At the Bushwick apartment, the 'superintendent' was this neanderthal of a man whose face wore the scars of a hard life lived. He would knock on my door in a drunken stupor and ask to 'borrow' some money. To avoid standing there listening to his paranoid suspicions of the Korean deli owners as 9/11 conspirators, I finally would give him 20 dollars. Thankfully I only broke down the one time. I guess he remembered well enough to stay clear of me as long as he owed me money.

Very soon before I moved out, the super had been brutally mugged in Fort Greene. When he returned from a long stay in the hospital, his face severely disfigured. He told me of how the muggers smashed him in the face with a brick and left him unconscious on the sidewalk. The violence seemed more senseless considering they ended up taking all his money...about 20 dollars.