Editor’s Note: The Last Hotel: A Novel in Suites by Sonia Pilcer. This is the 13th installment of her tales of the Upper West Side in the 1970s. Look for it every Friday. To read the 12th installment, with links to previous ones, click here. Of this work, the author Anne Roiphe writes: “Bittersweet, funny, human and humane, a movie surely waits.”
Suite 62
Four-fifty-five, stomach-churning sound of traffic, then the assault. “TEN-TEN WINS, TEN-TEN WINS NEW YORK, TEN-TEN WINS …”
“Shut the fuck up, 10-10 Wins!” Fred Janov slammed the radio alarm with his fist.
Though his window faced an airshaft, he could tell it was still dark outside. When did goddamn Daylight Savings kick in? God, he hated to get up at this ungodly hour. That’s what he had to do if he wanted to find anything before it was picked over by vultures.
Slowly, Fred lumbered toward the sink, careful not to upset any of his stacks of books. He didn’t quite make it to the toilet, which was in the hall. He let the monkey roar, pissing in his sink, then ran the water. Sure, his mother didn’t teach him that. So what. He washed his hands and face, rinsed his mouth from the faucet.
Switching the light startled a colony of cockroaches. They scurried for their lives. Fred chased them, banging the floor with a rolled up New York Post. Casualties were heavy. A few still wiggled their legs. He put them out of their pain, crushing them with his heel.
Fred looked around himself, shaking his head. What a dump. But it was his dump. He had lived in this small, funky room for over eight years. That was a long time. His first and only place in New York City.
He’d grown up so near, yet so far away — in the suburbs, Woodmere, to be exact. One of Long Island’s “five towns,” land of manicured lawns and nails, digging in, everyone striving, driven by the fierce desire to have and achieve more than their neighbors. It was a nightmare of upward mobility.
Fred was definitely downwardly mobile. By design. His dump was Low Rent. The Last Hotel had only three rooms on the sixth floor and a bathroom at the end of the hallway. Pete, the Teamster guy, lived next door. What a drunk. And down the hall, Duc, a Samoan, who worked as a bouncer at Studio 54. They all shared one toilet. Duc was a slob, leaving his hairs everywhere. The light was always on the blink. Fred was the only one who ever bought toilet paper.
Fred made his way gingerly across the floor, where books were stacked in order of subject. Art books fetched the highest prices, followed by hardcover philosophic and political tomes. Lots of romantic and detective novels. He had even found first editions with authors’ signatures. This weekend he would set up in front of Zabar’s.
He bent over to avoid the clothesline strung across the room. Single gloves and mittens of every hue hung like laundry in a country backyard. He’d been collecting them for years.
He liked singles. Half of a pair of mittens. He liked to imagine where the other half might be. Just like him. He was single, had always been single. A singlet. Was his other half floating around somewhere? Someone tried to match him up with a not very attractive female photographer, but he had standards.
Another line held mufflers and hats, women’s brown suede gloves. His smaller collections were scattered around the room: glass jars filled with keys and keychains, single earrings, watches, and false teeth. A basket of combs and brushes. Hundreds of pens jammed into coffee cans. Piles of hair barrettes and elastics. Sunglasses. In the corner, a wooden box filled with red sticks of dynamite. All found on the streets of New York City.
Fred picked up yesterday’s clothes from the floor. He slipped into a stained white T-shirt with a red Rolling Stone tongue, soiled jeans, and torn gray windbreaker. Gathering several shopping bags, he folded and attached them to his bicycle with a bungee cord. He grabbed two thick chains and a Kryptonite lock, then threw an empty oversized knapsack over his shoulders. Guiding his bike by the handlebar, he pressed the elevator button.
This was his morning ritual. Wednesdays were best, when supers put out their buildings’ trash to be collected. Or individuals tossed what they considered trash, which could include TVs in perfect working order, stereo systems with speakers, washers, dryers, sewing machines. The most amazing things! Brand new stuff which still had its price tags. An unopened bottle of Charlie cologne. A tossed Jean-Claude Killy ski jacket. Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. A 100% cashmere cardigan. Valuable things that just needed to be washed.
New Yorkers had too much money. That’s all. They were suckers. They put out for the latest, most overpriced piece of crap. Like the pet rock. That’s why the streets were filled with treasures just waiting to be picked — there for the taking, for those who opened their eyes and hands.
Once Fred was heading uptown on Amsterdam Avenue when he spotted something green lying in a puddle in the gutter. He picked it up to discover a hundred dollar bill! Turning stealthily, he checked to see if anyone looked like they had lost something. No one did. People never stopped their ceaseless rushing on the street. He pocketed the bill, of course. It had been in full view and no one saw it. They were blind. Or they just didn’t give a goddamn.
New Yorkers had gotten too rich for their own good. Wait till the economy tanked. “Drop Dead, New York,” President Ford said. The city was bankrupt, a tiny fleck of insanity floating out there in the United States of Amerika.
As Fred led his bicycle into the elevator, he felt the presence of another person. The woman from the Penthouse stood in the corner of the elevator. He bowed his head, giving her a friendly nod. After all, there weren’t too many people out at this hour. She ignored him. That was a punch in the gut.
Fred had never gotten rid of his adolescent acne. There was a gray pallor to his skin and he was painfully skinny, as if he didn’t eat enough. His hair looked wired, bolting away from his head in brownish grey clumps. He stepped out of the elevator, rolling his bicycle behind her. She took off, not even holding the door for him.
On the street, Fred hopped on his bike. As soon as he started pedaling, the wind and car exhaust in his face, he got the feeling. He was totally free! Free as a NYC pigeon. Neither rain nor snow could keep him off his bicycle, the best fastest and cheapest way to get around the city.
He came to an abrupt stop at the end of the block, 1 West 72nd Street, in front of the gated entrance to the Dakota. Now this was a gold digger’s dream. Not the kind who married money, but someone like yours truly who could dig in the muck. His eyes sparkled greedily.
Iron railings surrounded the building with mythological griffins and sea monsters. Fred put on his black rubber gloves and began opening the plastic bags. He pulled out a few things, which didn’t interest him, then sealed the first bag securely. He didn’t want to piss off the doormen, who watched him with nose-twitching disdain from their metal outhouses.
As he was going through another bag, he noticed a young girl pulling a brown and white spotted beagle. The dog’s collar had silver spikes.
“Come on, Ruby!” the girl called, yanking the leash. “I said come on.” The dog yelped.
“What are you doing?” Fred startled the girl.
“Ruby won’t budge,” she answered, tugging the dog’s leash again. “The dog trainer told us beagles are stubborn.”
“Don’t you realize you’re hurting your dog? Those spikes go right into her skin.”
The girl gave him an insolent stare. “She’s my dog.”
Fred’s eyes grew large and furious. “So you’re going to torture a living being because she belongs to you? How would you feel if someone did that to you?”
Suddenly the girl burst into tears, running into the arms of a tall woman with frosted blond hair.
“How dare you talk to my daughter like that?” she demanded.
“Why don’t you teach your daughter not to strangle her dog?” he said.
“Excuse me,” she said icily, dragging her daughter by the arm as a doorman whistled for a cab. The dog followed after them.
“Just ignore the crazy man,” she said, pulling the girl behind her into the taxi. “Come on, Megan! Pick the dog up and put her inside!”
“You people have no heart,” Fred said, continuing his search in the black plastic garbage bags.
He found a toaster oven, which he stuck into his knapsack and leaped on his bicycle. Then he turned uptown at Central Park West.
Fred had a system. He rode down 73rd Street with the traffic till he got to the Ansonia Hotel, a white beaux arts elephant, which occupied the whole block on Broadway. Caruso had lived there. So had Babe Ruth, and most of the Yankee team.
His sharp eyes caught sight of something. Parking his bicycle by the building, he began to tug at what turned out to be a Persian rug in excellent condition. He could sell it to Ahmed. Fred rolled it up and attached the rug to his bike with a bungee. Continuing down the street, he saw a matching couch and loveseat, but what could he do with that? Then he went up 74th Street, following the direction of the traffic. A standing lamp with a tacky plastic shade. Not for him. Down 75th, up 76th when he spotted several paper bags filled with books. This was his bread and butter.
He leaned his bicycle against a brownstone stairway. 76th Street was a good block, though it had its bad element. But on this part, between Amsterdam and Columbus, the brownstones had been gutted and turned into fancy co-op apartments. Rich people were beginning to buy up the neighborhood. The local laundromat had to sell out to fat realtors. More homeless people. More hunger. The way of the world.
Fred began removing books. Steppenwolf and Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. The Prophet. Very nice. Dante’s Inferno. The Way of Zen by Alan Watts. What a haul! These would go in five minutes. In another bag, a philosophy text, a pocketbook edition of The Prince by Machiavelli. Fred had read most of the books in college.
He’d been a philosophy major with a minor in poli-sci at Cornell. His expensive college education, paid for by his parents, prepared him to be a fleet cabdriver, a bicycle messenger or to take a job in the post office. He was nouveau poor or had been for the last fifteen years, and proud of it.
He could have joined his father’s business. Diamonds. Jewelry. Watches. Julius Janov had a booth in a large storefront in the Diamond District on 47th Street. Fred had tried it for a few years and made money, but hated every moment. How you had to talk to customers, convince them to buy, bullshit for eight hours a day. Not for him. He preferred to work outdoors.
As Fred made his way home with his stash, he stopped in front of the Éclair bakery and locked his bike to a parking sign.
How he loved the smell! It brought him back to being a boy and going with his father on weekends to pick up rye bread and bialys. On the way home, they shared bread slices. It was about the only time he recalled Julius relaxing.
Fred checked out the shelf with day-old bread. He picked up a bag of onion rolls. Then he looked at the pastries. Ah, Seven Layer cake. He remembered as a child, separating the layers, licking the chocolate cream. “I’ll take one slice of the Seven Layer,” he said.
“One dollar-twenty-five,” a white-haired woman said, “and three rolls, seventy-five cents. That makes two dollars.”
He dug into his jean pockets and gave her a handful of change. She stared at him as he counted the coins, shaking her head in disapproval. He didn’t notice.
Outside, he attached the bag to the back of his bike, which he walked down the street.
When Fred returned to the hotel, Saul was already seated in the lobby, reading his New York Times. He looked up. “Veys mir!” he exclaimed. “Fred, what do you have there?”
“The usual,” he answered.
“I just don’t understand where you keep everything,” he said, perplexed. “You have such a small room.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, pushing his bicycle past him. “I sell most of it.”
“Let me know if you see some more chairs like the wooden one you found me. And Henry needs a TV. His junkie son stole it.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open. Saul, there was a couch and loveseat on 73rd Street,” Fred told him, “but it’s probably gone by now.”
Saul shrugged. “There’s always stuff on the streets. Hana, you know the writer in Suite 55. She found a nice mahogany night table.”
Fred hesitated for a moment. “Hey Saul, I heard something.”
“Yeah?”
“Anyone going to buy this hotel?”
“Fred, you have a big mouth. No one’s buying the hotel as long as I’m here.”
“It’s just a rumor I heard.”
It was almost nine when Fred unlocked his door, wheeling the bicycle to the far corner, where he hung the back wheel from a large hook. He washed his hands in the sink, dried them on his pants. Then he opened his mini fridge and took out a container of milk. He poured himself a glass.
Fred sat down in his green La-Z Boy, salvaged from the 77th Street trash, serving himself Seven Layer cake on a paper plate, a glass of milk next to it. He turned on the TV, also a gift from the street, as well as the VCR. He pressed PLAY.
There was a several moment gap, then the movie began. Time for milk and cookies, kids. Fred took a forkful of the cake, licking the chocolate cream with his tongue. Then a sip of cold milk. He leaned back in his La-Z Boy, sighed, as a young woman in a gold thong screamed in the throes of orgasm.
____________
Sonia Pilcer is the author of six novels including The Holocaust Kid. The Last Hotel will be published in December by Heliotrope Books, available at Amazon.com. Visit Sonia Pilcer’s web site here.
And the author notes: “Serialization, shmerialization. If you want to read THE LAST HOTEL in its entirety, go to Amazon.com. Meanwhile, we’ll be bringing you weekly serialization.
