Seeing Mike Day again in New York March 6, 1986

 

I met Mike Day again late in 1970; one of those quirky bits of synchronicity that forever sticks in my mind

 I was late from work having been given a last minute run for the messenger service on the far end of town and came off the wrong Subway at 8th Street instead of Astor Place

Where I heard his voice

I didn't believe it

 the last time I saw him had been on highland boulevard in Hollywood as we were getting ready to hitchhike up; the coast to San Fransisco.

He produced a joint to share with us as a going away present.

Then he reappeared 3,000 miles away in the heart of the Lower East Side.

I practically shouted for joy

 he blinked at me at first and his usual way squinting at people. Perhaps needing glasses. Then slowly he smiled, thin lipped, careful but indeed recognition.

I urged him to come hone with me. But he couldn’t at that moment. He took my address and came later, and for the next few months began a process of coming and goings

He had the same laid back feel to him as many of the potheads I’d met during the many miles on the road, yet at the same time a deep uncomfortable restlessness.

He came and went because to stay made him feel trapped.

During one of his early visits, he brought with him some orange sunshine and sat tripping with us in the old East 6th Street apartment

On another trip he ask me to help him with some special project. He apparently couldn't get the ignition to work on a truck he was trying to steal. So he brought the whole key assembly back to my house where with the help of a nail file, he got the thing to turn

 I drove him back to the lot on the handlebars of my bicycle ,a big time operation

it was after we moved to the new address that we saw him again.

He introduced it us to a new girl, Marie, who we did not take to at first, having become close friends with his ex-wife Chris, who had driven straight through from Detroit to see Louise in the hospital when our daughter was born.

I think this previous knowledge made us prejudice against Marie.

 it was also an attitude that Louise has even today in dealing with people, capable of turning around in an instant from friend to enemy

In either case we took Mike and Marie in. I even got him a job at the houseware place uptown where I had just started

His job lasted only long enough for him to go out in his first delivery. He barged in the front door of a Park Avenue apartment, passed the doorman and guests,  saying he had delivery and when they told him he had to use the service entrance she told him to fuck off.

 He wouldn't be treated like a slave and quit, dragging me off to Central Park to smoke dope

By this time we were all hurting for money and he pulled a one-time deal with heroin, copying a lot of cheap stuff and selling it to the local junkie house in Harlem, going in like an insurance salesman

To pay us back for letting him stay in our place, he went and found us a stereo, an old mono unit from a disco and a guitar amp both which I enjoyed immensely

Music meant the world to me

At one point ,Mike and Marie caught something like lice and had to spread this cream all over both of their bodies

 it was Mike that I that we turn to when we wanted to leave New York and which was deteriorating from under us like something dead

at the same time Louise went back to New Jersey to recover the money her family had forced her to save back when we both worked at the printing company.

possession of it eventually destroyed everything


email to Al Sullivan

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