Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey (14 page)

The room she showed me was 315. The room had my name on it. Somebody had carved
U FUCK UP
deep in the red-painted door, and she opened it up and it was perfect— like warm freshly baked bread straight out of the oven, small bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower, a closet, a bedroom with bed next to a chair and desk, an old-school radiator room heater by the window. The walls looked like they’d been painted white at least a hundred times, and had two framed twentieth-century Expressionist pieces of art nailed to them. Both pieces looked exactly like something you would find at the Salvation Army, Goodwill, or the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Four white walls and a window. That was it. Very postmodern. I loved it.

What’s strange though, was that the apartment was laid out exactly like the one I lived at in San Francisco. It was also the same price as the studio apartment in Los Angeles where I lived when I first moved out of my parents’ house over a decade ago. Well, that apartment was actually a bit smaller than this space—a lot smaller—but it had a great view of the Hollywood sign, and I remember waking up in the mornings looking up at that thing and thinking, Well, at least I’m in Hollywood. How bad could it be, you know?

When I looked out the window here under overcast conditions, I saw that there was a breathtaking view across the freeway to the Cass Corridor. A couple street people were walking around as if they were lost on their way to the methadone clinic. I turned to her with a smile and said that it was perfect, above and beyond my expectations, and that I’d take it. She cheered up and told me that was great, and that whatever I did, not to go over there past the freeway. “We have kind of a raunchy ripe environment over there,” she said soberly, and then offered to get me a television for my room, no problem, and I instinctively cut her off by telling her no—that wasn’t necessary, I didn’t like TV and could live perfectly fine, if not better, if I didn’t have one.

Are you sure?

Yes, definitely.

I’m not one of those elitists who tells everyone they know how they don’t have a television set so that they can think they’re so much better than others for not having one. I just don’t want one because there’s really nothing on that I care to watch, so what’s the point? It’d just take up space on my desk, and I need that for my laptop. And beer and wine bottles, ashtray, etc. Less is more.

Ever since I moved out of my parents’ house over a decade ago, I’ve always sought out the cheapest available apartment to live in, even if it meant living in a neighborhood that most people would never consider moving into. I never once really thought anything of it, but my mother was the only one who ever figured it out and knew exactly why this all was.

“You always choose to live in tiny apartments in garbage neighborhoods because you think that’s the best you can do. You never think big. It’s okay to pay a little bit more, get bigger place, live better, work harder. But you think you’re no good. That’s why you choose to live like that. Those people have no choice. You’re choosing to live that way.”

On the way down the elevator, the Dutch lady views my ring and asked me if I was married, while smiling. I told her that I was. Happily, even.

“She doesn’t mind you being here?”

“No. Well, she’s a bit nervous about me being in Detroit. She doesn’t want me to get shot here.”

Mrs. Harrington assured me that I would be fine here at her hotel, and joking around she asked if I knew who was spreading the rumor of Detroit’s rough reputation.

Not knowing the answer, I shrugged.

O
nce back down in the lobby, she also told me about her breakfast café, which she’d just opened up; two dollars for eggs and coffee was their special, along with a full breakfast menu. Her husband even had the idea that if you lived in the building and paid your rent on time, you’d get a free breakfast. I asked her how that was going, and she told me not so good; right now there were creative differences, if you will, going on with her and her cook, who lived in the building and was allowed to stay there rent-free as long as he worked at the café. She had a certain vision for the café, coffee and good breakfast food, but the cook wanted to cook soul food instead.

“I gave him all of the books and told him to make breakfast this way, do this, do that, and start making good smells, like bake your own apple pies, and he just sits there. Some people are good entrepreneurs and artists,” she told me, “and some people have to work for someone else.” She kindly added that he’s a really nice guy, and makes really nice food, “when he can.”

With all the people coming into and out of the building, I felt like I was at a cocktail party, being introduced to a bunch of people that I didn’t know yet. All were kind, and she introduced me to every single one, all of whom she knew by name. We shook hands, and she told me what they do and a little bit about each. Like this five-foot-something arty Japanese hipster kid who hardly spoke any English at all and was always happy and smiling. He just ended up here while traveling. She then introduced me to a black guy “who’s a well-known comedian. They tell me that he’s fantastic,” she said. “One of these days I’m going to get dressed up and go see him!”

I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels just like this, and this was the first time I came across one where the owner cared about the people who lived in her building. It was like they were all a part of her extended family: she knew them, and they knew her.

The comedian who lived in the building was actually playing at some legendary club in Detroit on New Year’s Eve. It was a block away, and when he invited me to his show, I told him that I was not quite sure if I’d be able to make it, since I might be off to another city by then. Mrs. Harrington told me, “Well, who knows, you might fall in love with Detroit and decide not to leave.”

We shared a chuckle, though in the back of my mind I must say I thought, anything can happen, I guess. I did join the military in a time of war never thinking that I ever would, and I did become a father without ever thinking that would happen either, so I guessed I couldn’t really rule out any possibilities. Just then a white guy walked in the door, forties, very relaxed casual air and dress, and she brought me over to him and introduced me as a “writer from California.” She then told me that he was an architect who used to live out in Hamtramck and moved into the building a couple months ago.

Mrs. Harrington then suggested that he show me around Detroit some time. He said he could do that, no problem, and then asked me what I was up to right now. I told him I wasn’t up to anything, just hanging out, and he asked me if I wanted to go with him right now on a walk around the city, and he could take me to his work downtown. And just like that, we were off to discover Detroit.

O
nce outside the hotel, I asked my new acquaintance what kind of architecture he did. “Whatever comes down the tube,” he said.

At the corner he pointed to a bar down the street, surrounded by empty lots, and told me that he did that bar. They gutted the building, and he did the interior. Prior to that the building was just a flophouse. A couple vagrants were just hanging out, not really doing anything, so I asked him about the neighborhood.

“A lot of crooks in this town.”

“Like breaking-into-cars kind of stuff?”

“No, like gank you and take your money kind of stuff.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. I got a friend from Louisiana who came here, and he got mugged on his way to that bar. Took his wallet and watch.”

He told me that all these vacant lots around us are now all “surface level” parking spaces for the sporting events. They all used to have buildings sitting on them, but they figured out that they could make more money converting them into parking spaces and charging twenty dollars to park there whenever a concert or sporting event happens, so they just tore them all down instead of boarding them up, like the handful of buildings that still remain on this street.

As we made our way down Park Avenue, no one in sight, he told me that all the bars were doing really slow business, now that baseball season was over. He added that back in the day the street we were on used to be a hangout for the Purple Gang, Jewish mobsters who were rumrunners in the 1920s.

We passed by an empty storefront that carried a sign indicating a pizza restaurant coming soon, but a sign next to that indicated that all construction for that pizza restaurant had been halted, and as we walked through Grand Circus Park, which was like an outdoor break room for panhandlers, he told me that right now they were filming a movie downtown. I had noticed a lot of film trucks and production vehicles driving around. He said they were filming the new
Red Dawn
movie here, and he thought the story line for this one was something along the lines of the Chinese taking over America. “But if you think about it, they already have. Just go to Walmart, we don’t make anything anymore.”

When we stepped inside the lobby of his building, he told me that it had been an office building, but that right now eighty percent of the building was empty. While we waited for the elevator, I asked when this particular building was built, since I liked how the lobby was designed, and he told me that it was developed at the height of the art deco period. “The days of making buildings like this one are over,” he said. “And they’ll never come again.”

“Why not?”

“You couldn’t make this building now. All the marble, steel, plating, everything, you couldn’t match it now. You’d go broke. Not anymore. Now everything is made cheap.”

His office was located up on one of the top floors and had a spectacular panoramic view of all of Detroit; since the weather was clear, you could see for miles in all directions. He explained the layout of Detroit to me, saying that it’s based on a wheel system. All the streets—Woodward, Gratiot, Michigan—start here in downtown but go out for miles and miles, all the way to the suburbs. He told me where all the neighborhoods were, which ones are which, Greektown, Hamtramck, Grosse Pointe, Midtown, East Detroit, Dearborn, and even Canada.

He then pointed to a building with a blue awning across the street and told me that it used to be a homeless shelter until it closed down not long ago. They gave out free food to all the bums, and all these bums would come down here from off Cass to get their free food, and of course the local businesses didn’t care for that too much, since it was drawing the bums in. Now that the shelter was not there anymore, fewer homeless people came around. So that meant nobody came around.

He pointed out the many buildings around us that were bankrupt, one right after another. “That one’s bankrupt, that one’s bankrupt, that one’s bankrupt, too, that one over there is pretty close, that one over there is, that one I’m pretty sure is, I think, that one is, that one, too. . . . What we’re trying to do is get a population in here instead of just emptiness.”

When I asked what they had in mind, he pointed out a building. “You mean the one that looks like a middle finger?” I asked. He told me that I was correct.

“We’re doing that building. It’s the old
Free Press
building.”

“What are you guys going to do with it?”

“Condos.”

I tried not to cringe. It seemed like every single one of these buildings across our country that used to house things called jobs were now vacant, showing
FOR SALE
or
LEASE
signs, and were now being converted into condos or lofts. Perhaps they moved online, or to a different building? Who knows?

His boss, who was well dressed and looked like an architect, then pointed out the drafting plans for the
Free Press
building, which were sitting on a nearby table. I asked if I could take a look at them. He told me sure. The boss, who was wearing a scarf indoors, migrated over to me and in a calm voice explained, “Underground is going to be parking, the first floor is going to be retail, the second floor is going to be offices, and the rest are going to be apartments.”

I then realized what he was showing me. It wasn’t the floor plan to that building, it was the floor plan for this country—the beige condominium nightmare. That building used to have jobs inside it. Since those were all gone now or had moved somewhere else, the building was now empty. Since we don’t know what to do with this building and all the others like it, they are all being converted into condos. I’m starting to think that we are all headed toward living in a country of beige condos and working service industry jobs, since those will be the only jobs left. One day I’m going to be tipping you, and you’re going to be tipping me.

B
ack at the Park Avenue Hotel. Mrs. Harrington greeted me with a sweet smile, and introduced me to her husband of fifty years, an older white gentleman in his early eighties who was born and raised here in Detroit. With his enthusiastic knowledge of Detroit, Mr. Harrington reminded me a bit of my own grandfather, who was a great storyteller and historian of Maine, where he was born and raised. He knew everything Maine inside and out and loved it so much that he wanted his ashes spread there when he died.

In the lobby Mr. Harrington told me a bit about the history of the hotel. Ground was broken for the building in 1927, and it was finished in 1928. The architect was a guy named Louis Kamper, who also designed several other historic buildings here in town, such as the Book Tower and Book Cadillac. The people who built this building, as well as a couple others here in Detroit, all went bankrupt in the crash of 1929.

We stepped out on the sidewalk, and Mr. Harrington pointed out the Detroit Life Building, diagonally across the street. Detroit Life was all boarded up, vacant, and had a
FOR LEASE
sign on it. The Detroit Women’s City Club right next to it was also vacant, boarded up, and had a
FOR LEASE
sign on it. “At one time that was the elite club for the women, you follow me?” he said, and explained to me that all these parking lots around his hotel once had bustling buildings sitting on them, but they had all been torn down.