THE HOTEL PEE-YAY I’m holding six bundles of dope and sitting in the back seat of a livery cab that’s headed back downtown on Lexington Avenue. Sal, my Brooklyn junkie friend, is sitting on the passenger side. And, Karen, a bank loan officer from Westchester and fairly cute junkette, is sandwiched between us. Sal is not part of the plan for an afternoon of drugs at a midtown hotel on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but he’s made himself part of the deal. Of the many problems associated with Sal, like insanity, his knack for sticking with you until you’re ready to leave town is particularly unnerving.

We pull up in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania, a massive place on Seventh Avenue that I pick because it’s big, relatively cheap and right across the street from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. “I ain’t nevuh been tah the Hotel Pee-Yay befawh,” Sal says as we enter the huge and busy lobby. No kidding. The only other hotel that doesn’t rent rooms by the hour that Sal’s ever been in is probably the Times Square Marriott, and that’s because I brought him up to my room the week I met him a couple of years ago. “We’ll be fine here for the afternoon,” I say. “It looks like it kawhsts a lot,” he says. “I’ve got it covered.” “We could go to dat place on 25th where we went last time.” The place on 25th Sal is referring to is a welfare hotel we’ve been to. “Positive,” I say. “What’s the Hotel Pee-Yay gonna kawhst?” he says. “I don’t know. Probably a buck fifty. A buck seventy five.” “Yo, Bobby, dats alotta muthafuckin’ money. We could buy anutha bundle an’ a half fawh dat.” “Keep your voice down,” I say. “Sawhry. But, a buck fifty is anutha ten, fifteen bags ah dope awh a shitload ah rock.” “Lower…your…voice,” I say. “We’re in the middle of a hotel lobby.” “I’m sawhry,” Sal says. “I ain’t loud am I, Karen?” “Yeah, you are,” she says. “Awhls I’m sayin’ is why spend money on a hotel when youz can spend it on dope an’ rock?” Sal says. Jesus F. Christ. Why doesn’t he get a megaphone and announce the spending choices available to us? “Lower your voice!” I growl. “The whole goddamned hotel can hear you.” “Awhright. Awhright. Jeez, Bobby, sumtin’ botherin’ youz?” “Nothing’s bothering me, Sal.” “I’m just tryin’ tah save money so we can get mawh drugs,” Sal says. “Not today,” I say. “I think Karen will like this better. Right, Karen?” Karen looks at me as if to say that she’ll like it as long as I’m paying, and says, “Definitely. But the place on 25th would be okay for a couple of hours. It can’t be any worse than the dump at 125th and Park and it’s cheaper, right?” The dump at 125th and Park is a scum hole across the street from a Metro North train station where rooms are $10 an hour and you have to fend off crack whores to get up the stairs. “Don’t worry,” I say. “This will be my treat. It’s the holidays.” “But, Bobby….” Sal says. “Be quiet, Sal,” I say. “Thanks,” Karen says. “You guys wait here while I get a room,” I say. I’m afraid Sal will recommence his discourse on spending choices at the front desk, and it’s better to have them wait elsewhere than for us to all go to the reception desk and have the desk guy thinking a bizarre mid-afternoon, post-Thanksgiving ménage a trois is in progress. Call me paranoid. I approach the desk and get the room without any problem. I pay cash. Sal and Karen are waiting for me. “Did youz get it, Bobby?” Sal says. I hold up the card that opens the door. The room is on the tenth floor. The elevator up is packed. Sal, Karen and I crowd into a corner. “Dis is gonna be nice Bobby, but youz probably coulda bought a bundle an’ a half for what it cost,” Sal says. Fortunately, nobody in the elevator would know a bundle of dope if it walked up and bit them on the ass. “Sal!” I hiss. “Be quiet.” “Wha’?” he says. “Don’t say anything until we get upstairs,” I say. A middle-aged guy is staring at us, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the picture he’s seeing. I look at the numbers above the door and hope we get to ten quickly. The room is on the Seventh Avenue side of the hotel, overlooking the Garden. “Yo, Bobby, dis is nice,” Sal says, flopping into a chair near the window. Karen takes off her coat and sits on the bed. “I’m glad we have someplace decent to hang out for a while,” she says. “This is nice.” I take my coat off and sit on the bed near her. Sal gets up and turns on the TV. He puts on All My Children and retreats to his chair holding the remote. “Do you have to put that on?” I say. “I love Awhl My Children,” he says. “An’ I nevah get to see it cuz I’m out in the aftahnoon.” “Great,” I grumble. “I like it too,” Karen says. I’m outvoted, but who cares? A couple of minutes from now, after I’ve done a shot of dope, it won’t matter. All My Children Jerry Springer I Love Lucy Same difference. I take out a bundle, my teaspoon and a syringe, and fix myself a shot of dope. Karen snorts a bag. I go into the bathroom and shoot up, happy that I find a vein without turning myself into a pincushion. I’m catching a decent buzz by the time I go back into the room. Sal is looking at me hungrily. No words needed. I hand him a bag and he asks me for a syringe. “You’re not going to shoot it, are you?” I say. “Yeah,” he says. “Why?” “You know how hard a time you have finding a vein.” “I don’t think it’ll be a problem today.” “It’s always a problem.” Watching Sal try to shoot dope is a horror. He has deeply buried veins to begin with and he’s blown out the few veins he can find after shooting up for years. He’ll poke himself a dozen times and still not find a vein to shoot dope into. Cursing, frustration and rage will ensue. Blood will start to drip. “I got it, Bobby, don’t worry,” Sal says. Karen shakes her head as if to say she’s witnessed this spectacle before. Sal sits back down in the chair by the window and tried to shoot up. Ten minutes later, he’s standing in front of me saying, “Fuck. Cocksucka. Shit. Muthafucka.” True to form, he can’t find a vein. “Maybe if I go into the crappah,” he says. “Maybe youz guys is making me nervous.” He goes into the bathroom. He is still cursing. Things are slamming. Karen puts her hand on my knee and says, “You want to get rid of him?” “How?” I say. “I’d be happier if he wasn’t here,” she says. “We can do more dope and chill and have fun.” She is petting my leg. I’m thinking that getting rid of Sal might not be such a bad thing. The cursing and thrashing noises stop. I knock on the bathroom door. Sal says, “Yo.” I go inside. Dear God. There is blood all over the floor. The hotel towels are stained with blood that he’s been wiping up. It looks so bad, I’m afraid he’s going to die from blood loss. “Hey, Bobby,” Sal says. “I got the shot off.” I shake my head and say, “It looks like somebody got murdered in here.” “It ain’t no big thing,” Sal says. “I’ll clean it up. Gimme a minute tah get awhf.” “What the fuck happened?” “I had a hard time.” “Christ.” “I got it. Don’t worry. I’ll clean it.” “We’re going to have to get rid of the towels or the maids will call the cops.” “Fuck ‘em. They ain’t seen blood befawh?” Suddenly, I have an idea. “After you clean up, you want to go back up to 123rd for some rock?” I say. Sal’s eyes light up. “Youz guys wanna go all the way back there?” he says. “If I give you fifty bucks and subway fare, will you go?” I say. I know that giving Sal money and expecting him to come back with crack is an exercise in futility. The only thing he’s likely to come back with are pathetic excuses for not coming back with drugs: He was mugged. He got beat. He ran into somebody he owed money who was going to kill him unless he paid up. An insane pigeon pecked his pocket and flew off with the money. Or, he won’t even come back. Fuck it. Karen has suggested getting rid of the Third Party. Giving Sal money for drugs is a quick, painless way to lose him for a while, if not the rest of the day. “Yeah, sure,” Sal says, taking the bait. “Maybe Karen’ll come wit me.” “No,” I say. “I think she wants to hang here.” “Okay. Whatevah.” I hand Sal sixty dollars. Five minutes later, Sal is on his way out the door, leaving me and Karen to enjoy the Hotel Pa. in peace for the rest of the afternoon.