remembrance of a lifetime of losses, settled in to feel sorry for himself.
Nigel turned out to be an awful drunk, belligerent, foul-mouthed, contemptuous, and nasty to everyone. I finally threw him out around three. The next day, he was back, sheepish, contrite, diffident, wearing dark glasses instead of his coke bottles, his face even whiter than usual.
âYou see now why I donât drink often,â he said.
âYouâre one of the worst drunks Iâve ever seen,â I assured him. âMaybe you should try drugs.â
âIâm worse,â Nigel said.
From then on, when Angelina did return, she and Nigel might talk or they might not, but I could tell the flame had gone out. Nigel pined after her, and she toyed with him. Still, he took it like a man, hanging on, being her friend, waiting for the day sheâd come to her senses and realize he was the one for her.
During this time, too, Nigel and I took to hanging out together. Since he was often around at closing time, weâd have breakfast at the Greek greasy spoon, sometimes with Angelina, sometimes with some of the other leftovers from the bar. We regaled each other with stories of our pasts and commentaries on the state of the world and nation. Nigel liked to argue politicsâbait me would be more like it. Late at night, with the greasy smoke of the Greekâs grill as a backdrop, heâd pontificate like I imagined those Russian-royalty hangers-on displaced by the Bolsheviks did in the Paris cafes. An eloquent defender of privilege taking on the half-sloshed mouthpiece of the great unwashed, we bored to tears everyone around us.
Other nights, we went to my apartment or to Eric the Redâs to smoke dope and listen to music, except that Nigel didnât smoke dope either. He seemed perfectly content, sitting there straight while we got stoned. He said heâd lived in the East Village in the mid-seventies when heâd been a roadie for groups like the Doobie Brothers and Aerosmith, and had been drugged out enough in those days. He did seem like a counter-culture leftover trying to go straightâa little off-kilter with the aura of having taken one trip too many.
Nigel was maybe ten years younger than me, but he seemed older. He was smaller than me, too, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had a good-sized mustache. Maybe he was handsome but I donât think so, and maybe he was attractive to women, but I doubt that too. He wore a business suit most of the time and had an unconscious tendency to treat the rest of us, clad in our Levis and T-shirts, like the hired help. Iâd never seen him infatuated with a woman before Angelina came along with her pretty blue eyes, her pouting lips, and her dirty jokes. And I suspected a good part of his interest in me had to do with keeping track of her.
As for Angelina, she settled into her gold mine near Lincoln Center and became quite well known at some of the bars farther down on the West Side, the higher-priced, glitzier places where the clientele still expected they would shine in life.
Leaving bars with strangers was a pattern for Angelina. Sometimes it was the same guy for a week or so, then for a while a different guy every night. It was dangerous to do this. I might have warned her. But it was her life, and she wouldnât have listened anyway. If she listened to warnings, she would have stayed home in Springfield.
Once she got her feet under her and adjusted to life in Fun City, she didnât need me much anymore. Finding a studio on 110th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam, she moved out of my apartment, not really moving out after not really ever moving in. During this time, she was flush, spending like a drunken sailor, recklessly enjoying her prosperity and popularity. Dressed up, bright lipstick, colorful clothes, she would come back to the winos every couple of weeks or so, like the prodigal son, and they would take her in. She seemed desperate in some ways,