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Authors: Grant Stoddard
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relationship between us, Becky had subsequently put much more into it, even scrapping our original plan to move back to England on my behalf. Her family had taken me in unconditionally, and as awful as splitting with Becky would be, prying myself away from my adopted family would be even more difficult.
We spent Christmas back in Madison, and on New Yearâs Eve I told Becky that it was over. She cried and then her parents took us to dinner at Benihana on the way back to the city. Becky was inconsolable at the hibachi table, even though the chef pulled out his best shrimp-tail flicking tricks and making the little volcano with slices of onion.
A week later I moved in with my friend Frank, who lived off the Ditmas Avenue stop, about halfway out to Coney Island. I was there through January and half of a frigid February before Becky called to tell me that she still expected me to pay my third of the rent until the lease ran out in August.
âI canât afford to pay two lots of rent money!â I screamed.
âWell, you agreed to live with me for a year, and itâs sort of not fair on me or my parents,â she said.
Though I had sort of agreed to it, my name was not on the lease. Out of respect for Beckyâs wonderful parents I felt I had no choice but to move back in with Becky, though this was part of her plan to reconcile. She was going to be spending two weeks visiting her sister in California, then I found an outrageously cheap round-trip fare back to England, so that took care of March. The month of April proved to both of us that there was no way either of us could endure the rest of the summer in 250 square feet of hell and so finally, begrudgingly, she let me go.
HASIDS AND HAYSEEDS
IT SEEMED THAT by the late summer of 2000 my allotted quota of American hospitality had been almost entirely cashed. My employer, The Orchard, now owed me almost six thousand dollars in back wages, and seven weeks had passed since Iâd last received a full paycheck. It had become apparent that leaving the company meant kissing that cash good-bye for the foreseeable future. In addition, my nefariously acquired work visa allowed me to work only for The Orchard. There was part-time under-the-table work to be had, but I lacked the gumption, confidence, and wherewithal to effectively hunt it down. Plus, the thought of washing dishes nights and weekends while my employer owed me more than Iâd paid in rent the previous year made my blood boil. My father had wired me money before but hadrecently lost his job. He said that he could only give me more money if it was going toward a one-way ticket home. Friends from home were buying property, two-week vacations in the Greek islands, cars, and luxury goods, and it seemed that I would have to go back and, after a good helping of humble pie, play catch-up in a race I didnât care to run. I was flat broke, but unlike the genuinely poverty-stricken, I was safe in the knowledge that the struggle, the discomfort, the heartache, the occasional hunger could be ended with one collect phone call. Imagining the phone call, the good-byes to my new friends, to the city I loved, the return to my old bedroom, the rain-sodden search for an arbitrary profession kept me from making that phone call prematurely.
As terrible as things seemed to be going, I felt that being poor in New York City was preferable to being rich anywhere else, especially Corringham. I adopted the sentiment as my mantra when my stomach rumbled or I found myself walking miles home from Manhattan in near hundred-degree weather. I was becoming ill, looking drawn and beaten down. I thought Iâd been doing a good job at concealing my run of bad luck but realized it permeated my being as homeless people gradually stopped asking me for change.
I was now single and renting the open kitchen/living room of my friend Lizzyâs dilapidated Brooklyn apartment as a crash pad, answering phones and shrink-wrapping CDs
We spent Christmas back in Madison, and on New Yearâs Eve I told Becky that it was over. She cried and then her parents took us to dinner at Benihana on the way back to the city. Becky was inconsolable at the hibachi table, even though the chef pulled out his best shrimp-tail flicking tricks and making the little volcano with slices of onion.
A week later I moved in with my friend Frank, who lived off the Ditmas Avenue stop, about halfway out to Coney Island. I was there through January and half of a frigid February before Becky called to tell me that she still expected me to pay my third of the rent until the lease ran out in August.
âI canât afford to pay two lots of rent money!â I screamed.
âWell, you agreed to live with me for a year, and itâs sort of not fair on me or my parents,â she said.
Though I had sort of agreed to it, my name was not on the lease. Out of respect for Beckyâs wonderful parents I felt I had no choice but to move back in with Becky, though this was part of her plan to reconcile. She was going to be spending two weeks visiting her sister in California, then I found an outrageously cheap round-trip fare back to England, so that took care of March. The month of April proved to both of us that there was no way either of us could endure the rest of the summer in 250 square feet of hell and so finally, begrudgingly, she let me go.
HASIDS AND HAYSEEDS
IT SEEMED THAT by the late summer of 2000 my allotted quota of American hospitality had been almost entirely cashed. My employer, The Orchard, now owed me almost six thousand dollars in back wages, and seven weeks had passed since Iâd last received a full paycheck. It had become apparent that leaving the company meant kissing that cash good-bye for the foreseeable future. In addition, my nefariously acquired work visa allowed me to work only for The Orchard. There was part-time under-the-table work to be had, but I lacked the gumption, confidence, and wherewithal to effectively hunt it down. Plus, the thought of washing dishes nights and weekends while my employer owed me more than Iâd paid in rent the previous year made my blood boil. My father had wired me money before but hadrecently lost his job. He said that he could only give me more money if it was going toward a one-way ticket home. Friends from home were buying property, two-week vacations in the Greek islands, cars, and luxury goods, and it seemed that I would have to go back and, after a good helping of humble pie, play catch-up in a race I didnât care to run. I was flat broke, but unlike the genuinely poverty-stricken, I was safe in the knowledge that the struggle, the discomfort, the heartache, the occasional hunger could be ended with one collect phone call. Imagining the phone call, the good-byes to my new friends, to the city I loved, the return to my old bedroom, the rain-sodden search for an arbitrary profession kept me from making that phone call prematurely.
As terrible as things seemed to be going, I felt that being poor in New York City was preferable to being rich anywhere else, especially Corringham. I adopted the sentiment as my mantra when my stomach rumbled or I found myself walking miles home from Manhattan in near hundred-degree weather. I was becoming ill, looking drawn and beaten down. I thought Iâd been doing a good job at concealing my run of bad luck but realized it permeated my being as homeless people gradually stopped asking me for change.
I was now single and renting the open kitchen/living room of my friend Lizzyâs dilapidated Brooklyn apartment as a crash pad, answering phones and shrink-wrapping CDs
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