On the subway, I fell asleep and overshot my apartment by thirty blocks. Had to walk back through Spanish Harlem to get home. Lots of burned-out buildings, cars in the streets up on cinder blocks, hoods popped, tires and wheels long gone. Saw some black people and mostly Puerto Ricans but I didn’t get mugged or killed! It was like I had some kind of drunken aura that protected me.

In the apartment I could see light under the door to the room that Dagmara and Haim share. I could hear them talking in their thick accents. (They talk in English because they don’t understand each other’s language.) I could have listened by the door, but didn’t.

I lay on top of my bed, the world swirling like a carousel. Later I heard Haim in the kitchen, rummaging around. Then I heard him in the living room, devouring a bag of plums, watching TV with the sound down. I’m in this half-drunken, half-caffeinated state, sort of excited and very tired. I just lay there listening to him. Fell asleep, woke, fell asleep. Thought about the future. The new job. My work. All the obstacles.

Haim finally lumbered off to bed and I got myself up, drank a ton of water and wrote all this down. Tomorrow’s the first day at work. I’m going to be completely burnt-out.

September 14, 1976

I got up pretty early. Ran into Dagmara in the bathroom, working on her cosmetic alchemy. When she saw me, she didn’t smile. Like I raped her or something. Damn. I guess there will be no more Sunday afternoon blow jobs.

I wolfed down some granola, then sprinted to the subway. I had to leave about eight-thirty, because my new boss wanted me there at nine. There were a million people crushed together waiting for the train. It was hot. The graffitti-covered subway car raced into the station just missing the people on the packed platform. The train was crammed even before we tried to wedge ourselves in. As we squeezed into the cars, ancient crud-encrusted loudspeakers over our heads blared incoherent announcements.

In the jammed car I was immersed in the syrupy stink of coffee breath and deodorant and farts. Men read creased newspapers (a special fold that takes up the smallest space possible because there’s no room to spread out). The women were slathered with makeup like they were headed for the disco. Most of the people stared ahead in the screeching din, some nodded in fake sleep. Twice I caught a girl checking me out. Not sure what I was supposed to do with that. Talk to her? Ask her out? Being so close to so many strangers creates anxiety, I think.

So I got to Jonathan’s loft at nine a.m. Turned out this is the same neighborhood I was in last night! SoHo. Looks different during the day. It’s an abandoned neighborhood, just cobblestoned streets, a few cars, one diner and a bunch of art galleries. There were plans a few years ago to knock the whole thing down to make room for a highway. But the city doesn’t have the money and now artists live down here.