Hobo Lifestyles #6

Haunted in the Bowery

by Tyler Carey

I was on the most spectacular bar crawl the other night, when I saw what might just be the death knell of Hobo culture.

"Death knell of Hobo culture after only three months of circulation of The Great Hoboes of New York? Say it ain't so!"

Don't sweat it, folks. I'm only speaking figuratively. But between a great time at six bowery establishments that night, to see a TV in McSorley's was truly staggering.

I'll repeat that.

In McSorley's - The Great Bar, the House of Anachronistic Culture, The Place Where My Family's Been Getting Their Bag On For A Century - sitting right above the bathroom doors was a TELEVISION SET. Maybe it's been there for a while and I just walked/staggered past it every time, and a part of my brain just said, "Ohhh! Ha Ha! A TV set in McSorley's! That's a good one! Okay, who put LSD in my martini back at that NYU bar?" Maybe I just didn't notice because I'm really a Brewski's boy at heart.

Well, sonofabitch, there was no way I could have missed it that night. You see, after I have eight mugs of their dark ale, my grandfather's ghost appears. Never after the light ale - he never cared much for the light ale. Anyways, yeah, as soon as I reach the bottom of my eight half-pint of dark - BAMMO! - he appears like Beetlejuice.

"Who's the vile violator of my domain who's destroyed centuries of Irish culture with a glass teat, a boob tube, an idiot box!" roared Grandpa's ghost. It was apparently the first time he'd noticed the TV, too. As to his velvet tones and high vocabulary, you see, Grandpa was a Greek and Latin scholar during the Depression. That kind of pedigree didn't help you get a job much better than the average bear, so he ended up being the smoothest talking fella in Lower Manhattan. In the end, he did better than most during the Depression, but I always wondered if there were times when he was standing on a bread line reciting Catullus.

"I don't know who did it, Grandpa," I muttered. "I don't know how long it's been there. I only know that the Yankees are losing."

"Nooo!" he bellowed. This must have been rough on the old guy - two big depressing blows at once - the TV and the Yankees losing.

"You alright?" asked one of my traveling companions. I realized that they couldn't see Grandpa.

"Yeah," I said, "I think we might want to get going, though."

"Oh, God!" moaned Grandpa. "They've got cable, too..."

Grandpa followed us from bar to bar in the Bowery, mostly sitting off to the side, cursing as the Yankees lost their lead over the Angels. "Anaheim has a baseball team?" he asked, at one point. "Since when has Anaheim had a baseball team?" Otherwise, he tossed off appreciative comments to me and my friends, who seemed to be quite troubled that I was glaring at and occasionally responding to a man they could not see. As we headed to yet another bar, he said in his best Rat Pack swinger voice, "Yer a real jumparound kinda guy, aren't you, son?"

We ended up stopping by a dive full of NYU coeds on 4th Street around quarter to twelve. There stood about twenty or thirty kids, all underage, all wearing glow bracelets and carrying glowsticks, undulating wildly - bumping, grinding and dry humping in the midst of the smoky bar. My traveling companions' eyes popped out. This was no party of goofy kids, drinking and getting high - this was the Rave of the Damned. One girl was standing at the bar, facing the room, her eyes dilated, playing with her breasts through her silk blouse. She looked like Rikki Lake, and she was hungry.

"What the fuck's wrong with her?" Grandpa asked.

My traveling companions excused themselves to use the restroom.

"I think she's on ecstasy," I explained. "I think they're all on ecstasy." Off to our left, a couple lay on a leather love seat, seemingly ready to copulate. "Christ, it's like Quentin Tarantino's Wild America..."

"I think I've heard of this ecstasy," Grandpa said. "It's quite popular at that new nightclub up on Fifty-forth Street. Studio 54?" He shook his head. "Man, I miss the Stork Club..."

My friends were back, and despite our best intentions to be tolerant of others and let them have their own trip, we wanted no part. Back to the sidewalk we poured. We were greeted by one of the Great Hoboes. He was a middle-aged fellow with dirty skin, a beard, not too many teeth and a derby hat. His dinner was in a glass bottle, lightly wrapped in a paper bag. "Them X-heads still in there?" he asked.

"Hell yes, sir," I responded. "Sad what these kids do to themselves today, huh?"

"Darn straight, mutherfucker," he said. He turned to my Grandfather. "Remember what it was like when we was kids? Worst trouble you could get into was dropping a cherry bomb in a sewer drain!"

"Sonofabitch!" Grandpa said. "You can see me!"

"Fuck yeah. Why not?" the Great Hobo said to the man who wasn't there.

My friends looked at me, and then at the Great Hobo. They obviously weren't drunk enough to see Grandpa. It was like Jimmy Stewart's Harvey or an alcoholic version of Pete's Dragon.

"They get that X shit, four for twenty dollars," the Great Hobo explained to Grandpa. "When they come out, 'round three in the mornin', they all crazy! You'll see some motherfucker trying to climb the building...I saw a broad licking the sidewalk, last week!"

"I'm gonna stick with him," Grandpa said. "He's fun." Tipping his hat, he added, "No offense, kid."

"None taken," I said to the phantasm. "I'll see ya around?"

"Yeah, I'll get over my beef with McSorley's, and I'll see you back there in a few weeks. Stay out of trouble, huh?"

"You, too."

"Maybe it's time we got you home?" one of my friends suggested.

"You got it," I said, looking over my shoulder to see Grandpa staggering off, sharing a paper bag with the Great Hobo, singing "Whack fol de daddyo, there's whisky in the jar."

Tyler M. Carey
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, The Great Hoboes of New York
October, 2002