It was a simple move.

From Los Angeles to New York City in 3 days.

Or so it seemed.

The disaster

After the transmission in my car was finally fixed I headed back to Los Angeles to prepare for the big move.
I packed relatively quick, in about 2 days, and headed out at 2 am August 11th.

I was to split up the trip into 3 legs:
Los Angeles to my Aunt's house in Tucumcari, New Mexico 987 miles approx.
Tucumcari to Indianapolis approx 1100 miles
Indianapolis to New York approx 780 miles

To avoid the unforgiving heat of the Mojave desert, I left early in the morning. I traveled from the 10 to the 15 then to 40, which would take me through New Mexico. I remember seeing the most beautiful sunrise over the cliffs of Northern Arizona. MY only regret was that I failed to capture it on camera-as I was in too big of a hurry. The other regret was the painted desert in between Arizona and new Mexico, beautiful pinkish cliffs, nothing like I had ever seen before in my entire life.
My impulsivity kept me on the interstate, traveling at speeds over 100 mph.

As I approached Tucumcari I noticed signs on the interstate saying "caution: dangerous cross winds"
My car had not been itself since Las Vegas it seemed to want to drive off the road. I took it as a simple wheel alignment problem. 60 miles outside of Tucumcari car seemed to wander a bit more and I heard loud noises, I though it was a flat or the engine, so I pulled over. I examined the car, I found nothing wrong.

I arrived into Tucumcari at 5pm that same day, august 11th. I met my aunt at the McDonalds'.

Tucumcari, a town that has dwindled over the years down to 4,000 people, was probably the smallest town I had ever stayed in. it was an old town off the old route 66, which over the years failed due major industries leaving.
It is the same town that my aunt lived in when her son and husband died in a small plane crash. something her daughter's refuse to forgive her for. the reason they are so upset with her, is that she has moved on with another man in her life, one that makes her happy.
I stayed over night with my aunt Rosemary and her soon to be husband Chris. They will be married Las Vegas style in October.
The next morning I headed out early, my goal was Indiana,
something told me it was too far.

As I sped off onto the interstate I noticed that my car was beginning to fishtail and that noise I heard earlier had returned.
It all happened almost too fast to describe.
As I slowed down I felt the back of the car hit the ground
it skidded across the land and began to roll into the median.
that's when I knew I was going to die.

The roof pounded my head so fiercely that I could barely hear it,
the glass shattered towards my face ever so quitely.
I thought that it was time to say goodbye.










But it wasn't my time to go yet.
When the car stopped rolling I climbed out the window.
Blood ran down my face all over my clothing.
my belongings were scattered across the median and interstate.
the car had rolled six times from side of the freeway to the other.

I started to pick up my scattered belongings when I noticed people approaching me, asking me if I was ok. I felt ok, I was a bit delirious but up and walking around.
The ambulance showed up, they made me sit down...
and that's when the pain hit me.
The laved me on a board and enclosed me head into this device to keep my soft skull together. I screamed as the pain was so immense I could not bare to sit still.
I was rushed into the emergency room.
and left there screaming in agony.
since my vital signs were ok I guess they figured they could leave me for awhile.
MY aunt rosemary in crying.
She was so upset, I began to cry to.
She told me that the scene of the accident was near San Jon,
it was where Keith and David had died in the plane crash 2 years prior.

As the tears flowed down her cheeks she said to me that since she lost them, I was
pretty much all she had left. I cried my eyes out, it was the first time I had really connected with my aunt on an emotional level. she had always been labled cold
and unfeeling by my other family members, she was the only one who moved away from
Washington when she was 16.
My mother called to make sure I gave them the correct address for the insurance, her way of asking if I was ok I guess. she then began to dig
she began to say that maybe I should give up, maybe I should go home.
After almost dying and losing most of my belongings including my computer, I felt a
renewed sense for life.
I knew that if I went back to Washington, even for a short while, I would be miserable.
I would have no car to drive to my meaningless job there that I probably would have
a hard time finding anyway. I told her to stop talking about it. I told her that I was
going to keep going and nothing was going to stop me now.

The Recovery


(new Mexico sunset taken at my aunt's farm)

Now that my transportation had died and I was bed bound. I spent a lot of time at my aunt's house. Only a week to me it seemed like an eternity of self renewal.
MY new roommate from new York called me everyday while I was there. we talked for
hours on the phone. I felt that we had really gotten to know each other and I
was excited to finally get there.
I booked a flight out of Amarillo to Denver.
The flight into Denver was almost as horrifying as the car accident.
It was on a beech craft propeller plane, and every other second it seemed like it was
going to fall out of the sky. I tried to ease my mind with some music, but the plan engine was so loud I could barely hear it. as we flew over Colorado it was mostly brown, I never realized Colorado was so boring and ugly. Finally after what seemed like forever we arrived at the new Denver airport.

At first the told me the plane to La Guardia was delayed 3 hours.
I couldn't bare to sit there and stare out the window that long.
I was relieved when they told me it was on time.

We approached New York city at night time. the plane flew along the Hudson
river, giving us an amazing view of manhattan at night. for once in my life, I was
able to say "hey I can see my house from here!"
The plane landed at La Guardia at 9pm.
My new roommate met me at the baggage claim. He wasn't exactly what I expected
and seemed somewhat intimidated by me when we met in person, I knew that he
was attracted to me, but being roommates I didn't want to entertain the idea. He drove
me along the BQE (Brooklyn-queens expressway) and over the Brooklyn bridge into manhattan.

I had finally arrive into New York City.

(apparently photography was not his forte)

We ate at a restaurant on the lower east side then headed for home.
Upon arrival the neighborhood seemed ok, the building a little old ( come on it is
new York), but when I got into the apt, I was horrified.

My room had never been cleaned out for me as I was told, the bed wasn't put
together. the kitchen looked like something out of a bad movie and it just got worse as
I went into his room and where the living room was. the room had a funky odor which
I later realized was him. there was cigarette butts tossed on the floor as well. since my bed wasn't ready, I had to sleep in his. I told him not to touch me as I was still recovering from my car accident and was in a lot of pain. I think it was all he could do
to resist, but he disgusted me with his bad hygiene and cleaning habits.
The next 2 days I spent just trying to clean the apartment into something liveable.
I knew at this point I wouldn't be living there long, but I had no idea how short my stay would really be.

The betrayal


I awoke Wednesday in a glorious mood. I sang Madonna songs and show tunes around the house as I waited for terence ( my new roommate ) to come home. he was a network admin, and had the tools necessary to test my computer, which had been chucked out of my car into the Mexico dirt, and see if the power supply was still good. if not I could take it in for a warranty repair since I had it all cleaned up, and alls I would need was a monitor and a keyboard.
As my mood heightened, I wasn't sure if it was the pain killers or just the sheer joy of being alive, that's when he told me the bad news.
He explained to me that he was not in fact the primary lease holder, the primary lease holder was in Florida.
he told me that AJ, the roommate who I had not met but was in the hospital bounced a check and we were getting evicted because of it.
That's when I knew it was all a huge lie.
The eviction process in the state of new York takes months, and for a court order to actually be issued meant that he had known about this for awhile. he explained that he thought he had it all taken care of. I asked where my 600 went to and he said the landlord took it with everyone else's money. I was upset but I wasn't angry yet. I wasn't angry until the next day.
I told him that morning that he need to go the bank and get me a cashier's check for the remainder of the rent I had paid in advance.
He called me around noon saying that he had some good news.
he said the landlord would allow us to stay if we paid half of the back rent owed by Monday. I asked him how much it was.
he said 3360 now and then another payment of 3360 in November. I asked him where
he would ge the money. he said the only money that he had was my advanced rent that I had paid.
this is where I got pissed off.
he asked me to cover the first payment and he covered the second.
he said that since the actual rent was only 1160 and that after it was paid the apartment could be "ours". I told him the only I could loan him that much money was if
he singed his car over to me until he paid me back. he told me he couldn't do that, and presented a fair amount of silly situations in where my money would be sucked out of my ass.
that's when I let him have it.
I don't remember exactly what it was I screamed into the phone, but it basically told
him that he was the most irresponsible piece of shit I had ever met, that he expected
me to just pull 4 grand out of my ass after he had lied to me about how much the place
actually cost and deceived me about being the primary tenant. I told him I didn't
come all the way from California to live on the streets of manhattan. I told him to come
home and we would discuss it further.
as I waited I began to cry.
here I was, still traumatized from the accident and now I was getting evicted at no
fault of my own and I wasn't even sure if he still had my money.
that's when I met AJ.

If u believe in miracles, they can happen

I looked up and wiped the tears out my eyes. I saw from terence's description what
appeared to be AJ.
he asked me why I was crying.
I told him about the situation.
he told me that he just got out of the hospital. he said that he had no idea that terence
owed that much rent and was overcharging everyone else. he did say that he had
seen some electricity shut off notices and that 400 was owed on the cable. he
explained to me that terence knew that his check might bounce because he told him ahead of time. he said that when he transferred his account from Florida to NYC, they
explained to him that the check he wrote may have bounced. had terence not owed
so much on the rent, this would have never happened of course, so it wasn't AJ's fault.
he said that he was kinda lookin for his own place when he saw the electricity was getting shut off and wanted to move out with someone more responsible. he said that he had brought 2400 to pay terence for advanced rent. right then I told him to leave.
I said give me your number, since terence had locked his stuff up I would try to get it
unlocked for him, but he had to leave before terence got home so terence wouldn't take his money as well. he left quickly and I sat there and acted as if I had never seen him when terence came home. he called me and asked me if I wanted to look for
another apartment with him, I told him that we would keep in touch, and that I would call him to get his things once I had gotten my cashiers' check.
terence came home without the check.
that's when I ripped him a new asshole.
I told him that I asked him to do one simple thing in the morning and that was to get my money and he was too fucking stupid to even accomplish that. then the rat bastard
had the nerve to tell me that he didn't get it because he had called the landlord and he thought there was a chance we could stay.
I wasn't having it.
I told him that he called me at noon, the check was to be already in his hand from that morning. he had nothing to say
he stood about 2 inches tall.
I asked him to let me use his I-book.
I needed to find my friend Jesse, he was my only hope.
I lucked out and found him on the web. I had lost his number when I lost my phone in
L. A., and I didn't think to get it again beforehand. he told me I had to come and get the keys that night because he was leaving for Virginia for a week.
I felt so relieved once I saw the neighborhood that I visited when I first came to new York.

Terence had almost ruined the city for me, leaving me in a desperate situation.
if he had come home 10 minutes later, Jesse would have gone to Virginia, and I would
have to move onto the streets.
luckily though I was being watched out for yet again. I went and picked up the keys.
he told me I could stay until Sept 14th, but he had guests coming then so I should find a place by then. I was relieved to know I had a safe, clean place to stay now while I searched for another. that I would be safe after all. someday I will have to repay him for his kindness and trust, after all if it wasn't for him I don't know where I'd be.
I went back to the apt on 114th for the sole purpose of helping AJ and getting my money
. I told terence that he needed to get has ugly ass up in the morning, take me with him to the bank and get my cashier's check. I also explained to him that his waterbed wasn't supporting my back enough and that I needed to sleep in AJ's room. while he was asleep I stole the padlock out of his room and tossed it out of the window. I also
grabbed his passport.
he wasn't getting away from me.
that morning when we went to the bank, the teller told him that the balance was only 1900. he tried to question her and act stupid, but I saw right through his screen of bullshit.
he was living off my money
I told him to give me the check.
I also asked for a copy of his license and social security card.
I told him that I have never hurt anyone in my life, but if he didn't get my money by Monday I was going to beat the shit out of him. he tried to make excuses, but I had heard enough. I told him to go to Pennsylvania and get from his parents. I kept the keys, and told him if he didn't get it he would be VERY sorry and I would also take him to small claims court for the amount plus emotional distress.
he went to work.
I hauled all my baggage down 5 flights of stairs and called a car to take me over to the east side. I unloaded my bags and went to my Dr's apt. the Dr said that there was a lot
of sort tissue around my spine and that he would recommend and orthopedic Dr and that I will probably have to go through physical therapy. he gave me more pain killers, which are starting to make me feel ill.
I've kept in contact with AJ.
we may possibly go look at apartments tomorrow.
Terence called to tell me that his parents gave him the money, and that he would be
driving back to new York tonight or early tomorrow with it.
he is so broke he had to borrow 200 dollars from his boss just to make it to Pennsylvania.
I guess someone still trusts him.
I told him that I wanted everything I had ever sent him with my personal information.
that once he hands me the check he can have the keys and I never want to see him again. I almost feel sorry for him.
broke and crawling back home.
but its where he belongs, I guess old new York was just too tough for him.
somehow car accident and all, I have still proved that I am a survivor with staying power. the accident taught me to take what I need and leave and that life is short, u only live once.
I however am here to stay.

As I walked the streets today running my simple address change errand and picking up me prescription, I remembered how vibrant the city made me feel again. I knew that after the physical therapy that I would be ready more the ever to take on the challenge of trying to make it in front of the world's toughest audience.
I'll make a brand new start of it here in old new York
If I can make it here,
I can make it anywhere.