Pre-Nano Writing (From LiveJournal Archives)

I’ve looked for a while in stores, but it’s all so fake these days. Spray on snow, chili pepper ornaments, and cotton stuffed snowman line the shelves, but you, my dear, I found in the park the Saturday before last. I don’t like shopping much. This explains the dust rug less floor and the folding chair collection I deem living room furniture. Even the luxurious bedroom suite I rely on each and every night consists of a bundle of pillows duct taped together and a make shift head board proudly designed by Domino’s and Pizza Hut. Needing a little style, I went with the four-poster bed but I was a fourth post short until recently. You never know what you’ll find just roaming the streets. A discarded bottle of mad dog found on Taylor and Harvard becomes a brand new flower vase. A ball of paint stained newspaper on Smith and Lee finally gave me the flowers I’ve needed for my classy vase. That’s pronounced "vahs" for some elegance. Every room needs light so I found a lamp just lying on the sidewalk next to a moving van. Seeing as I’m not made of money or time, I couldn’t just buy more or continue lurking outside of the college dorms at year-end waiting for more hapless movers. I need to be creative and, as luck would have it, someone just broke a mirror in the bar on East 146th street and my local dumpster merchants had a nuveux riche style stain glass mirror to reflect light around my spacious studio apartment mansion. I’m most fond of my new post or, more so, how I came to possess this mystical bed saver and date magnet.

Strange things happen on the East side after 4am. Strange for the day to day 5 to 9ers, but commonplace for the groin rockers and the cane wielding power brokers of Superior and Lehigh. They’ve got style, they’ve got poise and they’ve got just the lady for you for only $50 an hour. More gold can be found in smiles in this neighborhood than in the jewelry district, and yet these men in power here do it all with little piggies freezing out in the cold night air. It was a standard knife fight over Canadian coins to pay for American love as I phrased it for the police later that same night or earlier that morning as it may be. I’ve never been one to tout celebrity, but the fact that I was quoted in the newspaper gave me certain air of pride that I never thought I would be ought to own. Despite references to a “dirt clad vagrant’ as the comment wielding participant in the conversation, I still find pride in the brush with glory know as Tammy Stanton of Channel 5’s action news. I think she may have been somewhat smitten with me had it not been for the sake of knowing I was much less dangerous than the glut of ex-cons living in the vicinity. Maybe it was my charismatic smile or the fact that may ragged clothing gave no place for my to hide a weapon, but, 10 minutes later, she was huddled in my apartment with me. Every good story leaves out tidbits to explain a person’s motivation. Why do I live in this area of town? What exactly is this new post for my bed? Why would an attractive news reporter find herself in the apartment of person she would, hours later, describe as a ‘dirt clad vagrant?’

At the risk of losing credit for charm, a clan war emerged mere seconds after my reenactment of the crime. A local ‘businessman’ known as Pimpy Joe came barreling down on the camera crew with a switchblade and a stereotypical pimp cane. While he was busy attempting to stab Craig the college dropout trying to make his way up in the news business as a camera jockey, I managed to slap the cane from this entrepreneur’s grip and smoothly wield it into the side of his head. Luckily for Craig, I broke Pimpy Joe’s nose in a solid enough manner to drop him to the ground in one blow as Craig turned into a track star and, soon after, into a NASCAR driver as he sped away Tammy-less with the news van. Suddenly having a new best friend, we scampered off around the corner and up the magnificent retro-slummy suites of the Superior Edgemore. So a typical Saturday night watching the local theater in my district known as prostitution central on the corner of stabby avenue turned into a magical first date combined with a quite prosperous shopping trip.

I can’t say I was surprised at Tammy’s reaction to my lifestyle. She made the jobless assumption that I would not live like this by choice. As much as I do enjoy the incognito life of a wreck I currently had on display, I had also noticed a certain bit of loneliness seeping into my artsy efforts. So it was Tammy that first learned the secret I’ve been living. A secret $25,000 in value and rising as the weeks go on was laid bare in the scum build up I live in these days. I suppose you would like to know what I told her. I assume you might be inquisitive upon learning my net value was last measured around $45 billion dollars. Quite possibly you may even be wondering why I might be inclined to live in such a dangerous place regardless of what I must be hiding from out in the downtown stock trading and business buying world of New York City. All I can say is people do what they need to do. A change from home owner life to shanty town USA has it’s drawbacks. The old theatre I used to watch had to be replaced by something less conspicuous and any additional monetary involvement in this community is bound to make me a target for the local ‘tax collectors.’ Nobody goes from Park Avenue to parking here means you don’t expect to dive out of here again without a large reason and damned if a murder and $35 million isn’t just enough for an organization with such a simple name. This is how IBM changed my life…