When I first moved to NYC, I lived on East 79th Street. I lived alone. I had that job near Grand Central Station but no one at home. I remember one friend of mine asked me if I could let a person stay over one night and then take her to the YWCA the next day. That was in 1974. I said yes. She came over. A very beautiful woman, maybe 20. Very beautiful. She slept on the living room floor.
That apartment was a mess. The biggest problem after the tiny size was roaches. I mean, like roaches. There was a gap between the floor and the wall in the kitchen and at night they would come out. In the morning, the kitchen sink would be full of them. It was awful. Someone in the building told me the woman who lived above me was blind and quite old. She was a bit-part actress and I guess being blind, she was unaware of the roach problem. I don't know. Anyway, there they were. I found some "organic" bug spray and that really worked.
So this woman stayed the night and the next morning I took her to Grand Central Station. She had never been in NYC before. She was from Cincinnati. I'm not sure which YWCA she was going to but on the subway most of the guys (I assume, straight) were staring at her. Later I learned she was pre-operative. That was the first time I met someone who was going from boy to girl as she was (or visa versa). It was pretty cool, all in all.
So, back to "we" and "me". The "we" part came about a year later. when I went to a bar on 73rd and Amsterdam. I forget the name (I assume it's long gone) and met Roberto there. We danced a lot together and he came back to my place and basically stayed on for a long time.
He moved with me to the Upper West Side and then to Hell's Kitchen. But not long after we split up, but remained in sporadic contact.
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