I'd have said that I stopped by "the old office," except for the fact that my old company recently moved to new offices, which happen to be right across the street from where I work now, which happens to be where I will work until tomorrow at about 2 in the afternoon, at which time I'll turn in my ID and carry on with the nonsense at hand.

I can't believe this is happening. All of a sudden, tonight, at the corner of 8^th Avenue and 57^th Street, after dinner at Kennedy's, at the point where I had to cross the street to get a bus, and he had to take the stairs down to the subway, I finally said good-bye to my friend Dwayne, "I'll probably not see you again before I leave," and I offered one of those tepid, gallant hugs which all my male friends find unnerving, and from then until now and from now until I'm on the train to Georgia, I'll be thinking "When will I see my friends again? This is the last time I'll use this ATM. The last time I buy wine here. The last time I stomp a roach in my kitchen. The last I ride a subway, a bus, a cab, a limo to Penn Station."

Dinner at Kennedy's was strangely poignant. At one time, 5 years ago, I promised never to enter that place again. Why? Because Dwayne and I entered the place, and were kicked out, simply because he was wearing a sleeveless tank-top shirt.

I've always thought that Kennedy's, on West 57^th Street, was garbage for that.

But you learn to get over these things. Who cares about anybody, anyway?

 
 I quit going to the Super-Del Market right outside this apartment about a year ago. I'll tell you my petty reason. The guy at that deli one day quit giving me a regular-customer-discount on Guinness.

(I always refer to him as "the guy" at the deli. Can't really call him a "cashier," since he does so much more than mere cashiering: Sandwich making, coffee, cigarette advice, dull conversation, cheeseburgers, folding and sorting newspaper sections... )

Anyway, I went in there once and put some ungodly number of cans of Guinness on the counter, and he quietly said "Tomorrow, I have to start charging you more for these. It will be $2. I can't give you a break any more. The prices went up."

Well, $2 is what everyone around here charges for a tall can of Guinness. (Maggy says "Blech." She can't stand Guinness. I say it is the stuff of life.)

All along, I'd thought we had a deal, a relationship, some kind of bond whereby I got cheap beer as long as the Super-Del Market was my sole supplier.

God, I hated him. And I hated him more any time I drank beer, got drunk and went stumbling around outside in that state of mind in which I only remember things I thought about the last time I was really drunk.

I never went in to the Super Del Market again. I thought that he'd notice me passing by, flaunting the food and beverage I'd purchased at other delis; and I thought he'd savor my $3 per purchase and recant and come outside one night and offer me free beer, free food, free whores, anything if I'd just come back and buy out their stock of Guinness (He'd once laughingly said I was the only guy at York and 79^th who drank the shit).

Man, this is a boring story. But anyway, I went in there again 2 nights ago. He's still the guy there, folding and sorting newspapers, making coffee, making cheeseburgers, helping choose cigarettes based on available inventory (and the need for cancer and toilet-breath), directing other sandwich-makers in their craft. Man, this guy needs a resumé.

Anyway, when I went in the other night he did not remember me at all. But he did look at me, in the way he used to look at me, attempting to register whether or not I was a regular customer, whether or not he recognized me at all, whether I lived in the nieghborhood, and what to charge me and why based on how much of a contribution I'd made to the store over the last year or so. We were about 2 feet away from each other.

That goddam bastard charged me a whopping $2.50 per can of Guinness. That piece of shit. I should go back there right now and tell him that these prices are outrageous, and that I'm going to move to a cheaper city because I can't take his fucking bullshit expensive-ass beer any more!

 
Ugly-ass shoes...

 
 Then (because his boss lives upstairs from me), he'll hear that I moved, that Moishe's came and shoved everything into storage, that "That guy from 2-G who bought out all our Guinness" had a gigantic TV, a nice desk, a handsome piano, a mattress with some serious "stains to explain," but most importantly that "That guy from 2-G who bought out all our Guinness" was serious about not wanting to live in a neighborhood with expensive beer.

So the guy will hold watch outside my vacant apartment, a candle-lit vigil littered by squashed beercans and boxes of receipts, wishing he'd charged me less for Guinness, wishing he had not driven me out of the neighborhood, out of the city, out of the state, Christ it feels like I'm leaving the fucking planet.

 
 Good grief, I have to relax. The above paragraphs constitute a manic episode. Thank you for not interrupting.

 
 When I lived uptown, at 216th Street, there was a deli that I went to just about every day. Bought lots of Vienna Sausages, Pringles, toilet paper, and one other product that I'm trying to remember... Uhhh... Peanut Butter? Maybe that was it.

The guy recognized me, and we frequently acknowledged mutual recognition without ever dipping into actual friendship, or even conversation. Silly chatter every once in a while about what we heard over his radio at the moment I happen to have approached the counter with my grubby hands clutching some hard-earned cash used to pay for some potato chips.

He once made some adolescent comment about the president not needing or caring about anything, since "He's got money. What the hell does he care? He's got money. Pshaw."

At the end of my lease, minutes after all the furniture had been shipped downtown to this apartment and everything had been done, I went into that deli with no money. $0.00. Nothing in my pocket but the keys to this new apartment. I grabbed a can of Pringles, threw it on the counter and he rang it up and I fakely checked every last one of my pockets and said "Shit, I don't have it. Can I pay you next time?"

And he flimsily flailed his right hand and said "Yeah, fuck it, don't worry about it. Next time. I'll remember. A dollar thirty-nine for the chips."

This big, fat tough-looking asshole security guard who always stood around looking bad-ass acknowledged the transaction, nodded his fat head and breathed a little bit, re-nestled his left hand onto the bulging muscle of his right arm.

 
 Oh, I will pay for those chips the next time.

 
 The guy made a fake pointing-at-you gesture as he pitched the tube of Pringles into a brown grocery bag and handed it to me.

It felt like that can of potato chips was one of my legs racing through a congested pasture of weeds and corn.

 
 I never went back there again. For 2 years of living in the ghetto, I scored a can of potato chips.

 
 Ha-ha-ha-ha. Wow, I just laughed at myself again.

Quite a common occurance, by the way.

 
 So, uh, OK, I stopped by this afternoon to see the people I used to work with. They all looked like they were doing OK. Some of them had Niiice cubicles.

I forget why I brought up the subject of them, anyway... It's been such a long time between now and when I started writing this ENTRY... Except that I never knew what the hell I was doing at that company.

Repeatedly, I stated my ambitions there, to be an Executive at that company, to rise high, swing low, ring true. What the fuck was I talking about?

You know what, though, while typing all this CRAP I keep lurching out of this word processor into e-mail and onto the phone and web-clicking and NET-scrabbling and walking around and sitting back down and looking up and looking around, then getting back up and taking a piss and going outside and laughing again at the idea of ripping off the guy at the deli up by 216th street of a can of POTATO CHIPS.

• April 27, 1997 - Leaving New York
• April 20, 1997 - Panty Waste