Grandpa Nat

Grandpa Nat had a fans and motors storefront business UNITED BLOWER next to OTB off of Canal Street on the lower east side of Manhattan. He let the drunks and bums use his bathroom and he regularly took them out to breakfast. "They need a good meal, he'd say" He was the unofficial Mayor of Canal Street smoking his cigars and always smiling. He wore a diamond Shriner's pin on his lapel.

When I was 17 and ran away from home I got an apartment on 150 Mott Street between grand and Broome. I would eat lunch with grandpa. He had an old oak teacher's desk and he'd pull out the sliding wooden tray teachers used for homework, and I'd have my apple or orange. Those were my no eating days. I flirted with anorexia coming from a high-pressure affluent advertising family it was a natural fit. My answer to most things was to go silent and not eat until I discovered Providence Rhode Island.