The Xhaxahka File- Albanian Louie and Me

November 29, 2019 .    I don't know his whole life story but I know a few things about Crazy Freddy. For one thing he's always losing money. He drives a taxi but he's not too good at making change and you see it's like this: If Freddie makes a mistake in his favor most of the time the passengers will let him know and make him give them their money. On the other hand, let's say he owes the passenger five bucks but Freddie gives him a twenty. A lot of times the passengers will just put the money in their pockets and go out laughing.     Especially because he smells bad, he's wearing dirty clothes, his hair is matted and he usually has to ask them like 15 times where they're going cuz he keeps forgetting. The same thing happens when he goes into a deli and buys a sandwich or coffee. Plus on top of that when anybody asks him to lend them some money, he will if he has it on him.  And he forgets to ask for it back. So poor Crazy Freddie is the exact o...

 It was William's day off, that day consisting of Tuesday afternoon till Wednesday shift change. He lives in a tiny room furnished with a skinny mattress on a sagging spring bed. The walls are pea soup colored with splotches of mold. The room smells a bit like sugary shit. A musty smell. It's on 142nd near Third Avenue, not far from the Six Train and the Bx 15 Bus. He shares a bathroom with two other roomers he doesn't want anything to do with.. He has no kitchen privileges. He lives on Chinese vegetable soup (with noodles and soy sauce) that he's in the habit of ordering from one of the ubiquitous fast food Chinese restaurants that sell more fried chicken wings than anything else and The Greek's burgers and The Greek's scrambled eggs and toast. Billy, as he's sometimes called, had a few extra bucks so he caught the iron horse down to the Staten Island Ferry to take a ride and do some photography. He sleeps with his camera and zoom lens under his pil...

THE POKER ROOM l Might be safer in the desert Only dust to judge your sins But those who wager aren't so clever 'Cus in heaven Well, the House always wins The Stupendium    This is the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night poker game at the Pleasant Avenue Yellow Taxi garage repair shop.  First you have to picture the shop itself. It's about the size of a no man's land on a tennis court, around twenty-one feet by eighteen. It's dingy and it's dark, lit by incandescent bulbs. There are piles of tires, rims, a few car transmissions laying around, yellow taxi hoods and bumpers. There are   a couple of computerized diagnostics gadgets and three lifts, two of which have cars on them. There is an exposed shower and a mezzanine that is lined with lockers. There's no work going on between midnight and 4 a.m. That's when Albanian Louie used to take it over for a few rounds of Texas Hold'em.     There is a work table that can handle a five person ...

November 29, 2019                      Alicia's cross the hall friend is another single mom, a tall thin young African American woman named Shameka . Shameka works data entry for Silverman Sacks on Liberty Street on the graveyard  shift. She actually works for a temporary employment agency but she's been assigned to Silverman Sacks for over a year now. Anyhow, she gets out of work at four in the morning and heads straight home. She walks to the subway with some other women and she usually catches the crosstown bus at Lexington and One Sixteenth and gets on the elevator and starts being a mommy. Latoya, her five year old daughter, sleeps over at Alicia's. It's like a tag team. Shameka takes over in the daytime. She dreams of deep uninterrupted sleep and someone, anyone, to help out. In the daytime. Thank God Hector is not too much of a rough-houser and Latoya gets along fine with him.    Pleasant Avenue...