Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos Page B

Dennis Hopper down there the other day,” he said. “You know, from Easy Rider. Everyone hip stays here. Jane Fonda. Jimmy Page. Bob Dylan. The place is crawling with famous people. Why do you think we’re here?”
    I thought we were hiding. So I sat in the lobby with the ship’s log and peered up at everyone exotic who walked through the front door. Then, quickly, I tried to write a few lines describing them. Nobody looked famous. They all looked tired and strung out. The common difference between the men and the women is the women had fresh lipstick—their one attempt at sanitary glamour. Otherwise their clothes, especially their tights, platform shoes, and ratty hairstyles were as frenzied as they were filthy. They had plenty of style, but did nothing all day but cat around.
    I had done a lot of nothing lately. And I was itching to get paid and move on. I knew a few writers had lived at the
Chelsea. I asked the desk clerk and he had given me a list of names of authors who had either visited or written entire books there: Mark Twain, O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Nelson Algren, and Arthur C. Clarke. It was pretty impressive. I went down to the Strand bookstore and bought books by the Chelsea authors. Naked Lunch by Burroughs and Look Homeward, Angel by Wolfe were a good start. And once again I began to think about what I would do with myself after I got my money. I knew I wanted to write books, but I wasn’t sure how to get started. I did know that I wasn’t going to get anything done by smoking hash and sitting in the lobby of the Chelsea, no matter how cool it was to do so.
    By the second week we had sold most of the hash and the operation was winding down. We had made deliveries all over Manhattan, and I had started to relax. I told myself if there were cops they would have picked us up by now. I was constantly surprised by who bought from us: a burned-out hippie, a well-dressed woman, a dull guy you’d never look twice at, a man in a fake wig and mustache, a preppie college kid. We met them in apartments, parking lots, coffee shops, high-rise lobbies, and on street corners. Each delivery was fifty pounds or more, so a lot of money was changing hands. After each score Rik put the cash in a bank safe deposit box, and finally, after my constant begging, I was paid. Hamilton gave me a shoe
box of ten thousand dollars in ten dollar bills. I loved my stash. I counted it. I rubbed my face in it. It smelled sweet and dirty. I played with it like a kid with a toy. I straightened up all the bills so they were facing the same way. I bought rubber bands and wrapped each hundred and thousand. It was glorious. I grinned from ear to ear. It was while I was seduced by the big pile of cash that Hamilton chose to ask if I wanted to sail the Beaver to England, where we would take a rest before heading out to wherever we could pick up another ton. He was eager to repeat the operation. The hitch was we couldn’t buy from the same supplier because, as Rik revealed, they had paid the Moroccans in counterfeit American cash and didn’t want to risk dealing with them again. “They’re probably pissed,” Hamilton added, smiling at how clever he had been. I bet they’d give him a matching smile with a knife right across his throat if they ever caught him.
    He promised me a better cut of the deal. I had mixed feelings. Sure, I wanted more money, but I didn’t look forward to spending six months on a boat with Hamilton. And no matter how hard I tried I still had a nagging feeling we were being watched. I told him I’d give it some thought, but I knew I was ready to take off. I wanted to get started on my future. I called a few colleges in New York and asked about writing programs. New York University had one, as did Hunter and Columbia. They all wanted to know if I’d come in for an interview. I hesitated.
I wanted to go. But I just