While we sat talking, she smoked cigarette after cigarette. And she kept gazing deep into my eyes and then looking down at her lap and taking these long pauses. A terrific gravitational pull was happening between us but it would probably be a bad idea to have sex with her. Especially if she and Haim had something going. I asked her if she wanted to smoke a joint but she said she didn’t do drugs.

Eventually we ran out of things to talk about, so I went up to the roof of our building (we are on the twenty-third floor of a forty-three story building) and smoked the joint by myself. I realized that coming to the city is part of some kind of destiny fulfillment. That this day would be the first day of an adventure, no matter where that adventure led. One way or the other, many things are going to happen to me, this is obvious. And I want to embrace every single one of them. When I said goodbye to everyone up in Stoneham, it was like saying goodbye to a life. Like saying goodbye to myself. Whether I ever get any attention for my writing isn’t important. The important thing is that I am here. And I will keep a journal in which to collect my thoughts and my writing.

September 12, 1976

Haim split the apartment very early today to sell posters in front of the museum. Sunday is his big day. He’s famous in his own way because everyone who visits New York City visits the Met and everyone who visits the Met sees Haim selling his posters out front. He owns a beat-up old Cadillac and stores the posters in the trunk. He sells them for five dollars apiece. He told me that on some days he makes as much as three hundred dollars.

Dagmara and I went out and got bagels and lox at a deli. Food here tastes fantastic compared to back home. I felt like a real New Yorker, surrounded by other New Yorkers all talking a mile a minute and drinking coffee and eating smoked fish on a Sunday morning. Back home almost everyone I know is Catholic and they all either go to church on a Sunday morning or are nursing hangovers. So it’s nice to be “Jewish” on a Sunday.

The day was sunny, but not too hot, and we ended up strolling through the park. We bought ice cream. Brilliant sunshine and crazy breezes foretold something wild was about to happen.

So guess what, something wild did happen. After the walk we ended up back in the apartment. Outside the windows the sky grew black and the rain started spitting down, then pouring, then drilling. Lightning flashed on the horizon. So we decided to watch some TV together. Then we smoked some cigarettes. Then we started making out. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was on the TV. Dagmara unbuttoned my Levi’s and nature took its course. I was watching the movie and thinking, Welcome to New York. We didn’t fuck because Dagmara was afraid that Haim would catch us.