A Stranger in a Strange Land Part 3

The next Morning:

Matt took off for his day gig which was a  waitering job at King O’ Beef restaurant on Broadway which served ginormous slabs of beef to the hungry tourists visiting the City. I guess you could call an upscale “Sizzler” which was similar to the ubiquitous bargain steak house we had back in California. Patrons who could finish it’s thirty two ounce porterhouse steak with all the fixings in one sitting would be awarded with a free meal and a gold cardboard crown to wear at their table.

After finishing my coffee, I was left alone to inspect his digs.

Since I was pretty disoriented from my trip and the traumatic subsequent events that followed  I had not had a chance to check out his apartment since upon arrival had crashed after having dinner.

To call it tiny was an understatement. The whole place could have fit in my bedroom of my Arlington apartment with room to spare.

The space was divided into two rooms with a small kitchenette and a cramped bathroom that was the size of a closet. There was a makeshift table in the kitchen area. Basically it was a hunk of varnished plywood that surprisingly had a washtub underneath it – so I guess that’s where Matt and his roommate took baths.

The wood floors were warped and slanted. If you dropped a quarter it would probably roll away and be lost forever.

Every once in a while I would see these bugs scuttle around the apartment. Often they’d stop crawling and then make mad dashes to safety as if they knew you were gonna take a bedroom slipper to one of them. I would later find out these insects were called “cockroaches” and that they were a common pest in most buildings.

I thought about going out but after looking out a dusty window at the stream of cars and crowds of people walking around I figured I’d just read until Matt got back from work.

Since I was a stranger in even stranger land it seemed like the safest thing to do.


End of Part 3

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