Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Some Ether
Blind Huber
A Note Slipped Under the Door
(coauthored with Shirley McPhillips)
a memoir
w. w. norton & company
new york london
disclaimer
Although this is a work of nonfiction, the names of those mentioned have often been altered, especially the names of those who found themselves homeless for any length of time, or still find themselves “there.” The names of those who may have transgressed the law have also been altered, except for the name of my father, who has done his time and is proud of it.
Copyright © 2004 by Nick Flynn
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flynn, Nick, 1960–
Another bullshit night in Suck City: a memoir / Nick Flynn.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32940-7
1. Flynn, Nick, 1960–2. Flynn, Nick, 1960–—Family. 3. Poets, American—20th century—Biography. 4. Poets, American—20th century—Family relationships. 5. Homeless persons—Massachusetts—Boston. 6. Fathers and sons—Massachusetts—Boston. 7. Boston (Mass.)—Biography. I. Title.
PS3556.L894Z464 2004
811’.6—dc22 2004011796
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
H
AMM
: Scoundrel! Why did you engender me?
N
AGG
: I didn’t know.
H
AMM
: What? What didn’t you know?
N
AGG
: That it’d be you.
—Beckett,
Endgame
(1989)
Please
, she whispers,
how may I help you?
The screen lights up with her voice. A room you enter, numbers you finger, heated, sterile almost. The phone beside her never rings, like a toy, like a prop. My father lifts the receiver in the night, speaks into it, asks,
Where’s the money?
asks,
Why can’t I sleep?
asks,
Who left me outside?
The phone rings on a desk when he lifts it, the desk somewhere in Texas, someone is always supposed to be at that desk but no one ever is, not at night. A machine speaks while my father tries to speak, it doesn’t listen, it only speaks, my father’s face reflected dimly on the screen.
Any card with a magnetic strip will let you in, all the street guys know this, or learn quick. It’s never night inside this room, the lights hum a deafening white. My father stands at the desk, filling out deposit slips—
Five hundred to savings, twenty-five thousand to checking, all cash
—then puts the slips in an envelope and tosses it into the trash. Drive past and it’s like a window display, a diorama—
Late Twentieth Century Man Pretending to Be Banking
—brought to you by the Museum of the Homeless. The people who enter, those with money to withdraw, most of them don’t even glance at my father, don’t give him a second look. Dressed well, clean, his graying hair long and swept back from his forehead—just like them, doing a little banking after midnight, on his way to an after-hours club, a late dinner, a lady waiting in the car,
that
car, by the curb, the engine running, the heat blowing on her legs while she listens to the radio—
A little honey in my pot
, or,
Baby it’s cold outside
. Skid is curled beneath the desk—semiconscious or out cold, hard to tell, his boombox cranked up full, he holds it tight to his chest like a screaming child. My father hums. The lights hum. The couple at the automatic teller kiss, the machine clicks out a small pile of bills, my father bends to his deposit slip,
Six hundred and seventy thousand, cash
, he puts it in an envelope, licks the envelope shut. The couple stand by the door, still kissing, like they have no place better to be, like this is the most romantic spot in the city.
Others find their way to the ATM after midnight, after the last Dunkin’ Donuts closes. They rattle the magnetic door to get my father’s attention, but unless he knows them he’ll feign sleep or pretend he’s absorbed with his banking. After midnight it’s hard to find an open lobby, a dry place to enter, and for some it’s hard to scrounge even so much as a magnetic card. My father knows Beady-Eyed Bill, another harmless weirdo, unlatches the door. The Beady-Eyed One talks out of the side of his mouth, glancing over my father’s shoulder to scope what’s coming. He fears he’s being watched, and inside this room who can say he’s not? Someone behind that wall is making a goddamn movie of his life.
Alice, hunched by the trash, swears people come in at night and carve their initials into her flesh. She holds an upturned palm to Bill accusingly, asks,
Who’s “J.L.”?
The scratches on her hand do look like the letters “J” and “L,” this is true. Bill glances at my father conspiratorially. Alice glares at Bill.
And which Bill are you tonight? The one in the gray slacks, or the one that snuck in last night and branded my hand?
My father, finished depositing his cash, curls up on the ceramic floor, turns his face to the baseboard, tucked below the window so the fake police won’t see him. Phony sheriff stars painted on their little jeeps, if he can stay below their line of sight it might buy ten minutes of sleep.
In Boston the bars close at one. The next wave of revelers, more gregarious than the earlier crowd, bleary and headed home, push their way inside. Sometimes they give you a hassle, sometimes they flip you a few bucks. A little lit, sometimes they try to start up a conversation, sit on the floor next to you, offer you a drink, want to know your name.
You seem like a regular guy, how’d you end up here?
Where? my father asks.