He rolled his car into the only empty space on West 10th Street, top down, wide open. He’d been drinking and driving for three or four days and couldn’t remember the trip, save the tumultuous thunderstorm in Okemah, Oklahoma that caught him with the top down. He glanced at the passenger seat, empty save the three speeding tickets he’d been awarded. Then, he looked up at the early morning, humid New York City sky and felt the droplets of a humid mist on his unshaven face.

His old friend and Village fixture, Reuben the sandalmaker, had found him a three bedroom, two bath place in a building owned by a favor owing friend. Benjamin figured it must have been a helluva favor, as the place, rent controlled, carried a tariff of a remarkable $700 a month.

Benjamin pulled his two suitcases and bookbags out of the car, set them on the curb, pulled the top up and began the short walk over the apartment his old friend Reuben had found for him. Hunched and hung over from the long drive and the whiskey, he trudged the half block he trudged off balance the walk to his new apartment. Laden with luggage, it seemed like a trek, and was relieved only to some extent when the doorman greeted him with a smile that seemed inappropriate for Ben’s condition and took his bags.

“Good morning, Mr. Rogel, I’m Peter. You are Mr. Rogel, aren’t you?” said the sixtyish, but moderately youthful and borderline aristocratic uniformed doorman.

“It’s Ben, Peter. How’d you know?”

“Just caught the tags on your car as you pulled up. Lucking to get a space this time of morning. I’ll get your keys and bring your bags up. You’ll like this building. And, by the way, I’m on days during the week. Jonathan is the night man and we split shifts on the weekends.”

“Thanks,” Ben responded, following the older man into the building, marveling at his ability to handle the bags and open the door.

“You’re 510, take a right from the elevator, it’s three doors down. If you don’t mind, I’ll bring these up in half hour or so, as soon as the morning people have left,” Peter said, referring to the dwellers who would be leaving for work any moment now.

“That’s fine, thanks again,” Ben said, pulling a ten from his pocket and pressing it into the doorman’s hand.

“Thank you,” Peter said to Ben as the younger man pressed the elevator button.

Riding up the five floors, Ben remembered the old elevator operator who ran the rig in his childhood building. Joseph, he thought, well over six feet with chalk white hair and arms that always seemed awkward and akimbo, but a left hand that could move the lever around its hub with the grace of Nijinsky, starting the elevator smoothly and bringing it to the perfect level at the selected floor.

Benjamin smiled as opened the door to 510 and walked through the entry hall, past closet on the left and a narrow, but serviceable large living and dining room combination. Four double windows opened onto 10th Street giving the space a astounding brightness and open feeling. Midway through the expansive room on the left was a hallway that Ben followed to find one bedroom on the left. It was a typical New York air shaft window, but the shaft, though dingy, had been painted as far up and down as he could see with an abstract on three walls and a huge skyscraper on the other. He felt a smile that belied his weariness and brownish demeanor. Opposite the bedroom was another with two casements that looked out on 10th. Down the hall, on the left, a full bathroom, with an air shaft window and at the end of the all, a large master bedroom, with three casements and a small full bath.

To has surprise, there was a queen sized platform bed, complete with six drawers underneath. He sat on the thick, firm foam mattress and stroked with pine, finished naturally and smooth. There was a note in the middle of the bed: We thought you’d need this early. And, we’ve put some other things in the flat for you, mostly pieces we’ve had stored for years. There’s that old Fiestaware you always liked. Elena always hated it, but the colors brightened. Our welcome home gifts to you Ben. Call when the spirit moves you. Love, Elena and Reuben.

Ben could only smile, the first he’d cracked it seemed in days. The sad, numbing quiescence that was his personality since he left Idaho was moved ever so slightly by a kindness he never realized he desperately needed. A man and woman who’d wheeled him around Washington Square in his stroller, watched him grow up, cared for him when he went awry as a teen had made the transition just easier for him. He’d called Reuben a couple of months earlier, from Idaho, to help him find a place. The old artisan had done far more. He’d found him an apartment a block from where he was raised, in an area where Ben could feel at ease, if he let himself. He wondered if Maggie would find the apartment as perfect as he did.

Ben walked back out to the living room. He pulled the handles down on two of the casements and pushed the windows open to the moist morning air. Looking down at 10th Street memories of growing up just a block away flew back to him. There was a warmth for him in the smells and the noises of the street that drifted up through the open window. When he had moved to Los Angeles it had taken him months to sleep soundly in the silence of the night. The taxis, the garbage trucks, the buses, the late night and early morning people would now all provide his own white noise that helped him sleep and provided a certain complement to the music his stereo would play while he worked.

He had been alone for days in the car and now, in his new apartment he was beginning to feel detached. Sure, there were people he knew within blocks of him, but a loneliness now set in. It wasn’t pervasive, but he knew it was there. Yeah, he considered that it was Maggie, as she’d not left his mind. But he also chalked a good measure of the feeling up to the fatigue that flooded his mind and body from the stress of leaving her and the long drive.

Pinched with exhaustion and disquietude, he walked back into the bedroom, slipped off his clothes and lay back on the bed. It was not yet noon and there would be many things to do before he reported to work the following week. He tried to think of the tasks, list them. A bank account, I’ll need a bank account, and sheets, towels…What the hell is she doing now? Coffee. Coffee’s important and ice cream. Maybe some bourbon. Gotta call Reuben and my grandmother. How bad did I hurt her? How am I going to get her out here? Kids beds, a television…

His eyes flickered, finally closing with sleep relieving him of the pain of loss and the pain of tomorrow. It would come back, but for now, he would sleep.