Hitchhiking – Manhattan, by Eddy Cook

Hitchhiking

DAY ONE

I wasn’t new to cities, I had learned how to survive in a couple of them, but Manhattan in 1982 would take everything I had learned from a year and a half of traveling and living on the street, chew it up, mix it with some depravation, cum and blood, spit it back at me then lick it’s lips and sneer. New York City was a dragon.
I was nineteen years old, grooming Standard Bred Harness Racing horses along the east coast, in Florida at first, then up to North Carolina and finally to the Meadowlands in New Jersey. I quit the day I arrived because, from the Parking lot looking across the river, I saw the New York City skyline that stretched as far as I could see from north to south. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even unpack my Korean War ruck sack that I had been traveling with for about a year and a half. I just left.
I found my way to the Lincoln Expressway and started hitchhiking to The City. A passing Yellow Cab pulled over and when I ran up to the passenger side door he shook his head and pointed to the back. I had never been in a cab, but I knew it cost money. I had about seventy dollars on me and I knew it wouldn’t go far.
“Man, you can’t hitch on this road. These Jersey cops don’t play nice. Got any money?”
“About thirty dollars.”
“Oh, man. Do you know anyone in the City?”
“I don’t know anyone here. I just want to see Manhattan. Central Square I think.”
He just looked at me then. He seemed stunned.
“Nah. A kid like you, with practically no money, you gotta go to the Port Authority and find a locker for your shit, then you won’t look like some Midwest new fish.”
“I’m from Minnesota.”
“Jesus. Keep your money, kid, you’re gonna need it. I’m headed to the garage anyway. Out of service. I’ll take you to the Port Authority. Once you stow your gear and go out to the street, don’t look up. All the tourists and new-fish runaways walk around looking up at the big buildings.”
“I’m no runaway, I’m 19.”
“Yeah whatever, kid.”

I put my pack in a locker at the Port Authority, stepped into a Deli that was accessible from inside the station that had a bank of plate-glass windows facing 8th avenue. I got my first bagel and “just a regular coffee.” Turns out some animals have been fucking coffee up for so long that they consider a coffee with cream and sugar not only something that you could put in your mouth but “regular”. They don’t unfuck your order, so I just watched it go cold and untouched, which is the only proper response, and ate my bagel.
I spent the rest of the day finding landmarks that I’d seen from movies – Penn Station, Grand Central, Times Square, Park Ave., Fifth Avenue, and 42nd Street – where in every other doorway was hooker, dealer, cop. The cops didn’t see larceny and sex, they only saw violence- muggers and purse snatchers.
I made my way back to the Port Authority, which is a transportation hub for buses and subways and started thinking about which seat near the departure doors looked the most comfortable spot to nap later. I still hadn’t made it to Central Park and Rockefeller Center yet and was thinking about that, just relaxing from walking around. I had been there for about 10 minutes, sipping a coffee and leaning against a pole, when a young preppie kid stopped and answered a ringing phone from a long bank of payphones about 20 feet from me. He talked, listened and then turned and looked directly at me and motioned for me to come to him. I shook my head and he said,
“It’s for you.”
“Nope can’t be, nobody in this city knows me.”
“It’s a woman, she says she wants to talk to the good-looking boy behind me, that’s you, man.”
I stepped up, took the phone form him, told him thanks as he walked away and then said hello to a stranger.
“Hi there cutie, do you want to party?” She sounded older, sexy, and had a heavy New York accent. I looked around at all the other pay phones, trying to figure how she could see me.
“Yeah, I always wanna party.”
“Oh yay, well listen darling, I saw you there but I had to rush away, but my brother is still there. Do you see him waving by that door on your right?”
I saw him and told her so. He was tall and wore a tight white t-shirt over a lean muscled rock- hard torso. He looked like he threw engine blocks across the yard for fun. He had mean lifeless dark eyes, an olive complexion, and jet- black hair greased up into a James Dean look complete with a pack of smokes rolled up in his shirt sleeve. He saw me nod at him with my chin, stopped waving and stuck his thumbs in his belt loops, waiting.
“I’ll see you soon darling, go by Jimmy’s place and pick up some booze and then he’ll bring you here.” Her voice was dripping with promise.
I followed Jimmy out and he pointed to a crappy cream-colored rust-bucket Volvo and I got in. He reached back over the seat, grabbed a cold beer from a cooler and handed it to me, but stayed stone cold quiet during a quick 15 block drive. He was big in that seat. I started to feel a cold dark thing gnawing at my subconscious, but I followed him up the stairs to the top of the three-story brownstone.
A black and white Quasar was on in the large studio apartment, but the sound was turned down and hard punk rock played low from a stereo under the television. Jimmy motioned for me to sit down, handed me another beer and a blue pill.
“Eat that. My Sis wants you to be on the same level as she is when you get to her.”
I ate it, drank beer and watched as Jimmy started cleaning trash up around the room. Ten minutes later M.A.S.H. was on the T.V. and the Psychedelic Furs were screaming out of the stereo and I couldn’t move. I was completely awake, but I didn’t have any motor control. I couldn’t reach up to scratch my itchy nose. I started slipping off the couch and I couldn’t stop myself. I passed out for a moment and woke up to Jimmy pulling me up to my knees, forcing my mouth open with his fingers, and sticking his cock in my mouth.
“ If you bite down, I will snap your fuckin’ neck.”
He used my mouth until I passed out again. I woke up in agony. Jimmy had me on all fours and was assaulting me with no mercy It was agony, I could feel tissue ripping but my arms and legs were useless. He was holding me under my chest because my arms wouldn’t support me. I passed out again and woke up in the passenger seat of his car. He had carried me down three flights of stairs.
We pulled up to an apartment building on Christopher Street and I was just getting control of my limbs again, but I was shaky as a lamb. He came around, pulled me out of the car and walked me over to a stoop and sat me down and that caused me so much pain that I almost passed out again. Jimmy just walked away then and drove off. The demon was gone.

Day Two…