not much but enough to pay for accommodation. The single thing they seemed to desire above all else was anonymity. Waltham House, and by extension Bowery, provided rooms with no questions asked. Increasing numbers of people flood the area. An unending churn. All on hard times. Cheap accommodation and decreasing levels of available unskilled work mix a bad cocktail. Factories have become mechanized, and industry has changed, modernized…’ The plaster cast on my right arm constricted like a tourniquet. Made it difficult to type. Left hand still contained the stigmata of my boss’s heel. I picked up the notebook and thumbed through the pages until I came to the photo of Christine. Grand piano smile. Eyes the color of waterfalls. Christine. My Christine. I traced my finger around the digits of the telephone number printed on the notebook page. I deposited a nickel in the lobby payphone and dialed. The call connected. I hung up. “You working for wooden nickels?” he asked. It was the old man from last night. He had come down from his cubicle. His yellow skin appeared as translucent as rice paper. Had tried to sleep off a hard drunk. “They used to take wooden nickels when there was no money,” he said. “Used them as Depression script. A body could exchange one for a drink. Printed them with expiration dates. You missed turning them back in before that date you got stuck.” “Expiration date?” “We all got expiration dates, you, me, everything.” “Do you always talk about death?” I asked. “When I expire,” he said, “I pray it’s with my boots on. I have walked this whole country, and when I’m dead I plan to continue.” I went behind the front desk and locked the steel door. “What brought you here?” he asked. “Money,” I said. “Same as us all.” “Yeah, but I don’t plan to stay long.” “Yup,” he said. “Same as us all. When I come here, would’ve been your age,” he said. “Don’t you got some friends you can stay with?” “Outstayed my welcome,” I said. “What’d you do to burn that bridge?” “I burnt more than just one bridge.” “What’d you do?” “Twenty dollars lying in Jay’s apartment. I put it on, and lost, but I was close, so very close.”
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