The door to Waltham House buzzed. The man confirmed his name and cubicle number. I allowed him inside. He approached the front desk. His ragged face, marked like a well-worn cowhide, appeared familiar, like the face of someone I knew, but so aged it made it difficult to recognize. “You like the view?” he asked. “See the Empire State building from the doorstop.” “I don’t look up any more,” I said. “That’s skid rows for you,” he said. “Right next to the rich places. I guess we’re the equivalent of a rich lady shitting her lace panties.” Gray hair hung limply across his forehead and the fringe was tinged yellow from cigarette smoke. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I’m holding out.” “Holding out’s the hardest, son.” “I’ve got patience,” I said. “Luck always changes. It’s like the direction of the wind. Can’t always stay the same.” “Some things do,” he said. “Year after year, I’ve saw seasoned bug men flee from Waltham House with handkerchiefs clamped to their mouths,” he said. “Why you really here?” “A whole mess of near misses,” I said. The old man sipped from a beaker of gin. “That’s what I live for,” he said. “Not the winning – it’s the losing, losing by a miniscule amount, a near miss. And I got to keep going ’cause I was so close, so close to winning, and if I had one more chance I know I’d make it, and I’d keep going, trying to make it and every near miss made me want to win more.” He sipped from his beaker, spilled gin down his beard like dewy spider web. “What’d I win?” He glanced around the lobby. “This,” he said and allowed his eyes to linger on my face, and he studied me like he was recalling me from some distant memory. I smelt it then. He had soiled himself. He limped toward the stairs. Caterwauls and drunken brawls punctuated the second night. From midnight until three I had barred the entry of eight men, two of whom were penniless, looking for a free room. I typed at the front desk, reading from my notebook: ‘Waltham House, a 97-year-old cubicle hotel, is a few blocks from Greenwich Village, SoHo and Chinatown. Urban renewal in Bowery is not just stagnating but festering. Capitalism’s great big loser. Bulletproof windows on Chinese take-outs and corner delis. Fly-by-night stores. New York’s premier skid row, 1991. The men living here had money,
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