In Chelsea most men stay home if they are regular. They set their role in life early, and they don’t change it. If a man is a longshoreman, he doesn’t sell shoes. If a man is a hustler, he won’t pick pockets. A safe-cracker does not strong-arm in alleys. Chelsea likes to know who and what a man is, just the same as the big world wants to know. A man should decide early and for keeps what he will be from the choices he is given. That is what people want in Chelsea, and in the big world. The only difference is that in Cheslea the choices tend to be different.

I’ve had too many jobs in too many places. I’ve been a seaman and a waiter, tourist guide and farmhand, private cop and actor, newspaperman and over-age student. Almost any work a man can do with one arm, no special training except in juvenile delinquency, and a useless education. I remember a professor I had out in San Francisco who complained that all I had learned in my haphazard studying didn’t add up to a hill of beans. I’m not an engineer or a CPA. I’m not a scientist or a scholar. And I’m overqualified, as they say, to make a good waiter or deckhand. All I had done, that professor pointed out, was learn a lot without increasing my market value.

In Chelsea this adds up to not being regular. When a dockhand knows more than the hiring boss, people are uneasy. I keep my mouth shut as much as possible, and most people in Chelsea don’t know my whole guilty secret; but I can’t hide it all, and they sense that I don’t quite belong anymore. They know that I read books. Reading is one of the dangers of the sea. A sailor has too much time. It is also a danger of living too much alone in strange cities. A man can learn too much by reading.