Travel Reference
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They finally said goodbye, and Huncke turned to me. He asked me, “Who
was
that guy?”
So after the reading, Huncke and I were waiting for Huncke to get paid. He
had said he was going to give me some of the money. Huncke ended up making
five hundred dollars for the reading. He gave me two-hundred-fifty, which was
incredible of him.
“Go have fun,” he said.
“I'll be back at the place at five-thirty tomorrow morning,” I said. It was
winter,andIhadbeenstayingwithHunckeinhisapartment.“Bedressedatfive-
thirty because we have to get you to the clinic on time.”
The next morning, Huncke had to be at Beth Israel's Bernstein Methadone
Clinic for a six a.m. check-in. No one got in after six a.m. Huncke, at age eighty,
was forced to go into rehab, or the government was going to throw him off the
methadone program, because he had coke and heroin and weed and everything
else you could imagine in his bloodstream. So if he wanted to stay on the meth-
adone program, and keep getting his methadone supplied to him, he had to show
up for this week-long daily rehab session, supposedly to get him off cocaine.
Now whenever Huncke had to
be
somewhere on time, had to meet an ap-
pointment, this was when Huncke would get into his queen prima donna mode.
I rolled back in at the apartment after a night of doing God knows what, and
Jerry Poynton answered Huncke's door. Jerry was already rolling his eyes, be-
cause it was five-thirty and Huncke was still in his pajamas. And there was a
snowstorm outside.
“Come on, Huncke! Get dressed! Get dressed!”
Hunckewasallgrouchyandmakingdemands.“Ineedsomebreakfast!Iwant
youtoget
apricot
yogurt.Idon'twantanykindbutapricot.AndIwanttoast,but
I want the butter on the side.”
Now I'm staring daggers at him. But I run down to get his breakfast, and
when I come back, the coffee isn't right. And he's still not dressed! He's taking
his time, he's doing one more line, or he can't find the line, and he's really dis-
gusted with both of us. Then he starts to get dressed in front of the mirror, trying
on different ascots.
I told Jerry, “I've taken people in for detox before. I know that if he arrives
after 6:00, they will not let him in.”
Finally, we load him into a cab and we're riding over there in the snow
“I've always done well in institutions,” he said proudly.
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