Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The General
The unnerving thing about some residents at the Chelsea is you could never be
suretheywerewhotheysaidtheywereordidwhattheysaytheydid.Oneofthese
was an Irishman known only as “The General.”
JOHN ZINSSER
Whenwewerelivingin622,therewasaguywhowouldintermittentlyshowupat
the Chelsea. He was Irish, and he would stay in one of the transient rooms, or stu-
dentrooms,theseroomsthathadnobathroom.Youhadtousethebathroomdown
thehall. Thisguywouldwearadarkgraymilitary trench coat withasashbelt and
epaulets. On his head, he wore a beret. He was a large man, about two hundred
pounds, very imposing, very paramilitary. He would stay for about a month at a
time, during which he would get on these incredible drunks.
He would go down to the lobby and fight with the hotel staff, or with Stanley.
Theywouldgetintothesescreamingfightswithhim,andthenhewoulddisappear
upstairs again. I don't know if they were fighting about rent or whatever.
This guy was like the general who had come to stay, like the Al Pacino char-
acter in
Scent of a Woman.
He was this scary, scary guy.
SoonetimeIwasintheelevatorthere.TheelevatorsattheChelseaareinfam-
ously slow and irregular and won't stop on your floor. You would end up trapped
with people for an indeterminate amount of time in these fairly small elevators.
ThisIrishparamilitaryguywasinoneofhisdrunks,andhesaidtome,“Ineed
to show you something.”
His whole obsession was that nobody would acknowledge who he really
was—nobody understood that he was this important person.
He said to me, “I am in charge of the IRA in America. I'm the liaison between
the IRA and the U.S. I want to prove this to you.”
“Great,” I was thinking. “What is this going to be?”
I don't know why—curiosity, I guess—but I followed him into his student
room, with wood floor planking, a bed, a sink in the corner, and a window. Like
an eight-by-eight-foot room. But on the floor was this big duffel bag with a zipper
down the middle. He opened up the zipper, and the entire bag was filled with pa-
per files in file folders, as if it had been taken out ofsome file cabinet somewhere.
“All the proof,” he said, “is here.”
I was mortified.
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