I’ve started working for a Kentucky man named Jeffrey Lee who is painting a master bedroom at 77th and 5th. I saw splendors today—things I had no idea existed. This apartment is vast, ten rooms, maybe more. Huge rooms with fireplaces and windows looking onto Central Park. The owners are a couple in their mid-forties who have no children. They’ve built a special bathroom for their dogs with a floor that flushes. The two came in this afternoon with their decorator, who lives not far away, in Claus von Bülow’s old apartment. We went over at the end of the day, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. In the living room, or whatever you call the room next to the living room, she had a door-size Sargent painting. Just hanging there.
Jeffrey Lee wears a big beret and smokes Lucky Strikes and has anxiety attacks. His brother died of AIDS and now he has it too. I asked how he controls his fear of dying and he said, “Drugs”—prescribed drugs, and Jack Daniel’s.
March 26, 1991
New York
I waited for Alba for forty minutes this morning, standing outside her door at the Chelsea. She arrived wearing a tailored suit and worrying that it made her look frumpy. In the end, she changed, then did different things with her hair. Alba can’t wait in line at a restaurant or the post office—she doesn’t have that kind of time. I worked for a few hours, and then she borrowed $50 from the guy at the front desk and we went to an Italian place called Intermezzo that had a $4 lunch special. I paid for my own meal—fine, but I also didn’t charge her for the time I spent waiting, and this when I’m getting $3 an hour less than the last person who did my job.
I wouldn’t mind but I’m broke right now and could have made a lot more money working for Jeffrey Lee today. I have to do something about my finances. I don’t want Hugh to think I’m shiftless and I don’t want to scare him away by relying on him. I’ve always counted on things to work out, and they usually do, but the stakes are higher here.
I’m surrounded by people who have more money than they know what to do with, and none of them have earned it.
March 27, 1991
New York
I received an offer for the Citibank Citicard, which promises me instant cash privileges if I need to spend time in a hospital. If I lose both hands and feet, I am entitled to $20,000 under their “cash benefits for accidental dismemberment” clause. If I lose one hand or one foot, I get half that, but if I lose one hand and one foot, I’m back up to $20,000.
April 3, 1991
New York
Jeffrey Lee says ish a lot.
“How do the curtains look?”
“Ish.”
He can pay me $200 on Friday so I can pay Rusty the rest of the rent money I owe him. So far with Jeffrey Lee I’ve earned maybe $650. I’ve earned another $100 with Alba and I have $80 in the bank. So I’ll be rich. Ish.
April 9, 1991
New York
I read last night at the Knot Room. The opening act was a singing duo, the guy on ukulele and the woman on violin. Their first song was called “Everyone Here Is White Tonight.” When they finished, eight people left. That happens all the time. People leave after their friends are done. After the exodus, there were maybe twenty audience members left, but it’s a tiny room so it didn’t feel empty. Alba came, which was sweet of her.
April 13, 1991
New York
I worked today for David Donner, a marketing analyst who paints apartments on the side. He’s been hired to do a one-bedroom on 29th and Lexington and I’m helping for $11 an hour. We met on the sidewalk outside the building this morning because the doormen were giving him such a hard time. They’re the worst, these guys. They take loads of shit from the tenants and then heap it on whoever’s less powerful.
The service-elevator operators were just as bad. They say we’re not allowed to work on the weekends and that if they knock on the door and find us painting, they’ll cut off the electricity.
He’s tireless, David. Five minutes for lunch. His regular assistant is on vacation. I asked what he was like and David used the term workhorse three times. At first he was very terse, but he loosened up as the day went on and told me that his dad is a veterinarian. You’d think that would spell pets, but his mother didn’t want animals walking through the rooms of their house unescorted, so they had none.
We worked eight hours, and he paid me in cash at the end of the day.
April 18, 1991
New York
Alba spent the better part of the day crying. I asked what was wrong and she said, “Everything.” I felt bad for her.
April 21, 1991
New York
I worked with David Donner again today, which is Sunday. The doormen were on strike, so they brooded outside the building as opposed to inside the building. In their place are private security guards who issued David and me passes we need in order to exit and reenter.
I went out at one to buy lunch and was in the lobby when one of the striking doormen stepped in and called me buster, as in “You’re going to have to clean up those footprints, buster.” He pointed to something I could barely see.
So I said, “All right, can you give me something to clean them with?”
He told me to go upstairs and get something. “Would you make a mess like that in your own home?” he asked. And again, I could barely see what he was talking about. And wasn’t he supposed to be outside on strike?
“I’m a very clean person,” I told him.
He said, “I’ll have you thrown out and make sure you never come back. I’ll take that goddamn card of yours and tear it to pieces, you hear me, buster?”
People in the lobby turned to see what the fuss was.
“Goddamn you, you’re out of here,” the doorman said.
I went upstairs and returned with a damp rag. Then I got on my hands and knees and cleaned my faint footprints off the carpet. Boy, my blood was boiling. It was pouring when I went out for lunch. On my way back in, the security guard asked to see my pass, which was complete bullshit as five minutes earlier he’d seen me crawl in front of him on my hands and knees. So I had lunch in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and as I searched in my pocket for my pass, I get yelled at for dripping water onto the carpet. I don’t know where to begin with these assholes, I really don’t.
April 25, 1991
New York