curiosity about her mother’s past, or should I tell her the truth? Here’s how I answered Susan’s question.

Chapter 1

Princeton

I should have been studying instead of watching the game, Susan, but it was the last week of the season and I had twenty bucks riding on Mantle, betting he’d hit sixty homers before Maris did. I lost that bet, which I seldom did, but gambling and playing cards would be one of the reasons why I was eventually asked to de-matriculate from Princeton three months later. Come to find out, my professors frowned on the notion that attending classes was optional, especially since the grades on my midterms were mired so far below mediocrity that an F was being generous, one of them told me. The year was 1961. I’d barely completed my freshman year, and the fall semester of my sophomore year was my last chance. It didn’t go well, and I knew I was wasting my daddy’s money.

I couldn’t get with it at Princeton, and being a nice Jewish boy from Newark gave my fellow classmates another reason to look down on me besides being a screw up. Sure, there were presidents, and laureates, and scientists of every ilk who’d graduated from Princeton. I was there only because my father had gone there too. He was proud of his degree. I couldn’t have cared less about it. Looking back on it now, I suppose I should have tried harder to become part of the culture, but I found the eating club interviews and the clubs themselves to be so pretentious that I couldn’t see myself being part of that scene.

It’s all about connections, my father had said to me. The friends you make now at Princeton will benefit you for the rest of your life. Well, no matter how hard I tried to be F. Scott Fitzgerald—the first name that would come up in any conversation about Princeton—I steadfastly remained Woody Altman, which displeased my father to no end.

I just couldn’t do it. The boys from Choate, or Deerfield, and Georgetown Prep were all the same to me, no matter where they came from, their haughty disdain hidden under layers of well-disguised smugness. Proud was I when I beat them at poker.

I spent a lot of time doing that, making sure to mention in my eating club interviews that I liked to play. The eating clubs were a cross between a dining hall and a fraternity. Anxious to recruit underclassmen who would fit in with their particular club’s mindset, the interviewers inevitably asked the same question: What do you like to do, Woody?

I play the saxophone, I said. And I like to play poker.

Their eyes would twinkle as they injected their own brand of refined machismo into the conversation. Do you play? I would ask, but I already knew the answer. Of course they played; poker was a man’s game—which they played with their daddy’s money. Usually, there was a significant supply of it. When the moment was right, I’d ask, What are the stakes?

Nothing reckless, was the general answer so as not to scare me off. Dollar ante, five-dollar maximum bet, three-raise limit.

Gee, I usually play nickel, dime, quarter, but I’d still love to play. When is the next game? Not wanting to be unsociable and smelling an easy mark, they usually extended an invitation. Going from game to game, on campus and off, I pulled in a couple of hundred bucks a month, which in 1961 was enough to keep me from thinking about the future.

To be honest, I didn’t understand why I had to go to college at all. And, believe me, had to go is the proper phrase. It wasn’t like I had a choice. To me, it was fulfilling a destiny that belonged to someone else. That was my father, of course, who’d sought desperately to prepare me for college, and Princeton in particular, for as long as I could remember.

I saw the competitiveness in him almost every day of my life. He always paid attention to the brand of car the neighbors drove, which school they sent their kids to, and where they bought their clothes. I didn’t know why, however. Neither he nor my mother explained why those things were important. When they told me with great fanfare that they’d arranged for me to attend The Lawrenceville School, I promptly came down with a case of infectious mononucleosis a week before classes were to begin. I think my parents both thought I’d contracted the virus just to spite them. Their love developed a hard edge to it that I sharpened on a constant basis. By the time the infection was over two months later, the opportunity to attend The Lawrenceville School for that year had evaporated. To my father’s chagrin, I was quite happy to attend public school. He still managed to shoehorn me into Princeton. I wonder how much that cost him.

The letter from Princeton asking me to not return came in January of 1962 after the first semester of my sophomore year. As a result, it was colder inside my house than the freezing New Jersey winter outside. My mother—her name was Margaret—simply didn’t know what to do with me. She spent a lot of her time with her clubs and her civic societies, and the fact that I’d been kicked out of Princeton shamed her to no end. Her conversations around the dinner table were seldom directed at me, and for good reason—she knew the response she’d get when I didn’t want to hear anymore of her polite but constant nagging. As such, she showered most of her love on my younger sister Patricia, who cherished the attention. They would talk about dresses and hair styles, while I was on the verge of running away to join the circus, figuratively speaking. Their attitude toward me was civil, but frosty, and the feeling was mutual.

As for my father, the disappointment was etched on his face as if it was carved in stone. It eventually turned to anger and then disgust as he listened to my mother’s reports of how I spent day after day in my room, noodling around on my saxophone with no clear objective in sight. Luckily for me, he dedicated most of his time running his accounting practice, Benjamin C. Altman Accountants and Tax Advisors, and I only had to suffer his belittling glares between suppertime and bedtime. He even offered to hire me at one point—I’m not sure in what capacity; I understood nothing about accounting—but I knew working for him could turn my metaphorical thoughts of running away into reality. Now that I was no longer a Princetonian, I knew my period of reflection and adjustment was coming to an end, as was living in my parents’ house.

What motivated me more than anything to get back on the path to…something…was the reality that my circle of friends was disintegrating. In those years, only about ten percent of high school students went to college, probably less in a blue-collar city like Newark, and my friends were heading toward independence in the forms of work, marriage, the military, and other means toward adulthood. I was bored, apathetic, and frustrated, all at the same time, and I decided to examine my options. Sure enough, the day came when my mother poured my father’s after-dinner coffee, and, along with Patricia, disappeared from the dining room.

Sit down, Heywood, my father said.

He only called me Heywood when the conversation was serious. He wasn’t angry, and he held back the contempt I’d heard in his voice ever since I’d left Princeton.

We’ve decided that you’re going to have to take a job, he said directly. "We’ve also decided that unless there’s a reason why it can’t happen, you’re going to have to start paying for your room and board.

Clearly, my father was providing my options for me. I assumed that we included my mother. They were no longer going to support me, I realized. He paused and stirred his coffee, allowing me an opportunity to respond, which I didn’t at that moment.

"We’ll give you two more weeks under our current arrangement. If it goes beyond that, we’ll begin accumulating what you owe for your living expenses, and you’ll have to pay us once you find suitable employment. The amount will be due on the first of each month unless you decide to make other living arrangements.

While I could tell he expected me to respond, I could also tell it wasn’t up for negotiation. He almost seemed disappointed when I said, Don’t worry about it, Dad. I’ll be moving out this weekend.

He stopped stirring his coffee, his gaze penetrating. Where are you—

I have a job. I start on Monday.

A job? he shot back.

That’s right. It’s in New York.

Flabbergasted, he asked, Doing what, exactly?

I froze. Playing the saxophone, I blurted out. One of the other band members has a room for me, and he said what I would make from our gigs will cover my portion of the rent.

My father’s eyebrows arched, and his face took on a sudden pallor. Maybe he was worried that I’d turn into a beatnik, or worse yet, a heroin addict. He’d already taken a stand, however, and he wasn’t about to back away from something he’d already stated. Neither was I. I moved out that Saturday, taking two suitcases full of clothes and necessities on the train from Newark Penn Station, along with my saxophone.

That’s how I ended up in New York, Susan. It was my first step on a very long journey.

* * *

I’d lied to my father and subsequently to my mother and sister as well. I didn’t have a job in New York, and I didn’t have a room, or a gig, or anything. What I did have was about five hundred-dollars-worth of poker winnings from my time at Princeton. I’d told no one about those winnings. I’d squirrelled them away inside one of my Florsheim oxfords at the bottom of my closet. I got off the train at the Hudson Terminal on a cold day in February with a suitcase in each hand and my saxophone case slung over my shoulder. Standing on the corner of Cortland and Greenwich Streets, I discovered I was in the middle of a neighborhood called Radio Row. Standup signs cluttered the sidewalk in front of storefronts plastered with still more signs, all advertising the same things, it seemed to me: TVs, radios, and electronic equipment of every conceivable configuration. People bustled about, while others idled in store entrances spewing vapor and cigarette smoke as they shifted their weight from one foot to the other trying to stay warm. Feeling like a lamb lost in the jungle, I noticed a couple of them giving me the eye as I checked things out.

I had a plan. I knew I had enough money to last me for a while, and I knew I wanted to end up in a section of the city called Greenwich Village. I’d heard about it at Princeton and had read some articles about it in Life magazine. The descriptions were vivid in my head, the most influential being those depicting the rawness of the place, how it was the center of art, music, and political discussion. It was full of eccentrics, supposedly, and to me it was the complete opposite of the staid, safe, predictable path I’d been on until Princeton did me the favor of booting me out. I wanted to meet some radicals. I wanted to see what a homosexual was like. I wanted to go to a coffee shop and attend a poetry reading. All these things I’d heard about and more, much more, and I wanted to experience all of it. It sounded so stimulating.

My plan was to find Greenwich Village and get a hotel room for some period of time. With five hundred dollars in my pocket, I figured I could find a cheap room—there had to be one somewhere; the place was full of Bohemians—and use it as a base of operations until I found a more permanent place to stay. Anywhere was fine as long as it had a bed and a toilet. I knew I’d eventually have to find a job, and I had a plan for that too. I would play the saxophone, just as I’d told my father, and I would play cards. I was an expert at both of those endeavors.

Gripping the handles of my suitcases so tightly that my fingers were white with pressure, I walked over to one of the cigarette smokers who looked the least intimidating. Can you please tell me how to get to Greenwich Village? I asked evenly.

Looking me up and down, he grinned and said, I’ll do it for a buck.

I paid him the buck, and less than an hour later I was climbing up the stairs of the West 4th Street subway station at Washington Square Park. I regripped my suitcases, switched my saxophone case from one shoulder to the other, and started walking.

* * *

I’ve mentioned my saxophone a few times thus far, Susan, so let’s talk about that for a moment. I think it was because of my grandmother that I learned to play. Her name was Mildred Agathe Schmidt, and she was so unlike my mother that I sometimes wondered if the hospital had mistakenly switched my mother’s birth certificate with that of another child. Where my mother was serious and aloof, my grandmother was anything but. She’d swoop in on family gatherings dressed in something she’d seemingly pulled out of her closet with her eyes closed, always accented with flourishes of feathers and fur, which irritated my father to no end. He’d sneeze and sniffle away, and she’d ignore him completely, dancing and carrying on with my sister and I while singing the German folk songs her mother had taught her as a child. She would make my sister and I hold hands, and step one-two-three, one-two-three, while she did the same, and always with a drink in hand. That irritated my mother to no end, so you’d be right in assuming that whenever Grandmother Mildred was in the house, things were tense.

Having grown up in a German family of considerable breeding, Grandmother Mildred demanded that my mother, an only child, learn to play an instrument. In her case, it was the piano. She was quite good, actually, and the convention was passed down to my sister and I both. At my grandmother’s insistence, I started taking saxophone lessons at age five. I think half the hours I spent on this earth before going away to Princeton were with a saxophone in my hand, practicing, practicing, practicing. Whenever my grandmother came to visit, she’d turn on the hi-fi and put on a Duke Ellington record and ask me to play along.

She’d say things like, You don’t need sheet music, Woody. The best musicians see the notes in their head.

I got to where I’d listen to a piece of music once and it was locked in my brain. If I do say so myself, Susan, I could play. My father thought it was a nice pastime but didn’t think it was a way for any son of his to make a living.

* * *

As I look back on it now, Grandmother Mildred was one of the rocks in my personal foundation. To be sure, my mother and father were too, but both of them were flawed, as I’ve already described. If there was one person whose advice I could depend on, untainted by other considerations except what was good for me, it was my grandmother. She always gave me her honest opinion, not giving a damn what my parents thought. She passed away the summer before I shipped off to Princeton, and I carry the sadness of her death with me to this day.

Chapter 2

Meeting John Kerrigan

I walked west on West 4th Street into a steady February breeze that stung my cheeks and turned my fingers into icicles around the handles of my suitcases. I didn’t care, however. I was in Greenwich Village and my heart was racing. I crossed Sixth Avenue, and then Christopher Street, taking in names of places that mesmerized me. People were everywhere, many wearing well-worn overcoats and smoking cigarettes. Several were lined up outside a storefront window whose sign simply read Pizza, buying slices with steam wafting off them and served on sheets of wax paper. It smelled incredible. There was a pipe store, and a used clothing store that sold dresses the Queen of England might have worn, and then a magic shop. A magic shop! Who ever heard of such a thing? The streets were old, and gritty, and the signs hanging over the sidewalks looked like they were about to fall off onto your head any second.

I stopped at a small playground and took a seat on one of the benches there, shoving my hands under my armpits to warm them. I caught a few glances from passersby and realized I couldn’t walk around with those suitcases all day. I had to find a hotel, but where? I spotted a scruffy-looking sort who was looking into a trash can nearby. I figured what had worked before would work again.

Hey, buddy, I called when he got close. I could smell the alcohol now, the breeze carrying it toward me like an ocean wave. I’ll give you a buck if you tell me where I could find a hotel around here.

His eyes blazing, he looked at me and then at my suitcases. No prostitutes, right?

I’d never even considered the idea. Right, I said quickly. No prostitutes. He gave me the name of the Paradise Hotel, which was anything but, less than two blocks away on Perry Street. The only sign was a placard in a window four steps down from the sidewalk. The lobby was comprised of two chairs and stand-up ashtray outside a sliding glass window. It was cold, and sticky, but at three dollars a night I thought it was perfect. I paid for three nights.

The room was on the second floor and smelled of the thousands of bodies that had slept in it before. Besides the bed, which was tilted to one side, the only other furnishings were a dresser and a single upholstered chair, shiny with grime. One of its legs had been broken off and replaced by a stack of books. Above the chair was a tiny window that looked out onto the side of the building next door. I put the suitcases on top of the dresser and left them there, wondering if it was safe to leave the saxophone in the room when I went out. My clothes they could steal, but the sax was my future. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I laid on the bed to think about the situation for a minute and woke up five hours later with the tiny radiator across the room clanking and hissing like a locomotive. The room was dark. I’d spent my first few hours in Greenwich Village wrapped in an awful nightmare I’d had many times and couldn’t seem to shake, especially when I was anxious about something.

I popped up in the bed and shook my head, trying to eradicate the image of me careening toward earth from on high, watching the land come toward me as I fell. I always woke up before I hit the ground, figuring if I ever did hit it, the nightmare would turn real, and I’d be dead. I felt my stomach growl and I looked at my watch. It was going on nine o’clock. Shaking off my lethargy, I decided it was time to get the lay of the land. I slid the saxophone case under the bed and splashed some cold water on my face, putting on my coat as I locked the door behind me. I felt my energy start to surge.

Clunking down the steps to the lobby area, I felt like I was about to open the door to the rest of my life, Susan. I pushed through the fire door and noticed there was a different attendant in the office than there was when I’d checked in. It was a woman now.

Excuse me, I said, knocking on the window.

Heavyset, with a mop of coarse red-orange hair, she looked up as a plume of smoke curled past her eye from the cigarette dangling off her lip. Yeah? she said, not even looking up from the TV she was watching. I could see Perry Mason flickering on the screen.

I’m in room 206, I said, hoping she was listening. I slid the window open from my side, which annoyed her instantly. Can I ask you something?

So ask, already.

I motioned for her to come to the window. Sorry, I said lowly when she got there. I didn’t want to take the chance that anyone would overhear me. Is it safe for me to leave something valuable in my room when I’m not there?

She gave me an up and down and cocked her head the way a dog does when you talk to it. You’s not from here, are you?

No, I’m not, I replied, instantly feeling as inconspicuous as a cold sore.

Why’s you here?

I’m here to play saxophone in the best jazz club in New York, I said, and I meant it.

She smiled warmly now, her eyes softening. Is that the something valuable you’s worried about? I nodded. Bring it here and I’ll lock it up in the luggage room. There’s somebody here twen’y-four-seven.

I felt better. I dashed to my room and back and watched her put the sax case into a closet and lock the door. She gave me a claim stub. What’s your name, kid? she asked. I want to be able to tell people the best sax player in New York City started out at the Paradise.

My name is Woody, I said proudly. Woody ‘Sax Man’ Altman.

Go to the City Streets Café, Sax Man. Tell the guy at the door Rozz sent you.

* * *

A person only gets to experience something for the first time once, Susan, and as soon as I hit the street I knew my first-time experiences thus far in life had been terribly disappointing. Simply walking down—or was it up? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care—the streets were exhilarating. I memorized their names as I went along: Seventh Avenue South, Bleecker Street, Hudson Street…everywhere I went people were out, laughing, smoking, kissing, arguing. They were living life, for Christ’s sake, and the reflection of my own life up to now was fading with each step.

I walked for an hour before I stopped to eat something for fear that I would faint if I didn’t get something into my stomach. I ducked into a place with the word café in its name and ordered a hamburger. I didn’t remember ever having eaten at a café before and wondered if it was the same as a restaurant. It pretty much was.

Someone took the seat next to me at the counter and the waitress came over with a cup of coffee before the guy even ordered anything. He smelled of tobacco.

Thanks, doll face, he said as he lit a stubby Chesterfield cigarette and exhaled a huge plume of smoke.

It surrounded me and instantly shot up my nose, which I didn’t like. I didn’t say anything, though, not wanting to cause a stink. Almost everyone was smoking; I guess I was the one out of place. He poured a shovelful of sugar into his coffee while the smoke curling off his cigarette beelined at me again.

He must have seen me recoil because he glanced at me and said, Sorry. Do you want switch seats?

If it’s not too much trouble, I replied, using my best tone. I got a better look at him as we switched, and he got a better look at me.

You new in town? he asked.

How did you know?

It’s the threads, man.

Threads?

Your clothes, kiddo.

He was wearing a herringbone wool coat over denim dungarees that were like farmer overalls, and I wondered momentarily if there were corn fields in Greenwich Village. I’d left my tie in my hotel room but was still wearing my tweed sport coat. I looked around, noticing that everyone in the place was wearing something that looked just a little off beat to me, with scarves, lots and lots of scarves. And boots. Thick heavy ones, like army troopers wore. I was wearing wingtips.

My hamburger came and it looked like any other hamburger I’d ever eaten. I expected it to be different for some reason. Do you mind if I eat? I asked politely.

Hey, knock yourself out, He took a huge drag off the cigarette. What brings you to New York?

I didn’t know how to answer and bought myself a moment by biting into my hamburger. I play the saxophone, I said.

Sure you do, kiddo. You and a million other guys. You got a gig?

No one had ever called me kiddo before. I guess it was appropriate. He was definitely older than me, over forty, I’d say. He definitely looked like he’d had a lot of experience. I don’t know, maybe it was his hair, which was growing over his ears and messy like he’d just gotten out of bed. Not yet, I replied. I felt like I needed to explain. I plan to start looking on Monday.

Uh-huh. He slurped his coffee and flicked his ashes toward an ashtray already overflowing with butts. Where you from, kiddo?

Newark.

Newark is an okay town, he said, but it’s not New York.

He was certainly right about that. I ate in silence for a minute. Can I ask you a question? I asked, my curiosity overcoming me. The waitress came over, refilling his coffee cup and plopping down a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn’t even hear him order it.

Shoot, kid.

What do you do for a living?

He lit another cigarette off the end of the first one and considered the question. I’m a poet, he said, pausing dramatically. My name is John Kerrigan.

Little did I know at the time, Susan, that John Kerrigan was one of the premier writers in the surrealistic and modernistic movement in art and literature. Sitting there in that dumpy little café, I had no idea his works had appeared in poetry journals like the New American Poetry Anthology. To me, he was just a guy, almost as rough-looking as the wino who’d told me about the Paradise. I had a million questions stacked up inside my head. He must have sensed my curiosity.

How long have you been in town? he asked, biting into his sandwich.

About eight hours, I replied, knowing by his expression that he was asking for a reason.

He nodded distractedly as he smoked, slurped, and chewed. So you’re still a virgin, he said. Metaphorically speaking.

I didn’t tell him the comment was more than metaphorical.

Tell me your story, kiddo. He didn’t look at me but stayed focused on something off in the distance.

I thought that was odd, seeing as there was nothing but stacks of plates where he was looking, but it helped me relax and not feel like I was under a microscope. I told him my story, about Newark, and my mom and dad, and Princeton, and how I’d been asked to leave.

He finally looked at me when I got to that part. So you need to find a way to make a living, or you’ll be forced to go back to Newark and eat crow. Is that right?

I’m never going back there, I retorted. I’d rather clean the toilets at Grand Central Station. He chuckled at that, although I didn’t think it was very funny.

He finished his grilled cheese at the same time I did my hamburger. Where do you keep your money, kid?

At first, I thought it was a come on.

You do have money on you, don’t you?

I have some, I replied, not telling him I had almost five hundred dollars in my wallet.

Then put it in your front pocket next to your pecker. The only ones that’ll go in there are the fags. You’re not a fag, are you?

I was pretty sure I wasn’t. No, I said.

Good. Let’s go then.

Where are we going?

I’m going to show you around Greenwich Village and introduce you to some places where you can show your stuff, he said. We don’t want you cleaning toilets at Grand Central. He paid for my hamburger, and we were gone. When no one was looking, I took my wallet out of my back pocket and put it into my front pocket next to my pecker, just like he told me to do.

* * *

Saturday night in Greenwich Village was wild, Susan. Back in Newark, people would have been coming back from their night out at that hour. Here we were just heading out.

There are a couple of places we should hit before it gets crowded, said John. He said I could call him that.

This isn’t crowded? I questioned above the street noise. There were people everywhere, and they weren’t the kind of people I saw back in Newark. The first thing I noticed was the hair—men’s hair, to be more precise. Many of them were wearing it long, on their