Rob's Creative Outlet

An Actual Letter from a Long Time Customer

2009-07-01T22:30:00.004-04:00

Dear Kind Folks of my credit card company:

Earlier today, I tried to pay my account by your easy to use automated phone system. As you can see from your records, I have used this payment process every month for the last several years. When I dialed the number, I was greeted with a new recording reminding me of a recent email from you changing my payment due date, and that due to these emails to all your card users that you were experiencing an unusually large call volume, and that I would get better service online.

When I elected to remain on hold because my payment due date was tomorrow instead of next week, which you unilaterally changed without adequate notice. I heard a second message stating that I would be on hold for four to six minutes. I thought that this was a reasonable amount of time, so I continued to hold. At this point I heard a phone ringing sound and I was transferred to a new area, the area I wanted in the first place, the area to pay by phone. Once I went through all the familiar prompts I got to the final phase of making the payment, confirmation by inputting my zip code. I entered my zip code and heard “we did not recognize your input. To confirm your payment please enter your zip code.” I reentered my zip code and got the same message again, reentered my zip code and received the same message yet again. The phone rang again and I was told by an electronic voice to please hold for an operator.

At this point I was put on hold and trapped by music that could have only been devised to induce coma, or possibly to encourage the listener to down a fistful of Valium and chase it with a quart of bourbon. This Purgatory lasted eighteen minutes, whereupon I heard a loud click and blessed silence. Imagine my feelings when, after two minutes of silence, the next thing I heard was a familiar phone company message of “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again…” I was cut off.

I need to know if my payment went through. Call me immediately. If I am given a late charge due to this situation I will pay down my balance as soon as possible and end our relationship, which will no doubt spare hundreds of trees due to the reduction of junk mail you send me weekly stuffed with checks you want me to write at the highest 'cash advance' interest rate. This will also undoubtedly spare my postal carrier dozens of physical therapy visits due to his decreased load.

Cordially,

Robert Bronstein

The Shop at the End of the Rainbow

2009-02-24T22:37:00.011-05:00

Lately, no matter what Liz Charles did, it seemed to come out wrong. For the past several months she was on a losing streak of biblical proportions. The company she worked for went out of business and gave her minimal severance. Unemployment didn’t pay enough to cover her bills and she was rapidly depleting her savings. Soon she would be broke.
She applied for dozens of jobs to no avail. She was becoming more and more depressed over every bad job interview. This depression began to feed on itself- she seemed to carry a negative aura that seemed to be perceived by every hiring manager she encountered. Weeks were turning into months. Her unemployment ran out and her savings was evaporating.
Most of Liz’s friends didn’t want to be around her when she got negative, which was becoming more and more often. It was then that her boyfriend of nearly three years dumped her. She withdrew even further.
She stopped opening her mail, dreading the bills she couldn’t pay. How much more bad news could she take?
She looked at the pile of unopened mail dating back nearly a month. She picked up an envelope from her bank. She opened it and saw last month’s statement, confirming her fears. She didn’t have enough to cover next month’s rent.
Liz picked up the phone and called her sister, getting her answering machine.
“Joanne, it’s Liz. I need to talk to you. It’s important. Call me.”
Liz looked at the next letter in the pile. It was marked “URGENT.” Her visa card reached its maximum and if she didn’t call to set up a payment plan, her account would be turned over to a collection agency. She took a deep breath and opened her phone bill. She was two months behind and there was a disconnect notice enclosed in red, boldfaced type. She looked at the cutoff date and then at her calendar. She had three days of phone service remaining. She called her friend Kristy, the one friend who hadn’t turned their back on her. Kristy also wasn’t home.
Liz shouted out loud to no one. Her apartment was as empty as her life.
The phone rang. Liz jumped as though she had been shocked. It rang a second time. She picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Is this Elizabeth Charles?”
“Yes.”
“This is Gerald Perkins with Interstate Financial.
Liz’s heart sank. The collection calls were beginning.
“Interstate Financial has been contracted to collect your Macy’s account. I’d like to set up a payment plan so that you can resolve your situation with Macy’s.”
“Mr. Perkins, believe me, nothing would make me happier today than to be able to do that, but I’m not in any position today.”
“You know, continued nonpayment will not only greatly harm your credit, but will eventually lead to legal action.”
“I know that. I’m telling you I’m broke and out of work.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But we do need to set up something. Can’t you even promise a hundred dollars a month?”
“I can promise anything. The real question is can I live up to any promise. Today the answer to that is no.”
“I’ll call you back in two weeks. Let’s hope your luck changes. We can’t put this off much longer or serious consequences will arise. I’m sorry.”
“I understand.”
“Good-bye.”
“Thank you. Good-bye.”
Liz wondered how much longer Mr. Perkins would be nice to her. She knew he would start pressuring her sooner than later.
The phone rang again. This time she let the answering machine get it.
“Liz, it’s Joanne.”
Liz grabbed the phone.
“Hi, I’m here.”
“You just called me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So? Here I am.”
“I’m in a real bind, Joanne.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t have next month’s rent and I’m maxed on my cards. I haven’t had a job interview in a month. I don’t know where to turn.”
“Well I have nothing to give. Daycare costs nearly half of what I make. I’m not even sure why I’m working. I think I’d be happier at home with the kids and let Bill do all the work.”
“You have a husband and a job, and he’s got a really good job as well. I’ve got nothing.”
“You say that like it’s my fault. I’m not the one who fucked up.”
“I’ll get a job sooner or later.”
“You needed one at least three months ago, and what were you doing? Coming up with a plan to make and sell purses instead of taking that computer class I told you about.”
“I have a lot of applications out. One will come through, I know it. It’s just a matter of time.”
“You wasted all that time with your pie-in-the-sky ideas that got you nowhere. Well, your pie has smacked you in the face. How could you let this happen?”
“How am I supposed to answer that?”
“Bill and I work hard for what we have, and we don’t have much. If I give you this month’s rent, then there’ll be next month.”
“Joanne, this can’t last much longer. The pendulum has to swing the other way, I know it. I feel it. There just has to be something out there for me.”
“Look, Liz, you have to find some way to stop the bleeding. We don’t have the money to give you, and that’s that.”
They both hung up on each other at the same exact moment.
Liz began pacing back and forth in her living room, going faster and faster. Then, she sat on her sofa and suddenly burst into tears. She had no idea what to do next. She cried for several minutes before pulling herself together.
She got off the sofa and went into the bathroom to throw some cold water on her face. She looked at herself in the mirror, her green eyes red-rimmed and puffy. Her auburn hair was hanging like thousands of threads that had been blown and tangled by a high-speed fan.
“Christ, you look like hell,” she said to her mirror. “Who’s going to hire you looking like that?” She heaved a deep sigh. “Maybe I should go out for a walk and get some fresh air.”
Liz left her apartment building and walked to the corner, a busy thoroughfare. A newspaper-vending box screamed out headlines: MORE LAYOFFS ON HORIZON read one paper. JOBLESS RATE SOARS stated another. She burst into tears once again.
She looked at the traffic. She saw a large truck speeding along the boulevard in the right lane. She suddenly thought there was nothing left and she could take no more. She just wanted it to be over. She stepped off the curb into the lane and closed her eyes.
Liz heard the squeal of tires and a blaring horn. She braced for the impact.
The next thing she heard was the voice of the truck driver.
“HEY LADY! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE ROAD AND LOOK WHERE YOU’RE GOING, YOU CRAZY BITCH!!!”
She opened her eyes to see the bumper of the truck was inches from her. She snapped out of it. “LOOK WHERE I’M GOING? LOOK WHERE I’M GOING? I DID LOOK! I WENT EXACTLY WHERE I WANTED TO GO! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SPEEDING YOU LAZY ASSHOLE!” Liz stepped back onto the sidewalk and shook her fist at him.
The truck driver cocked his head to one side as though he was a dog listening to his master. A handful of pedestrians stared at Liz with shock, but not one went to her assistance. Liz felt more alone than ever.
“I can’t even do that right,” Liz muttered to herself as she headed back toward her apartment.
She let herself back in the door and saw her answering machine was blinking. She hit the button.
“You have-one-new-message,” came the electronic voice. “Wednesday-one-fourteen-pm.”
“Hey, Liz, it’s Kristy. I’m back. Give me a call.”
She picked up the phone. “Hi, Kristy, it’s Liz.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I can’t even kill myself right.”
“What? That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be. I actually walked into traffic today.”
“Jesus.”
“I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I feel useless.”
“Stay put. I’m coming over. Right now.”
Liz hung up the phone. “Thank God for Kristy,” she said to herself, out loud. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
Forty-five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Liz went to the intercom.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me.”
She hit the buzzer and Kristy came up the stairs, bags in hand.
“I brought some Chinese food and a bottle of wine.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
Liz went to the kitchen and took both salad and dinner plates out of a cabinet. She opened a drawer and took out forks, some butter knives, and serving spoons. Kristy joined her in the kitchen and picked two glasses out of the dish rack.
“There are plastic settings,” Kristy said. “You don’t need to dirty anything.”
“I don’t want to eat off of plastic. I need to feel like I’m eating a special meal.”
Liz opened a carton and took out an egg roll. She tore open packets of sweet and sour sauce and hot mustard, mixed the two on a salad plate and smeared the egg roll with the mixture.
“I don’t know how you can eat it with that much mustard,” Kristy said. “It’s too hot.”
“I need to feel the spice. I need to feel alive.”
“Boy oh boy, do you need a night out.”
“I need more than that.”
Kristy raised her glass. “To better luck, starting tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll drink to that,” Liz said.
They ate in silence.
They drank the wine in front of the television. Liz turned on a classic movie channel. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was on. Humphrey Bogart had just won the lottery.
“If only something like that happened to me,” Liz said. “I need a swift turn of luck. Something to get me out of this.”
“Something will come,” Kristy offered. “It has to.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to,” Liz retorted. “But it would be nice if it did.”
The two friends continued to talk with the movie in the background. The classic movie channel was a perfect escape-just what the doctor ordered. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was followed by It’s a Gift. Liz needed the silliness of the old W. C. Fields film. The scene with Fields attempting to shave while sharing the bathroom mirror with his daughter was hilarious. After many more comedic bits there would be a happy ending with W. C. Fields sitting on the porch of his new house at his orange grove in sunny California. The two old movies temporarily undid the damage of weeks of bad news. Liz was able to push the bad thoughts away from the forefront for another day.
Kristy got up from the sofa.
“I have to go. I have to get up for work early tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thanks for coming over. And thanks for dinner.”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You’re sure? Call me if you need me. I’m serious.”
“I’ll be fine. Really.”
Kristy gave Liz a long look.
“Go on,” Liz gave her a shooing motion. “I’m over it, I swear.”
“Here, go get yourself something.” Kristy gave Liz a couple of twenties. “Go someplace you’ve never been and spend some money on something silly. Hey- I saw this resale shop on my way here. The place looks like it’s a hundred years old but somehow I’ve never noticed it before. It’s called Another Man’s Treasure. There was some interesting stuff in the window. Check it out. Tell me if it’s worth stopping in.”
“Paying me to be your junk shop scout, eh?”
“Sure. Treat it like a gig as a mystery shopper. Give me an evaluation.”
The next morning Liz woke up feeling possibilities in the air. She decided she’d pamper herself as best as she could. Not having a masseur handy she made due with a foot log roller she bought some time ago that mostly gathered dust. As she rolled it under her bare feet, first one, then the other, she wondered why she didn’t do this more often. It felt great. She got into the shower and stood under the hot water, arching her back, loosening every muscle. She poured a handful of shampoo over her head and massaged her scalp, then rinsed. She stood under the cascade of hot water for another few minutes, then massaged in some conditioner. After the second rinse she was feeling more relaxed than she had in months. She got out of the shower and dried off, putting on her terrycloth robe.
Liz was doing whatever she could to drive her negative thoughts away. The glow of the nice dinner was wearing off and the pile of the rest of the unopened mail stood close by. She saw it as a monument to her ineptness.
“Stop thinking that way!” She yelled at herself, out loud. “You’re not inept! It’s just a streak of bad luck!”
She pulled herself together, dried her hair, then poured herself a bowl of Raisin Bran. She read the side of the box as she crunched her flakes, put the empty bowl in the sink and filled it with water. “I’ll wash it later.”
She realized she was starting to talk to herself out loud a lot. “I’m going to become one of those weird old ladies who talks to pigeons in the park.” She shook off the image. She saw something out of the corner of her eye and turned to look at the table. The two twenties were there. “Kristy was right. I should go out and get myself something.”
Liz went into the bedroom and took off her robe. She looked at herself in the mirror. “Not bad. I’ve seen worse. It’s not hopeless. Your thighs are a bit chunky, but you could still turn some heads.” She put on her underwear and opened her closet door, picking out a plain yellow top and jeans. “Well, let’s see what ‘Another Man’s Treasure’ has to offer.” She left her bedroom, picked up her purse, her keys, and the two twenty dollar bills. She opened her purse to add the two twenties to her on-hand capital, about twelve dollars. She realized that she had been getting pretty good at rationing her remaining cash. She had been taking sixty out of the bank each week, and when it was done she refused to take out another dime. Sometimes she went without cash for most of the week.
Liz left her building and walked down the block, towards the busy street where she had her crisis the day before. She looked at the newspaper boxes and at the traffic. She realized that she never looked up the number or address of the store, and Kristy had only told her that it was on the way between their apartments. It could be any number of places. She headed down the busy street in the direction of Kristy’s place. She checked the internet yellow pages on her cell phone and the place didn’t seem to exist.
The sky suddenly was cloudy, then just plain dark. The wind picked up, scattering shreds of newspaper and hurling grit into Liz’s face like little projectiles. A storm was imminent.
“Perfect. I left the house with no jacket or umbrella.” At the intersection of two busy streets, she saw a coffee shop and ducked inside, just before it started to pour.
“Can I get you something?” A waitress asked.
“I’ll have some coffee.” Liz looked out the window at the downpour.
“Don’t worry. I think it’ll blow over pretty soon,” the waitress said. “The prediction was for scattered thunderstorms. Give it 20 minutes, a half hour maybe.”
“Thanks. I walked out without an umbrella. I didn’t see the weather report.”
“Relax a bit.”
Liz sipped her coffee and thumbed through a newspaper. She read the want ads. The employment section was thin. The few jobs that were available were all entry-level or minimum wage. She was getting depressed again. When the rain stopped, Liz paid her tab, put down a tip and went back out.
Visible rays of sunlight sliced through the cumulous clouds and the sky began to look like a colorized Ansel Adams photo. She saw a rainbow that seemed to be rooted in the street that intersected the road that she had been walking on. Liz realized this could easily be the street that Kristy took to get to Liz’ place. This was on the way between the two apartments. She walked towards the image of the rainbow.
“This is silly. It’s an illusion. The end of the rainbow keeps moving.” She kept walking towards it anyway. Another block, and then, there it was. It was unmistakable.
The building looked like it was at least a hundred years old. A wooden, hand painted sign hung over the door. “Another Man’s Treasure” had French windows, a grid of small glass panes, frames around dozens of small curios on shelves just behind, shaded by a weather-beaten awning.
Liz walked up to the building and tried the door. It swung open at the slightest touch. She walked in. It was dimly lit. Several glass cases held costume jewelry and watches. The walls were lined with chipped mirrors, cheap paintings, empty frames, and frameless posters. A few bookcases were completely filled with both hardcover editions and paperbacks. Other bookcases held an eclectic mix of just about anything one could think of- old trophies, racquets, knick-knacks, crystal figurines, ceramic vases, old radios, you name it. Some wooden produce crates held old phonograph records and stacks of old magazines. One large cabinet held dozens of board games. In the middle of the store there were racks of old clothes, jackets and coats. It was as though she had stepped into the attics of two dozen sets of pack rat grandparents.
The place had its own atmosphere. The sunlight that leaked in through a few tears in the awning illuminated the dust in the air. It was as though the place was lit for an early Orson Welles film set. The shop had a slight scent of mustiness, in keeping with the age and contents of the room.
Behind the counter stood a man of about seventy, with thick white hair and even thicker glasses. He wore clothing that might have come off the racks in the middle of the room- a red plaid flannel shirt with brown slacks, held up with a thin dress belt.
“Good afternoon, young lady!” He boomed out to Liz.
Liz flinched a bit at the volume of the greeting. “Good afternoon,” she replied tentatively.
“Welcome!”
“Thank you.”
“Take a look around!”
“Okay.” Liz was a little taken aback by this man.
“Look, look! I’m sure there’s something here that’s perfect for you! You hear me? Perfect! Just what the doctor ordered!”
“I’ll look,” she said, almost annoyed at his insistence.
She poked around for a few minutes, occasionally looking back at the counter to see if the old man was watching her. He was not only watching her, she thought, but he was watching her with the intensity of a cat watching a mouse hole for movement. Liz felt like she should reopen the conversation. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a need to talk to the man.
“You know I must have walked past this place a hundred times and never noticed it before.”
“I hear that a lot.”
“How long have you been in business?”
“Me or the store?”
“I guess the store.”
“This shop has been in my family for around a hundred years. My grandparents started it, then my parents ran it, and now me.”
“Where do you get this stuff? It’s quite a mix.”
“Estate sales, mostly. Sometimes I go to the back doors of other resale shops, or even the city dump. That’s where the name comes from. Some of this is one man’s trash, so here it becomes another man’s treasure. You never know what you’ll find here. Last week someone found an old toy exactly like the one he used to play with when he was a little boy. It was a tin wind-up duck that rolled across the floor and flapped its wings. The man was overwhelmed with joy at finding it. I think he’d have given me a thousand dollars for that old piece of tin it meant so much to him. The store earned its name that day, I’ll tell you.”
“Wow. That’s a great story.”
“I’ll tell you another one, then. The store almost got named ‘One Man’s Trash,’ but that got nipped in the bud in a New York minute!”
“Oh?”
“As the family lore goes, my grandfather came up with that name.”
“So what happened?”
“As soon as he said it out loud, my grandmother smacked him across the back of his head and yelled ‘NO STORE OF MINE WILL HAVE THE WORD TRASH IN THE TITLE!’ So it became ‘Another Man’s Treasure’ instead.”
Liz laughed.
“You see, you already got yourself something you needed. You did need to laugh, didn’t you?”
“I did, you’re right,” Liz responded with a bit of surprise. “How did you know?”
“Hell, everyone needs a laugh,” the old man shot back. “But I could read it in your face the minute you came in. And that’s not all you need.”
“What else do you think I need?” Liz was getting a little annoyed.
“You need what was one man’s trash, or maybe one woman’s. You came to the right place, I’ll tell you. Keep looking, you’ll find something that’s exactly what you need. It’ll be like magic. Like that man last week. He’s not the only one. There’s a bit of magic in old stuff from the past. It’s seen things and done things you have no idea of.”
I need a winning lottery ticket, Liz thought to herself. She began to look at the knick-knacks in the bookcases. Nothing moved her. She moved to the glass cases that the man stood behind and looked at the costume jewelry. It all looked more like junk than like treasure.
“Take a look at the clothing racks,” the man guided. “I just got in some dresses that look pretty good. Vintage clothing I suppose you’d call it. Or maybe take a look at a coat. Winter’s coming, sooner than you think.”
Liz moved to the clothing racks and started to flip through the hangers, looking quickly from one dress to the next, one blouse to the next. Nothing moved her. She moved to the coats.
“How about one of those minks?”
“Mink is not my style.”
“Are you one of those animal cruelty people?”
“Well, I’m not an activist, but I do think that minks that are being raised to be killed is kind of creepy.”
“Do you eat meat?”
“Yes, some.”
“Well, that’s the same thing. And besides, these mink coats are probably as old as I am. Any cruelty that took place happened long before you were born. You’re not the one who’s being cruel, and those who were have already met their maker and gotten their judgment.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“No guessing about it. You know it’s true.”
“Yeah,” Liz said in an unconvinced acknowledgement.
The old man came out from behind the counter and shuffled slowly towards her. He stood next to Liz at the rack that held the mink coats and picked one off the rack.
“This one. This one is exactly the one for you.” He held up the hanger next to her, measuring the coat to her body. “It hangs to your knees. Not too long. It looks like the shoulders and sleeves match you. Try it.”
“I don’t know…”
“Go ahead! Try it!”
Liz looked at the old coat. There were a few tears and lumps in the lining and the cuffs looked worn and dried out. She thought it might fall apart if she took it off the hanger, but she felt compelled to try it, as though there was another presence in the room, a third unseen force was telling her to. She took the coat off the hanger and slid her right arm into its sleeve, then worked her way into the rest of it. It fit perfectly. The feel of the fur against her hands was warm and inviting.
“It does feel pretty good,” she admitted.
“You should take it.”
“It’s a little ratty, and I have a winter coat anyway.”
“So make it into pillow covers. This is perfect for you, I’m telling you. It’s exactly what you need, I know it.”
She took off the coat and looked for a tag. It was fifty dollars.
“It’s more than what I wanted to spend today anyway.”
“I want you to have it. Tell me what you wanted to spend today.”
“I can only spend forty dollars.”
The old man looked at Liz for a moment.
“I’ll mark it down to forty if you give me a kiss.”
“What?” Liz was truly taken aback now.
“Just a little kiss,” he said, offhandedly.
“No,” she stated flatly.
“Come on!” He cajoled. “Maybe I’ll turn into a frog!”
Liz laughed again. “Don’t you mean a handsome prince?”
“Handsome prince, frog, what’s the difference? It’s all magic.”
“Well, speaking as the woman involved, I can tell you it’ll be a big difference.”
He gave her a penetrating stare for several seconds, then spoke with a quiet, nearly forceful sense of urgency.
“You want this coat. I know it. What’s more, you need it. I’m sure of it.” He then shifted his tone to a dry, almost joke-like patter. “Forty bucks and a little kiss and it’s yours.”
Liz sighed. “Okay, why not.” She leaned towards him and puckered her lips, closing her eyes with a touch of dread.
The old man clasped her upper arms and planted a full kiss on her waiting lips, holding it a moment longer than Liz expected, but she remained still and did not try to pull away. He tasted of stale coffee and a bit of cinnamon.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” He was more stating it than asking.
Liz smiled and handed him the two twenties that Kristy had given her the night before. The old man took the cash and the coat and went back to the counter. He took out a large bag and put the coat inside it, then handed Liz the bag.
“Come again. You can find the perfect gift for someone you care about here. You just come in the door and something will present itself to you. You’ll know it when you see it, just like with this coat.”
Liz looked at him from the door. He gave her a warm, grandfatherly smile. He spoke again.
“See you next time. I’ll be here when you need something special.”
“Good-bye. Oh, what’s your name?”
“Prince Frog.”
“No, really, what’s your name?”
“Elijah.”
“You mean like the angel?”
“Precisely. Like the angel,” the old man stated, as though he may actually be the biblical being. “And your name is…?”
“Elizabeth. But everyone calls me Liz.” Liz looked at Elijah one more time before turning towards the door. She stopped and turned back to look at him one more time. “Well, Elijah, this has been quite the experience,” Liz stated, truthfully.
“Everything you do is an experience of some kind or another,” Elijah stated sagely. “Come again.”
Liz walked out the door and headed home. As she walked, the images of the shop played again and again in her thoughts. When she got back to her apartment she put the bag on the sofa and took out the old coat. She held it up and looked at the torn lining.
“Well, the first thing I should do is take out this ratty old lining,” she said out loud. She put her hand inside the largest tear and started to pull. The dried old material gave quickly. A yellowed envelope fell to the floor. Liz froze for a moment and stared at the envelope. She put the coat on the sofa and bent down to pick up the Cracker-Jack surprise the coat had held for who knows how long.
She held up the envelope to the light and tried to see what might be inside. It wasn’t sealed, but still Liz hesitated to open it. She took a deep breath and picked up the flap. It appeared to be cash. She took out the paper and studied it. There were three ten dollar bills that didn’t seem real. First of all, the bills were the wrong size. They were bigger than any American currency she had ever seen. They seemed to sparkle. They seemed new, unwrinkled, and straight. The serial numbers were sequential. They must have come straight from the bank and gone directly into this envelope.
She took one of them and held it up to study it closely. The face was immediately recognizable but was out of place. It wasn’t Alexander Hamilton. It was Andrew Jackson, the same exact portrait as on the twenty. There were red seals on either side of the portrait, round to the left and x-shaped to the right. She turned it over to look at the back. The number 10 or the word ten appeared on the back in six places, each side mirroring the other. From top to bottom along the sides, the note stated TEN 10 TEN. The 10s appeared to be stamped on poker chips. She looked at the face again. The notes were dated 1923. They had to be real, she reasoned. She carefully put the old ten-dollar notes back into the envelope.
She opened the envelope again and had another look, just to be sure that they were indeed there, that they actually existed. She replaced them again, then, lifted the envelope’s flap and peered inside at the currency.
Liz picked up the phone and called Kristy. When Kristy answered the phone, Liz almost shouted.
“You are not going to believe what happened!”
“What?” Kristy had no idea where this could be going.
“I don’t know where to start! I went to that store!” Liz was almost too excited to talk.
“So, tell me about it!” Kristy had to find out. The excitement was instantly contagious.
“It could be the weirdest place I’ve ever been to. It’s run by this odd old man.”
“Big shock there,” Kristy laughed. “A junk shop run by a weird old man.”
“That’s just the beginning.”
Liz launched into the story of how she found the place, being caught in the rain, the diner, the old man who knew what she wanted, and the price of the kiss. Then getting home and finding the envelope.
“Do you know anything about old money?” Liz asked.
“No. Not a thing. But I’ll bet it’s real. I know that money was bigger at some point way back when. I don’t know when it changed. My grandfather called old bills ‘horse blankets’ so they must have been bigger than what we’re used to.”
“I need to find an expert. Maybe they’re worth something.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
“Where do I even start with this?”
“I don’t know, the Yellow Pages, the better business bureau, maybe there’s an organization of collectors and dealers.”
“I’ll start doing some research.”
“I will too, then we’ll compare notes.”
“Sounds good. I’ll call you later.”
Liz and Kristy hung up at the same moment.
Liz jumped up with excitement. Then she froze for a moment. Liz realized that she hadn’t felt this good in months. She nodded her head and said “Yeah!” out loud. She opened the drawer of the cabinet the phone was perched on and pulled out the Yellow Pages. She looked for coin dealers and studied the listings. One ad caught her eye. It was on the same street as Another Man’s Treasure.
“Well, that street’s been good to me so far,” Liz said to herself out loud as she dialed the phone.
“Lucky Penny, can I help you?”
“Hi, do you deal in old currency?”
“Sure. Is it American currency?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I mean, it looks like American currency, but it’s bigger.”
“Is there a visible date? Is it from before 1929?”
“Yes. 1923.”
“Yes, I’d like to take a look at it. I’m just closing. Can you come in tomorrow?”
“Sure. Tomorrow’s fine.”
Liz hung up the phone and called Kristy back and told her she was going to a coin shop in the morning.
Liz could barely sleep that night. Every once in a while she got up and looked at the envelope again. She must have looked at it a half dozen times. There was no change.
When Liz got up the next morning she wasn’t tired in the slightest. She had a bowl of cereal and a cup of yogurt, picked up the old yellowed envelope and headed to Lucky Penny. It was a couple of blocks closer than Another Man’s Treasure. She walked past the coin shop and continued towards the junk shop, just to make sure it was still there, and not a dream. She stopped at the corner and looked at the shop that seemed to be at the end of the rainbow the day before. There were taller buildings across the street from the shop, and a narrow gap in between two of these buildings provided a frame for a shaft of sunlight to illuminate the odd old man’s store.
Liz backtracked to the coin shop. She took a deep breath and walked inside. Behind the counter sat an old man who could have been related to Elijah. The two men were far from identical, but had enough similarities for Liz to look twice.
“Hello! Can I help you?”
“Yes, I called yesterday just before you closed, about the old currency.”
“Oh, yes, I was hoping you’d come in,” the old man said. “I’m Bill Argent. Pretty good name for someone who deals in money, don’t you think?” He stated cheerfully.
“I’m Liz Charles.” Liz took out the envelope and approached the counter. “Would you take a look at these and tell me what you think?”
The man carefully took the notes out of the envelope. He reached for a magnifying glass and looked closer. He then reached into a drawer and took out some plastic sleeves.
“I’m going to put them into these sleeves for safe keeping. We shouldn’t be handling them too much, it’ll decrease the value. That’s ok with you, right?”
“Of course.”
“Where did you get these?”
“I found them in an old coat. The envelope was inside the lining.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, it’s true.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. These have been out of circulation for some time, and to find them in such good shape is pretty amazing.”
“So, I take it they’re worth more than face value.”
“Yes, they are.”
“What do you think they’re worth?”
“No thinking about it. I know how much.”
“And…?”
“If I were to tell you they were worth ten times their face value, you’d be pretty happy wouldn’t you?”
Liz brightened. “I sure would!”
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
The air seemed to go out of Liz.
“I’m just playing with you. They’re actually worth more than that.”
“Really?”
“I could reach into a drawer right now and give you five hundred bucks apiece and you’d leave here dancing, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh my God! Really? Five hundred each?!” Liz could barely contain herself.
“Do you think I have a nice face?”
“What?” Liz had no idea where this could be going. The question was totally out of left field to her.
“Well, I think I have a very nice face,” Bill Argent said. “I look at it every day. I have to, or I’ll cut myself shaving.”
“Yes, I guess so. I mean, I’ve never had to shave my face or anything, but I can imagine you’d have to look.”
“Yes. And you know what? I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I gave you five hundred each. I’m not greedy, and, I don’t need to be. I’m in good shape.
The only reason I haven’t retired is because I’d die of boredom. I like this business and I like running the store. I just want to make a decent, honest living.”
“Of course. We all want to make a decent living,” Liz still was unsure of this part of the conversation.
“I’m not going to give you market value, though, I still have to make a living. I’ll give you eighty percent. I already know someone who’ll take these off my hands today. It’ll take one phone call. Eighty percent is ok with you, right? I should get twenty percent to turn it around for you in just one day, right?”
“Um, sure,” Liz said, still uncertain of what Bill was talking about.
Bill picked up the phone and punched in a number that he knew by heart. Liz listened as Bill made his pitch to his customer.
“Rick, it’s Bill. You’re never going to guess what just walked into my place this morning. Go ahead, guess!... Nope…. Nope…. Aw, hell, you’re never gonna guess so I’ll tell you. Are you ready? Three poker chips in mint condition. …I swear…. No, I’m not kidding. It’s the real deal. They’ve been in an envelope. Not even a single fold…. Like they just came off the press…. No, they’re real, I’m sure of it. Come on over and look for yourself. And bring your checkbook. Sequential numbers even. You’ve never seen anything like it….Yeah, get your ass over here before I call someone else….I called you first, that’s how highly I think of you….Yeah, you and your fat wallet!”
Liz could hear Rick laughing on the other end of the phone.
“Stick around. It’ll be worth it, believe me.”
Around ten minutes went by when the door opened and a well-dressed middle-aged man walked in.
“Rick, meet Lucky Lizzie,” Bill boomed.
“Hello. You really found these in an envelope?”
“Yeah, inside the lining of an old coat.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Rick said as he looked at the notes in their plastic sheaths. “How much are you asking for them?” Rick looked at Liz.
She looked at Rick in silence trying to come up with a figure when Bill spoke for her.
“Fifteen each. Forty-five thousand for the set.”
Rick looked at Bill and Liz for less than two seconds before announcing his decision. “Done. I’ll go to the bank right now and get you a certified check.”
Liz was speechless.
Rick left the shop almost as quickly as he arrived.
“So, that makes thirty-six thousand dollars for you, my dear. Now isn’t that better than five hundred bucks apiece?”
Liz still couldn’t make any words come out. It was as though she had been struck by lightning. She would be able to pay her back rent, two additional months, get the collection people off her back, even settle some of the cards entirely.
Rick came back in less than a half-hour with the certified check and the exchange was made. Bill then took Liz to his bank where he deposited the check and had her portion drafted into a second certified check for her.
Liz looked at her certified check for thirty-six thousand dollars. She left the bank and walked by Another Man’s Treasure one more time. She looked in the window. A sign hung on the door stating that the store was closed and would reopen after lunch.
Liz hurried to her bank and deposited the check, fearful it might vanish or she’d wake up from the dream. After leaving her bank she walked home in a daze. When she got home the message light on her answering machine was blinking. She pushed the play button and heard the mechanical voice give the time stamp.
“You have one-new-message. Friday-two-eighteen-pm.”
“This is a message for Elizabeth, this is Susan Walker from The Williamsburg Group. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you, but the position is still available and we’re interviewing for it on Monday. Please call me at 272-1441 extension 6624 if you’re still interested so we can set up a time. I really liked your resume and I’d like to meet with you.”
Her mouth dropped open. She had sent that letter and resume at least two or three months ago and barely remembered the job and the company. She played the message again and wrote down the number, then grabbed the phone.
“Hello, Ms. Walker? This is Liz Charles. I’d love to meet with you Monday…. Yes, 10:00 is fine….Yes, I’m looking forward to meeting with you as well. Thank you for calling….Yes, see you then.”
Liz couldn’t believe what had transpired. Her luck had turned, and it all started with picking up one person’s trash at Another Man’s Treasure.

©2008 by Rob Bronstein

Once in a Lifetime, Squared

2005-11-18T12:05:00.000-05:00

On a magical Wednesday night, a Chicago baseball team won the World Series. True, it wasn't the Cubs, the team from the neighborhood of my birth, but I was never one of those Cubs fans that hated the White Sox. Actually, more White Sox fans hate the Cubs than Cubs fans hate the Sox. It's White Sox FANS that Cubs fans more often hate.

I have several friends who love the White Sox. I don't hold it against them. The first game that I can remember going to was in the old Comiskey Park. I sat in the front row of the upper deck in left field. I remember feeling like I was watching the game from up in the sky, and I remember looking over the railing at a great running catch made by Minnie Minoso and sparkling infield play by Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio. The Sox won and everyone was happy. I was probably around five years old.

I was in Wrigley Field before I can remember. My mother and grandmother were both Cubs fans. I have seen hundreds of games in Wrigley. We were always a two team family, since my uncle had been in the White Sox farm system, his career ending when his elbow was shattered in spring training. He hung up his glove and became an insurance salesman.

When I was young, the Wrigley family still owned the Cubs and had very liberal ticket policies. The park was rarely sold out except on summer Saturday and Sunday afternoons. During the week there were regular promotions. Friday was Ladies' Day and Wednesday was Senior Citizen Day. On Ladies' Day women got in free. My grandmother and my mother would pack up my sisters and I and the only ticket purchased was mine. My grandmother could whistle with her fingers in her mouth, using her pinky and ring fingers on both hands to produce a shrill pitch that could be heard for at least a block. Hot dogs and cokes were always a whistle away.

I was ten years old when The Beatles first invaded the U.S.A., and rock and roll is my other great love. Blues based rock and roll. I did have a fling with art rock in the 70s, but I came back to my senses. I was a little too young to see the greatest bands of the sixties, other than the original Jefferson Airplane, who I saw in a free concert in Grant Park in early summer of 1968, just after the riots that followed the assasination of Martin Luther King and before the Democratic National Convention.

The first album that I ever bought was Jimi Hendrix' "Are You Experienced?" My second was "Willie and the Poor Boys" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. My taste was ahead of my age. I was more of a Rolling Stones fan than Beatles, since "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" was much closer to my personal experience than "She Loves You." The Kinks entertained me and The Yardbirds blew me away. It was no surprise that I became a big fan of Cream.

On that magical Wednesday night three weeks ago, the night the White Sox won the world series, Cream was having a reunion show at Madison Square Garden. Actually they did four nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London and three nights at The Garden. The Wednesday was the last show. Tickets were going for an insane amount of money, it being the last of only seven shows the supergroup performed, the first time since 1968 and possibly the last time ever.

I was only 15 years old when the group broke up. Too young, as far as my parents were concerned, to go to a rock concert. They would not give me the $6 ticket price. In October of 2005 people were paying more than one hundred times that for a pair, and some scalpers were getting a thousand bucks for the first ten rows.

I went to The Garden and got in line for cancellations. I stood in line for two hours, my legs and back aching. The line didn't move an inch, and there were at least 100 people in front of me. I figured that if I didn't get in, I'd go home and watch the game, the Sox being up three games to none.

Show time was 8:00 on paper, though people who had gone to the previous shows said that it didn't begin until 8:30. At 7:55 I left the immovable line to walk around and look for someone with an extra ticket, about to panic that they would be stuck with it. Within minutes I got a ticket for face value, behind the stage. I was inside!

I sat around 50 or 60 feet over Ginger Baker's left shoulder. Occasionally they turned around and played to the back of the house. There was a huge simulcast video magnification screen just over my head if I wanted to see close-ups.

The show was fantastic. Opeing with "I'm So Glad", the band couln't have stated it better. Jack Bruce was singing my feelings. At first I thougth that they were looking old. Ginger Baker played somewhat slow and workman-like. As the show went on and they warmed up, he got better and better. His fills got more and more complicated, but were never gratuitous. Eric Clapton played an amazing version of "Stormy Monday." I was enthralled. During "Tales of Brave Ulysses" I called my friend Mike, put my cell phone on speaker phone, and held up the phone to play the song to him in the Chicago suburbs. "Crossroads" was incredible. There was also "Sitting on Top of the World" "Born Under a Bad Sign" "Politician" and a dozen others. After "White Room" came "Toad" where Ginger Baker played a drum solo that lasted around twelve minutes, attacked with Buddy Rich intensity. At three different times during the solo I burst out laughing in disbelief. Baker is closing in on 70, after all. The encore was, of course, "Sunshine of Your Love." It was truly a once in a lifetime show.

The show came down at 10:30. On my way out of The Garden at one of the vending stands the television was on, set to the game. It was 0-0 in the sixth inning! I hadn't missed anything! I made my way to the subway. The first train to come by was a Q express, taking me to 14th street. I stopped for a beer and saw the one run scored in the eighth and hurried home to see the game end and the champagne spilled. The last time a Chicago team won the World Series my father was four months old, my mother not born yet, my grandmother the baseball fan was thirteen.

Truly once in a lifetime, squared.

Exercise #2

2005-08-13T16:40:00.000-04:00

This exercise is a rememberance of a major moment in my life, written in first person present. Part one is from my point of view, part two is from the point of view of another person in the story, part three is my point of view again, summing up the story's significance. The assignment was written in class, the first part in ten minutes, the second in five, and the third part in two minutes. This is why it may seem incomplete, since I had to stop writing on command in each part.

PART ONE

It's hotter than hell already at it's not even 8:00am. I see on the cover of then Sun-Times that a woman took a dive out a 90th floor window of the John Hancock Building last night. I pick up the paper to read on the bus on my way to work at Cotter and Company, the distribution arm of True Value Hardware on Clybourn Avenue.

The story is gruesome. She bounced off the side of the building twice on the way down and they have a picture of the building with a dotted line tracking her flight. The reporter tells his readers about how she broke apart into pieces and how some of her landed into an open convertable top car of some poor unsuspecting slob driving on Delaware Place- the worst kind of surprise I can imagine.

The day unloading a boxcar of Bobby Hull hockey games plods on as I sweat through my clothes. It must be at least 100 degrees inside the boxcar. At 4:00 I can't wait to get out into the fresh air. I can't face the overcrowded bus so I decide to hitchhike home. A Volkswagon stops at the corner of Diversey and Clybourn. A friendly face beackons me to join him.

I notice the windshield is plastered with FOP stickers. Being a hippie kid I would be reluctant to get into a car with someone affiliated with the Chicago Police, but I'm already in and I want to get home.

"Did you see the Sun-Times? I can't believe that woman jumped out of the Hancock Building!" I say as we pass a row of newspaper boxes.

"She didn't jump," he says to me.

PART TWO

I've been on this case for eighteen straight hours and my C.O. has ordered me to go home and get some rest. I can't believe what I've seen and heard today and last night. This motherfucker's guilty and I'm going to nail his ass to a tree in Grant Park for the whole world to see.

I'm going to pick up this kid. I can't be alone with my thoughts. I'm ready to burst.

"She didn't jump. First of all, kid, let me tell you- I've been working this case all night. She was naked. No way could she break that window. It's practically bulletproof. The guy who owns the apartment first tells me he wasn't there, then he tells me he was in the bathroom and didn't see anything.

"Then he tells my partner he tried to stop her but couldn't reach her in time."

PART THREE

Six months later the coroner's office announced that it was a suicide and the police investigation was ordered halted. Officially there was no crime.

That's when, as a teenager, I found out that justice was for sale to the highest bidder.

EPILOGUE, NOT PART OF THE EXERCISE:

The detective told me so many of the details of this case I did not have the time to recount them in the exercize. The Hancock Building was still only a few years old and it was easy to find people who had been on the building crew. Construction workers remembered a hardhat guy had bet his life on the strenghth of the windows, and at a lunch break took bets, with many workers in on the bet, putting up five bucks a piece that the windows couldn't be broken. For around what would have been a month's pay in those days, the construction worker, a big bruiser wearing a hardhat, ran as fast as he could, head down, and bounced off a window. The owner of the luxury condo owned a large business just off the Kennedy Expressway. Just after the case was settled he sold his business and left town. The business was sold to a company that was commonly thought to be a mob front for money laundering. I can only think that his business was sold to buy off the coroner's office.

works in progress

2005-07-13T14:18:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been way too long. What can I say. The NYC school system overwhelmed me this year...

The following is an exercise, written in a writing workshop with Gretchen Cryer. The exercise is in two parts, part one a first person narrative rememberance written in present tense, part two the same, but from another person's point of view. These exercises are written as fast as possible without editing, part one in ten minutes and part two in five.

First Class Session, Exercise One

I arrive at the ballpark at my usual time- in time for batting practice in hopes of catching a ball.
I buy a beer. It’s Old Style, the only brand sold in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. Its only advantage. I would never drink this in any other location unless it was the only brand available. It’s hot, sunny, and I can smell the freshly cut grass of the outfield.

I check in with the center field camera man and tell him to let my friend- another camera man- know that I am in the ballpark, what I’m wearing and where I’m sitting. My friend has promised me he’ll put me on TV during the seventh inning stretch.

The game is going badly. The Cubs are down 9-0 going into the bottom of the sixth. I almost leave, but, saying that, I almost never leave a game until it’s over. The Cubs score two in the bottom of the sixth.

During the seventh inning stretch I get up, wearing my red Second City sweatshirt and hold up my bad beer and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Harry Caray ends the song barking out his usual “Let’s get some runs!”

As if the team takes the hint, they score three more runs in the bottom of the seventh and four in the eighth to tie it up.

Nine runs! Unbelievable! They win it in the tenth! The greatest comeback I have ever seen in the hundreds of games I’ve seen in person and unknown thousands I have watched on TV.

I get home and my answering machine is jammed with messages from people who watched the game and saw me…

Part Two

It’s mid-February. Pitchers and catchers are showing up for spring training.

WGN is rerunning a game from last season- the great comeback game against the Houston Astros- get the city to think summer, warm weather, and that THIS is NEXT YEAR! The year the Cubs will finally do it!

I roll a joint and settle down in front of the TV- happy to already know the outcome of the great comeback game I never got to see the first time.

It’s the seventh inning and the Cubs are down 9-2. I get up and join Harry and sing like an idiot in the middle of winter, waiting for the tundra of my front yard to defrost.

Hey! Look at that! Rob’s on TV! There’s snow on the ground up to my asshole but I know there’s hope for the season! Rob’s at the ballpark, it’s last July and he’s about to see the greatest comeback ever!

I pick up the phone and punch in his number-

“Hey! I saw you at the ballpark today! Can’t wait for the season to start…"

And Now, a Word from Our Ballgame

2004-09-12T08:02:00.000-04:00

“Hello everyone and welcome to beautiful Phoneco Ballpark, home of the Wireless Wonders. I’m Chipper Fitzpatrick along with my partner, hall of fame shortstop Big Joe Shoeless.”
“That’s me!”
“It’s a beautiful night here at Phoneco, and we’re ready for a thrilling game between the Wireless Wonders and their division rivals, the Anchorage Slow Grazing Moose.”
“You know, Chipper, I’ve said this before, but I think the Slow Grazing Moose should change their name and move to a city that’s less earthquake prone.”
“And maybe with an actual population!”
“That too.”
“That said, it’s time for our national anthem, brought to you by the Nissan Corporation. You know, Nissan makes fine automobiles, motorcycles, snowmobiles, watercraft, aircraft, and even weather satellites.”
“Not only that, Chipper, but they also make high quality recreational equipment such as gymnastic apparatus and archery gear! Where there’s life, there’s Nissan!”
“They even employ some Americans!”
“That they do, Chipper!”
“Wow, did they sing the Star Spangled Banner already? I guess it’s time for the ceremonial first pitch. Speaking of pitch, pitch is another word for tar and tar is one of the main ingredients for asphalt. You know what that means, right Joe?”
“Indeed I do, Chipper! Our ceremonial first pitch is brought to you by Caterpillar Tractor, makers of high quality road building and construction equipment for nearly a hundred years!”
“Next time you folks need a front-end loader, go to your nearest Caterpillar Tractor dealer. You’ll find friendly, knowledgeable service for all of your heavy construction needs, right, Joe?”
“I bought the tractor with the disk attachment for my garden! It has a tight turning radius and a hitch to pull the anhydrous ammonium nitrate tank so I can till and fertilize at the same time!”
“Boy, aren’t you the smarty-pants!”
“Ha ha! My tomatoes are as big as a Volkswagon!”
“That reminds me, Joe, this year’s Jetta is one nice car!”
“It has twin front suspension and a four point two liter engine that’ll zip you from zero to sixty in a jackrabbit six point three seconds, getting you on the freeway in no time!”
“And don’t forget that great sounding CD player and full quad speaker system, its spacious trunk, and room in the back seat for two Great Danes!”
“While we’re on the subject of Great Danes, Chipper, the first inning is brought to you by Bob’s Pets, official supplier of dog food to the Wireless Wonders!”
“Bob’s Pets also has a great selection of tropical fish and a full compliment of exotic lizards!”
“You got that right!”
“So head on over to Bob’s Pets, on Main Street and in dozens of other, easy to find locations throughout the tri-state area.”
“We’re going into the bottom of the second inning now with the Slow Grazing Moose leading three to two.”
“This game is really flying by, Chipper.”
“Sure is, Joe.”
“Speaking of flying, next time you folks take a vacation or need to go anywhere on business, fly on TWA, the official airline of the Wireless Wonders.”
“They went out of business, Joe, this year’s sponsor is Delta.”
“Oh, right. Next time you folks take a vacation or need to go anywhere on business, fly on Delta, the official airline of the Wireless Wonders.”
“Last time I flew on Delta the peanuts were the freshest I ever had!”
“And they have the friendliest flight crews in the business!”
“Delta flies to more cities in North America than any other airline!”
“Where did you fly on that last trip?”
“I flew to Seattle, Joe!”
“Which brings to mind, Chipper, this half inning is brought to you by Seattle’s Best Coffee stores. Seattle’s Best Coffee. We’re not Starbucks.”
“Did Billy-Bob Hannibal just hit a home run?”
“I wasn’t watching. I was reading the commercial script. Hey, Jack, could you show us a replay of that last play?”
“Joe, this replay would look really great on a new Mitsubishi flat screen HDTV, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s true, Chipper, I have one in my living room!”
“Mitsubishi flat screen TVs and HDTVs are available at Circuit City and Best Buy.”
“You can also get them at Sears!”
“We’re going into the top of the fourth inning with the Wireless Wonders leading this thriller, five to four.”
“I think it’s the top of the fifth.”
“You’re right! Where does the time go?”
“The tempus is fugiting, alright!”
“Ha, ha! Your vocabulary has gotten into Dennis Miller land, Joe!”
“And I’m starting to use big words, too! You’re a good influence on me, Chipper!”
“We’re going into the bottom of the sixth inning here at beautiful Phoneco park, with the Slow Grazing Moose leading six to five…”

Three Years Ago Today

2004-09-11T22:12:00.000-04:00

On September 9th, 2001, at noon, Jayne and I were married in a lovely ceremony in the outdoor garden of Dolphin's restaurant on Cooper Square. It was a stunningly beautiful day. The weather was perfect. After the ceremony we went inside and had Sunday brunch. I had made four CD's, each about 75 minutes. An eclectic mix of our favorite rock, blues, r&b, jazz, and even a few show tunes, drove our guests to a dancing frenzy. In the early evening many of us met at The Sidewalk for a jam session with The Doughboys, joined by special guests. People remember the occasion as the last fun thing they did before the world as we knew it changed for the foreseeable future, if not forever.

That night, Jayne and I went to the Tribeca Grand hotel and stayed in a suite on the sixth floor, our windows looking at the Twin Towers, the site of our first date. We sipped champagne and toasted our life together and a future of happiness.

The next morning, we went out to breakfast, taking our time, laughing at people who were hurrying to work. We were on vacation. Our honeymoon would start the next day. We thought about going to the Trade Center, but decided to go when we got back to town. We headed back to our apartment to finish packing for our trip to San Francisco and Wine Country. The weather started to look ominous, and Jayne (not a good flyer) got nervous. I told her we had nothing to worry about.

When we got to JFK, the sky blackened and it started to pour. We boarded our plane, which had a departure time of 5:20 pm. Jayne sank her nails into my arm as we headed to the taxi way. The plane stopped on the taxi way and the pilot announced that we would be delayed until the weather cleared.

After a little while, the pilot announced that he was going to shut off the engines to conserve fuel, and that the flight attendants were going to serve drinks, and that we could unfasten our seat belts, move around, and even use our cell phones. I got a call from Ron Nicholas, an old college friend, purely by chance. We hadn't spoken in years, and he called me to ask if I had any connections to help out his nephew, who was interested in becoming a sound engineer. We had a pleasant conversation for about ten minutes before the pilot announced that they were going to serve dinner and show a movie. Huge lightening bolts filled the sky, and Jayne got a call from her brother, who was still in town. He and his son were at Yankee Stadium and the game was being postponed because of the storm. We eventually took off after 10:00 pm.

After an uneventful flight we landed at SFO well after midnight. We went to the car rental desk where we had our reservations. It was around 1:00 am Pacific time, 4:00 am Eastern time, September 11th. There were no large cars left, and we had too much luggage to use a mid-size. We told the attendant that we had just gotten married and that we were starting our honeymoon. He congratulated us and gave us an upgrade to a luxury car.

Our honeymoon was planned to be the first four days in Wine Country and then three days in San Francisco. We drove to the Airport Best Western, where we had always planned on staying that first night, since we knew we would land at dark or later and we had no desire to drive on strange country roads after dark.

Even though we were tired, our body clocks were still on Eastern time, and we woke up at 6:00 am. At home, Jayne always gets up at 7:00 and turns on the Today Show. That day we didn't. A little honeymooning began, and afterwards we got into the shower and continued being giggling newlyweds. We got out of the shower and I started shaving. Jayne dried off and finally turned on the TV. It was 7:30 am, Pacific time, 10:30 Eastern. The first channel had the Fox logo and the news was covering a huge fire that looked like a trailer for an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie. She started to flip from channel to channel and the same thing was on every station. She called out to me that something was strange. I was just finishing shaving and looked over at the TV when she located a station that had the NBC logo. The sound came on, and the first thing we heard was Tom Brokaw's voice saying "And the World Trade Center is no more."

Jayne started to scream. "Oh, my God, it's real!" I ran to the TV and looked at the screen. It became a picture-in-picture with the local San Francisco news staff announcing that the bridges were closed and the airport area was being quarantined and that road blocks were being set up. They put up a map on the screen where the road blocks were being placed. We were inside the quarantine area. We quickly decided to get out. I reasoned that whatever was going on we were better off in a small town inland than a big city on the coast.

We drove out of the hotel parking lot filled with people standing around in shock wondering what to do next. We drove the long way around San Francisco Bay, even though we had heard an announcement that the bridges were not closed after all.

We stopped for breakfast in a diner on the far side of the bay, just off the interstate. A party of four at the next table were loud and laughing about something. We were on our cell phones calling relatives to tell them we were safe. Since we had New York cell phones nobody could call us, we could only call out. The people at the next table heard that we were in from New York and they got quiet.

We made it to Healdsburg at noon. It was like stepping into Brigadoon. It was like nothing happened. We had accommodations at an inn. The innkeeper was relieved to see us. She thought we might have been on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. She told us that our room wasn't ready yet and that check-in wasn't until 4:00 and that we couldn't check in. We went on a wine tour to kill the time.

When we finally checked in, we found that some of our fellow guests were two couples from Augusta, Georgia. The husband of one of the couples dominated the only TV in the inn, in the lobby. He groused about how now his stocks were going to go in the toilet. It was the only thing he cared about. He would only watch Fox news, saying that it was the only source of the truth.

The subtext of his conversation with me was that New York City was a sadly necessary evil that had the banks and the stock market but that he saw it as a shithole of niggers and kikes and spics and fags. Jayne and I were talking about people we knew that worked in the Trade Center and he spat out at me as cruelly as he could muster- "I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but there were 50,000 people in there, and they're all dead." I said nothing, but thought that no, he liked being the bearer of bad tidings, and that he was a cracker who did not deserve the wealth he had, and that maybe the south should have seceded from the union.

We spent the rest of the day in front of the TV, occasionally making calls, rarely getting through to anyone in New York. Finally we went out to dinner. When we came back to the inn we avoided the Georgia Cracker and went upstairs to our room and held each other until we fell asleep.

Back From Vacation...

2004-09-08T21:49:00.000-04:00

...new work coming on Friday

A Message to Republicans Visiting Our Fair City

2004-08-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

Since we don't want you here and you're coming anyway (in a transparent attempt to capitalize on the anniversary of 9/11), please accept the following sentiments of over 80% of the population of the five boroughs:

Hello Republicans! Welcome to New York! Spend all the money you have in your pockets. Go to the ATM, empty your accounts and spend all of that as well. Then go away.

A Day at the Beach

2004-08-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

In the dog days of summer, between staff development on the new school and being lazy, I'm ashamed of my lack of writing over the last two weeks... I have no excuse. I did, however, spend a very nice day at Long Beach. It gave me the opportunity to make some observations and pose a question or two...

The end of the line of a branch of the Long Island Rail Road, a three block walk and a beach pass to hot sand and hourglass figures face down, straps off preventing tan lines for backless dresses to be worn at nighttime dance clubs tease the imaginations of the XY chromasome set, be they in speedos or bermudas.

Anatomically speaking, the form makes the walk. Hips built for childbirth make that deliriously delishous hip sway, every step into the distance magnetize my eyes to dozens of bikini bottoms. Young women walk by, shoulders thrown back to accentuate the slope of the breast, hands overhead tousling hair, unconscious (possibly unconscious, maybe intentional) seductresses move along the water's edge, while men of all ages look on. Young men dream of the possibilities while older ones remember the conquests of youth while cursing the calendar.

I sit next to my lovely wife, never straying, never wanting to stray, but window shopping is accepted and expected. If I didn't window shop, she'd think something was wrong with me. I am alive, after all.

chapter two is soon to come...

New This Week!

2004-08-17T20:48:00.000-04:00

Costco is selling coffins now! For only eight hundred bucks anyone with a membership card can get their very own coffin!
"Let's see, I'll have five packages of white briefs, four flannel shirts with the same exact pattern in four different colors, twelve number ten cans of Beef-a-Roni, a five gallon bucket of orange juice, that tractor-mower over there, oh, and how about that coffin- do you have it in blue?"
"The coffin is a display only, sir, you'll have to wait 48 hours for delivery on that. Everything else is cash and carry."

Also in the news this week. Wal-Mart is bad for the taxpayers of California. It seems that the state's welfare department discovered that in the past year, California taxpayers have paid out $91,000,000 in food stamps and other state relief benefits for full-time Wal-Mart employees. A study also discovered that if other big box retailers paid the same as Wal-Mart, California taxpayers would be footing the bill to the tune of over $400,000,000 in relief benefits annually.

In an effort to capitalize on the latest trendy medical procedures, the Harry and David company is about to announce "The Operation of the Month Club." Members will have the opportunity to get top quality vanity operations in a clinic within reasonable driving distance at below market rates if bought in bulk. A package of six botox treatments, six laser hair removal treatments, two tattoo removals, nominal liposuction and a bi-lateral boob job will be going for only $9,000. Deeper discounts if only one breast needs work. Large, beer-gutted men can get six-pack abs, in by 9:00, out by noon, for only $3500, as long as they also opt for the penile enlargement with manually operated air pump for an additional $1500.

OVERHEARD AT LOCAL WATERING HOLES LATELY:

"People keep buying me drinks, I don't know what it is," said an older man.
"It's because you've got a heart of gold."
"I wish I did!" He exclaimed, "I'd cut it out and cash it in!"

From a deeply buzzed individual:

"I'm seriously toxified."
"Huh?"
"You know, the opposite of detoxified."

The second overheard conversation reminded me of the days of touring with the rockers. These were international crews that dealt with more efficient airport security and customs officers long before 9/11 (rock crews often being scrutinized for substances other than weaponry). Those of us who wished to find herbal refreshments in the locale of the gig often found luck in this department with the local sound company. Almost always it was the guy who mixed the monitors. Monitor mixers were notorious stoner boys. Even if it wasn't true, the monitor mixer was frequently the object of abuse by the onstage band if the monitor mix wasn't up to snuff.

One time a band kept looking into the wings at the monitor mixer, waving and pointing at the monitors. The monitor guy was passed out, face down on the console. In the middle of the concert a band member walked offstage into the wing and grabbed the guy by his hair, picking up his head off the console. He had pillow face, with the impressions of the knobs and faders pressed into his face. THAT'S toxified.

Interfering With Reality

2004-08-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

In the continuing effort to market my wares, I spent a large part of an afternoon in Central Park this week. Taking a bag of postcards for "Tales On Tap" (and a bag of books in case I met anyone who wanted to buy a copy), I got on the W train to 57th Street, and ventured into the park on my shoe-leather P.R. campaign. Handing out postcards to anyone with a book that would take one from me while I took a three hour long zig-zag walk from Central Park South up to 86th Street. I was confronted by reality. Fiction is a tough sell. I was also confronted with another reality.

At the southwest corner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were two small teams of people gathered around maps, frantically deciding where to go next. As each group had two camera crews following their every move, each with its own boom operator trailing an umbilical cord to a sound recordist, I elected not to step forward and offer directions.

I turned to my right and noticed I was standing next to a production assistant with a clipboard holding release forms for people who got on camera that weren't part of the production.

"What are you shooting?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you," came an extremely superior sneer from the clipboard carrier.

Another production assistant whispered to me that it was a reality show.

I turned and started handing out postcards to people standing nearby and watching. A woman from the crew loudly "shushed" me. She glared at me with a look that told me in no uncertain terms that I was interfering with reality.

The two teams on whatever scavenger hunt or race or whatever, shreaked and ran off down the pathway to another section of the park. The camera and sound crews dashed off after them, trying to keep up and avoid running into pedestrians in a tightly run slalom with junior crew members dashing, panicking, struggling to keep the cables from tangling.

The production assistant that treated me decently took a postcard as they moved on. The superior clipboard carrier said to the P.A., in a loud whisper, his back to me but only three feet away so that I will have no difficulty hearing- "Don't take that shit from him."

This person who doesn't know me from Adam. This person who makes a living off a format that shuns creative thought not only has no interest in writers, he displays active hostility to one.

Long ago I formulated a low opinion of the Reality TV format. This slammed it home with a carnival sledge hammer, breaking the bell at the top of the strongman attraction. The artifice of the reality show was being choreographed with the delicate finesse of a rugby scrum.

It dawned on me that they shoot these shows in public settings while the public is kept out of frame in a manufactured world based loosely on our own. A glossed over ficticious reality, incredibly cheap to make that sells for an incredibly high price on network television. No stars to pay. No need for writers. No need for thought.

Apprentice bachelor interior decorators racing a huge cross-country death-defying fear factor obstacle course riding American Choppers made on the Discovery Channel while eating living eels.

Now that we already have supposed wife-swapping shows I expect the next matchmaking effort that gets on the air will be "Who Wants to Butt-Fuck My Brother," now in development and being submitted to the Bravo Channel.

Here I go again. Biting the hand that will never feed me. I loathe them all. They should all eat spoiled devilled eggs at the craft service table and be felled by a long-term horrible intestinal distress.

Except the American Chopper guys. They can stay.

Living Under Orange Alert

2004-08-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

This morning, I got up to watch the lastest warnings. Between commercials for Almay, Sandals resorts, and Cialis I'm told by newscasters that soon we will get important information from Tom Ridge and President Bush. The newscasters sometimes are delivering the information about the latest threats with big "I'm on TV!" smiles, then seem to catch themselves, remembering that they're delivering serious information. We're on Orange Alert. Credible threats have surfaced that New York City, Washington, D.C., and even Newark, New Jersey are the targets. I always thought that if Newark was bombed, the perpetrators would likely be from the EPA.

There's an armored car parked on my block. This is nothing new, actually. It's been there for at least a year or so. It's the property of the NYPD, and is painted a nice, comforting shade of blue.

Over the past two years and eleven months I have witnessed an entire platoon with automatic weapons in the Fulton Street subway station, armed men stationed at the New Jersey entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel, army personnel, some armed, some not, in Grand Central Station, Penn Station, and driving on various city streets. I took a car service from a friend's place in Brooklyn and we were stopped and searched getting on the Williamsburg Bridge. SWAT teams with automatic weapons at the ready are often in plain view wherever crowds congregate. Jayne and I photographed a SWAT member at the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza, standing close to one of the Christmas wooden soldier statues, an image that we found humorous. We saw the man in full battle gear holding his cut-down version of an M-16, looking serious but still posing with tourists, glancing about for criminals and terrorists in between photo ops. Just the other night at South Street Seaport an entire SWAT team patrolled during a free concert. We sat in the outdoor balcony at Uno's, having Chicago deep-dish pizza, listening to British Invasion music as we watched the patrol go through the crowd.

We in New York have been on Orange Alert since there was an Orange Alert, and before the color code system was thought up. Nothing has changed since two days after Jayne and I got married. 9/11 was the first day of our honeymoon. We married on 9/9 in a beautiful outdoor garden ceremony in a downtown restaurant, then stayed our first night at the Tribeca Grand hotel in a room with a view that looked at the World Trade Center. In the morning, we looked out the window of our room at the Trade Center on the last full day of it's life.

On the morning of September 10th Jayne and I thought of going to the Trade Center, the site of our first date, and thought that we had too much to do to prepare for our trip, and that we'd go there when we came home. We flew from JFK to San Francisco late that night. Our flight was delayed for five hours due to a massive storm. We sat on the taxiway in the plane, the crew shut down the engines to save fuel, opened the bar and showed movies. We got up and walked around, used our cell phones, ate, drank and passed the time. We landed at SFO around 1:00 AM Pacific time, four hours before Mohammed Atta took off from Portland on his connecting flight to Boston. The next time we were allowed close to the WTC site, the day we returned, we stared, in tears, at a ten story high burning pile of rubble. It was the first day anyone other than emergency workers were allowed as close as Ann Street and Broadway. We walked the perimeter and saw every angle of the wreckage.

Living near a large downtown police station, the first month we were home, Jayne and I had to show our IDs to get on the block we live on to prove we had business on that block. We could say hello to the cop on the way to the grocery store, come back twenty minutes later with grocery bags, have it be the same cop and we still had to show our IDs. When the wind was right, we could still smell the burning buildings in January.

In New York we live each day as normally as possible. Actually, things haven't changed that much. Maybe they have, and I no longer remember what it was like to go to a ballpark or a museum without being searched. My subway rides take me under the Citibank building regularly, and the downtown financial district is also part of my regular travel route. I will not make any changes to my life. We have come to accept it. We have come to joke about it.

One of my occasional creative collaborators, Dave Rave, was at a Yankees game with an out of town friend who was spooked at the large security presence. The sheer numbers of weaponry displayed in The Bronx Temple of Baseball had the woman extremely nervous. Dave tried to calm her by telling her it was Machine Gun Night. "What do you mean?" "You know, the first 10,000 fans get a complimentary Yankees machine gun. We just missed out. We got here too late."

As it happened, it was a promotional night after all, and we couldn't have gotten in on it anyway. It was for fans fourteen and under.

The following was submitted by roving reporter Merritt Davis:

This was reported on the Medical Physics List Server: At New York's Kennedy International Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator. Attorney general John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of the notorious
al-gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like "X" and "Y ", and, although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns", we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, "there are 3 sides to every triangle." When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes".

Take a look at the news page too...

2004-07-28T16:58:00.000-04:00

There's two new shows added... Tuesday, August 10th, 10:00pm at The Improv on West 53rd Street, and August 24th at The Living Room...

And now, today's new writing:

Evening in New York

2004-07-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

I'm not in Chicago anymore
City of Algren, City of Sandburg
The big shoulders on the make
Hog butcher on the lake

I'm in New York
City of my father's birth
Where concrete has replaced the earth
It's evening in New York

Someone's random disconnected rage tears a yellow pay phone receiver from the rest of its body which now lies dismembered in the gutter of Park Avenue South,
The maimed communication device stretches towards the evening sky while in repose against the iron lined curb, reaching towards the evening light, desiring to crawl to Madison Square Park- if it could only grow legs- the wires, its muscles, torn and bleeding...

It's evening in New York
The young and those trying to stay that way run on treadmills, pedal on one wheeled bikes in trendy pricy health clubs, going nowhere faster and faster as they try to look good for their next job interview or trip to the singles bar, sizing up each other in their urban keeping up with the Joneses, simultaneously contemptuous of each other while filled with self doubt, superior inferiors accomplishing greatness while questioning themselves, reprimanding themselves about how they got away with their huge mistakes without anyone noticing for one more day...

It's evening in New York
Orange-red light glows on the side of the Flatiron building in the sunset, I cross Fifth Avenue to the beautiful sounds of a woman folk-singer, sweet music rises up to meet the city sky and gets bitch-slapped by a taxi's horn...

My favorite happy hour haunt welcomes me, a beautiful barmaid greets me with a cold pint of ale, baseball on the TV without sound while music plays the day's strife away, done with the subway until tomorrow, it's time to go to my inviting wife, to curl on the couch, to the joys of bed, love, comfort, drifting to the metropolis of dreams...

It's evening in New York

Ad Pollution

2004-07-21T16:23:00.000-04:00

I must be getting old. I feel like Andy Rooney lately. I’m starting to ask questions that start with “ever notice that…”

There are these ads that don’t tell the whole story…

The Naked Cowboy. He’s not naked! What’s with this jockey shorts crap? There are tourists walking all over Times Square looking for something that’s not there! All the nudity left the square when Disney took over. The tourists, starved for nudity, are looking for the guy who does “Cotton Eye Joe” at Yankee Stadium between innings to be waving his package at the corner of 46th and Broadway and they’re being short-changed. Literally.

Pharmaceuticals. Ever notice at the end of the headache/arthritis/insomnia/high cholesterol/erectile dysfunction combo platter wonder drug advertisement that promises to treat all that ails you there’s a long disclaimer about the product’s inherent danger? I’m waiting for the one that states: some patients on certain days of the month may experience unusually rapid hair growth and baying at the moon…

Cruise ships. Why no ads with people feeling the effects of intestinal parasites?

And while I’m on the subject of intestinal distress, how about that Pepto Bismol commercial where the office workers are doing the upset stomach/diarrhea line dance at the copy machine? At least a few actors got paid for it, though if any of them ever become stars, you know that will be the clip that gets played the first time they go on Leno or Letterman.

Earlier today, I was on the First Avenue bus going uptown. I was thinking about these ads, and how low some of them have sunk. As though I was answered by a higher power, another bus pulled up alongside as I was staring out the window, lost in thought. On the side of this bus there was a large poster for the Fuse channel. It was a take-off on those iPod ads with the bright colors and the silhouette of the person dancing to the music. On a lime green backdrop there was a silhouette of a man, bent over, holding a remote control, watching a TV. Another hand was reaching into frame from behind, holding a Zippo lighter, setting fire to this man’s combustible emissions, flames blasting out of his posterior. Nothing more can or should be said about how low advertising has plummeted. An ad executive would call this a highly successful ad, since I remembered the product. It will now be taking up space in my brain, possibly taking the place of something I find much more important, like the score of a Cubs game I saw ten years ago.

Guns Without Butter

2004-07-17T21:31:00.000-04:00

Most of my writings have been in a humorous vein. Not today. Gun violence has been on my mind this week. I'm told that the majority of people never know anyone who's been the victim of gun violence. Somehow, I've known way more than my share. I was never in the armed forces, and though I had a low lottery number in the last days of people going to Vietnam, somehow I was never drafted, and therefore never saw the war firsthand. Still, I've seen two shootings on the street in my lifetime, and people that I know have been touched by the carnage of the dark side of American life.

Whenever I see a report in the news about someone who went on a murder/suicide rampage I always say that they did the shootings in the wrong order. I have never owned a gun, probably because I know myself well enough to know that I probably should not own one. In my younger days I had quite a temper. I grew up around some pretty abusive people, and that has given me somewhat of an attitude. I'm happy to say that I've mellowed considerably. From August of 1992 to October of 1993 I had a losing streak of biblical proportions, things that would have driven almost anyone totally insane. I did not react well. I'm sorry to admit that I could have easily become one of those disgruntled ex-employees that pop up in the news all too often. In that time I ended my first marriage, got dumped by a woman that I was totally in love with, and lost my home. My father-in-law, who I loved like he was my own father, had heart surgery that went wrong and he died within 24 hours of the operation, and I had to take my newly estranged wife on a 500 mile drive to Duluth help arrange the funeral, staying in the house of my in-laws, Jan's mourning family including her six hockey playing brothers treating me like I was a treasonous bastard for leaving their sister. Upon returning to Chicago I found out that my college roommate, someone who was like a brother to me, was dying of inoperable cancer. And that was just the first three-and-a-half weeks of that fourteen month period. Things did not improve. I didn't take it well. Even though I was bouncing back and forth between deep depression and rage, I still never bought a gun. When I lost my job because I was so impossible to be around, I took this out on my former bosses and convinced them that I could indeed kill them at any minute and mentally terrorized them. I am not proud of that, but I am proud that I never fully crumbled. I am past it, married again, have built a new life, and am very happy.

I met Bryn Hartman about six months before she shot her gifted actor husband Phil in his sleep and subsequently turned the gun on herself. I met her at a barbecue in the home of a mutual friend, had a very pleasant conversation with her, and had no idea that there was anything amiss.

Jan, my first wife, had a niece ( I guess you could call her my niece as well, for that matter) who was murdered by a deeply mentally troubled ex-boyfriend when she went to visit him on New Year's Day a few years ago to tell him she had taken a job in another state. Even though he had a record of mental imbalance he was still able to buy a gun because the state of Minnesota sealed his medical records, and the gun shop had no way of knowing that he should not be in possession of a firearm. She was a beautiful, sweet, smart young woman in her twenties at the time of her death. This was not the only person associated with my first wife who met such an end. One of her best friends from high school in Duluth became a deeply religious Christian, married someone from her church, and had children. She and Jan hadn't seen each other in many years, probably because they had gone their separate ways once she joined her church (Jan not being a church type). One year, on Thanksgiving, the woman's teenage son killed everyone in the family except the father (Jan's old friend's husband), who was late coming home. Apparently the son turned the gun on himself when he got tired of waiting for the father to come home for dinner. This happened in the late 1980s, as I recall. Nobody who knew the family had any inkling that anything was wrong. They were active in their church and seemed happy.

This has been on my mind all week since hearing the news of a cousin of mine. I barely knew her. My mother's side of the family has always been pretty close. Growing up I spent many a weekend and holiday with aunts, uncles and cousins close and distant. We had annual picnics with dozens of extended family members. I know all of my mother's first cousins reasonably well, and have met their children. One of these cousins was, for a time, my optometrist. He had two daughters, fairly close to me in age. My sister called me last week to inform me that my cousin's daughter had broken up with her husband and had been living in my cousin's house with her children, my cousin's grandchildren. Apparently this divorce was going very badly. The husband showed up for his scheduled visitation. They had a fight in the driveway in front of my cousin's home. She went inside, got a gun, came back out and shot her husband three times in the driveway, went back inside the house into a bedroom and shot herself. This was with my cousin and the grandchildren in the house. Neighbors all said that they knew that the couple had been arguing, but it had never gone beyond shouting to anyone's knowledge.

Although many Americans seem to fear the strangers, report after report and study after study tell us that we have much more to fear from those we know. Co-workers and relatives who are with us all the time can hurt us much worse emotionally than strangers, and the depth of that hurt can bring on these flashes of rage. We have nothing at stake with strangers. Most people have more of a chance to be hit by lightening or win the lottery than to be killed by random violence.

I understand that people like jewelry salesmen probably have the need to own a gun. Just yesterday there was a million dollar heist of such a person here in New York, well planned and executed by a team. There is no evidence, however, that this person would have been able to stop the robbery, and if armed would likely have been killed himself.

It is important to remember that most police officers have found that guns in the hands of those who are not fully trained, when at the time of crisis, were often stripped of those guns which were then turned on the lawful owner by the assailant. Anyone can be gotten to by someone who is determined enough. Remember Ronald Reagan. To put it into pop culture terms, on an episode of "The West Wing" there was a shooting where the president was wounded, and someone brought up the issue of gun ownership by the general public. It was pointed out that the president, a man who has an army of bodyguards better armed and trained than anyone in the history of the world was still shot by a lone nut. The more guns that are on the street, the more are used, which means that more innocent lives are lost or permanently altered by physical maiming or mental damage.

I have no easy answer to this issue. There is none. The genie is out of the bottle. We will never get all the guns off the street. I believe that it should be very difficult to buy new guns, but then again, I don't own stock in Wal-Mart or K-Mart, or for that matter Smith and Wesson, Colt, or any other arms manufacturer. I heard a comic once say in his act (I can't remember who it was, or I'd credit him) that guns could be as cheap as dirt, but bullets should be $10,000 each. THEN people would think twice before shooting. But then again, maybe not.

Backstage It's Always Halloween

2004-07-16T11:25:00.000-04:00

            It doesn't have to be October. Anytime can be the time of year where all those in the theater world have that discussion close to our hearts and minds… Are there really theater ghosts? As far as this reporter is concerned, to quote that Neil Diamond tune made famous by The Monkees, I’m a believer.
            When beginning my Equity apprenticeship as assistant stage manager at Shady Lane Playhouse in Marengo, IL, one of my first tasks was to assist the stage manager in cleaning up the backstage area. This was no small job, as it had been trashed by two former disgruntled employees. When these two had been informed that their services were no longer going to be needed, their last good-bye to the small dinner theater was to hurl anything not nailed down in any direction they saw fit.
            Marengo is a small town, some 60 miles outside of Chicago, and Shady Lane Playhouse was a location perfectly suited for campfire tales. The theater was literally in a former barn, with a restaurant and gift shop in adjacent buildings. Actually, my first task was to remove the bird nest from the air cleaner of the company station wagon.
            The backstage area at Shady Lane held two large dressing rooms, a prop storage room, a tool area, a refrigerator and the costume loft.
            The stage manager and I arrived one week before any of the actors were due, and we had the place to ourselves. We spent the first day on the job getting to know each other making small talk while engaged in our drudgery of the massive clean up. Several hours into a very long day of picking up props and tools, sorting them into an organized, sensible manner, and mopping or spraying every dressing room surface, I had the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching me. I looked up to the costume loft and saw a man, dressed in a white jacket, looking at me and smiling. The man looked nothing like the stage manager, who was a young, attractive blonde woman from New Jersey.
            I ran up the stairs to the costume loft looking for the intruder. It was the only entrance.
            “What happened?!” She called out to me, nervously.
            “I saw somebody up here!”
            “Oh, my God! Don’t say that!”
            I tore through the loft looking through every pile of clothing. Nothing. She joined me in my futile search.
            “You must have imagined it. We’re tired.”
            “I was sure I saw something!”
            “Well, there’s nothing here.”
            “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

            Months passed. The incident was forgotten. Shady Lane had the longest summer stock contract in the U.S., some 40 weeks. The season started with a cast of three and ended with four, with shows in between having casts of up to ten actors. Actors were cast out of New York, and three were with us for the duration, with others having shorter runs in between. Some of the actors had worked there before.
            As each new actor arrived, the standard “getting to know you” sessions would take place. We were all confirmed city people out in the middle of nowhere, working in a theater adjacent to one of Illinois’ largest hog farms.
            One of the later arrivals was an actress who had worked there for several seasons. For her, working at Shady Lane was sort of a summer get-away and qualify for this year’s health insurance gig. We engaged in small talk surrounding the theater and its oddities.
            “So have you seen the ghost?” She asked me.
            “What ghost?” I said with a tone of incredulity.
            “The theater has a ghost.”
            “Yeah, right, sure, the theater has a ghost.” I was totally dismissive.
            “He hangs out in the costume loft and wears a white jacket. We think it’s Frank, the original owner. Several people have seen him over the years.”
            Chills immediately washed over me. I had never mentioned the incident again and it was her first day there. I saw his face. Now I’m a believer. Not a trace… of doubt in my mind…

Subway's Greatest Hits, Part 2

2004-07-12T12:10:00.000-04:00

There are eight million residents within the city limits. Combine that with throngs that flock to work here from the suburbs, along with tens of thousands of tourists and business travelers on any given day. All of them are riding the subway car that I’m on at this very moment.

Most of these people are just trying to get someplace, doing the best they can to create a bubble around themselves, shutting out the outside world by the use of iPods, CD and cassette players, books, newspapers or magazines.

People can become very good at minding their own business on the subway. I recall a scene in the movie version of Jules Feiffer’s “Little Murders.” Elliot Gould and Marcia Rodd are locked in an embrace. She is shot and killed by a sniper. Spattered with her blood and in shock, Gould’s character stumbles on autopilot into the subway and goes to his in-laws’ apartment. He sits on one of the plastic benches that line the sides of the subway car. The man sitting next to him looks at Gould briefly and pulls his jacket away from Gould so that the blood won’t get on his clothes. That is the level of minding one’s own business that can be achieved by the hard-bitten long time residents of the Big Apple.
Some riders just stare off into space or shut their eyes, viewers of their own dream theaters. Still others are walking from car to car and selling toys, batteries and candy. Even more are panhandling or collecting for charities that may or may not exist.

I do not fall into any of these categories. I look. I listen. I even talk to people.

The subway does have its own special scenery. Ad posters for hair care products, beer or flavored malt beverages, English as a second language schools, the Bronx zoo, and clinics that promise easy payment plans for skin disorders and tattoo removal line the space above the subway car windows. In the boroughs where the subway is not a subway, but an elevated train (reminding me of my hometown of Chicago), I look at classic residential architecture along with buildings in various states of construction or disrepair. Graffiti of various nature is everywhere. It runs the gamut from high quality art to gang symbols, street poetry, political statements, and annoying repetitive tagging by morons who need to see their names scrawled on any free square foot.

The rest of the scenery is made up of my fellow passengers. As I have said in the past, for two bucks they let anyone get on. This is why it’s called “public transportation.”

Earlier this year while on my way to Richmond Hill High School in Queens, late again, I was kicking myself for not getting out of my apartment five or ten minutes earlier. Looking repeatedly at my watch (as if that would help make the train get the hint that I was late and go faster) I noticed that sitting directly across from me a woman was staring intently at herself in a hand mirror, trying to steady herself by leaning against a vertical post next to her, and shaving her eyebrows. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud. I leaned to a woman sitting next to me, a pretty secretary on her way to her mid-town office, and said: “I was just kicking myself in the ass for being late, but now that I’ve seen someone shave their eyebrows on the subway, I know I took the right train.” She joined in the laughter.

In the same vein I have seen some major make-up errors due to a sudden shift or braking maneuver. Eye shadow and eyebrow pencil racing stripes that run to the ear or the hairline are my personal favorites. I’m honestly surprised that I haven’t seen paramedics come on board to remove tiny colored brushes from nasal cavities.

One February day I saw a man in a wetsuit carrying a surfboard, apparently on his way to hang ten on the famous curls of that famous surfing Mecca, the East River.

I won’t even go into the screaming religious fanatics or conspiracy theorists. Too many to mention or give any special attention to.

As I said, two bucks entry. It’s one of the cheapest shows in town.

An Update

2004-07-10T11:52:00.000-04:00

For those who have been paying close attention to my website, the story section has taken on a new life. The four stories posted today are from the site as it existed before this week. From now on the "Story of the Week" section will be redirected to this blog site. If you've read these four stories already, a new piece posted earlier this week is at the bottom, entitled "Subway's Greatest Hits, Part 1."

If you're not familiar with the blog format, pieces appear in the order of when they were posted to the site, hence, the appearance of the older material appearing first. After today, this will no longer be the case, and you will not have to scroll down to see the newer material.

New visitors please check out my complete website, www.robbronstein.com

Thanks for checking in.

Normal is in the Eye of the Beholder

2004-07-10T11:49:00.000-04:00

Normal is in the Eye of the Beholder

Billy Tonelli always used the late afternoon to get ready for Happy Hour. The place was usually empty between 2:00 and 5:00 and he could get everything in order and still have time to get some reading done. Billy was almost startled when the door opened and Valium Jimmy slowly shuffled in, sat on his favorite stool, pulled out a twenty and placed it on the bar.
Billy stopped cutting limes and brought Jimmy his usual shot and a beer. He was surprised to see anybody at that hour, especially Valium Jimmy. Usually Jimmy didn’t get there until at least 9:30. Mostly Jimmy came in alone, though sometimes his long time living companion accompanied him. Billy referred to her as The Three R’s (Rude Repulsive Rita).
Billy thought to himself that Jimmy looked worse than ever. His hair was greasy and seemed plastered to his forehead. His clothes were wrinkled and had a few new tears, made more obvious due to the number of missing buttons. His white on white pallor made him the leading candidate for being poster boy of vitamin deficiency. Jimmy was quite a sight. Even before this day, Billy already theorized that the extremely pasty Jimmy slept in a coffin with dirt imported from Transylvania.
Billy never referred to Jimmy as Valium Jimmy to his face. There were three regular Jimmies that he identified by their careers. This was the Jimmy who always had an abundance of Valium tablets and traded them for cash or jewelry. Generally speaking, it could be relied upon that within the first two minutes of any conversation, Jimmy could be heard to ask: ‘So, you looking for some V’s?’
Billy kept a suspicious eye on the short, weaselly Jimmy. As long as none of the transactions involved Billy and didn’t take place in the tavern, Jimmy was allowed to stay.
“Let me tell you how my day went,” Jimmy mumbled. “I should say how my days went. I’ve been up since yesterday.”
“Are you gonna lay a long thing on me?” Billy responded with a slight tone of sharpness. He already knew the answer even though he still posed the question. Billy’s patience had been tried innumerable times by Jimmy since the first day Jimmy walked in the door and decided that this would be his new favorite bar. Billy subsequently found out that there were two previous favorites where Jimmy had been eighty-sixed.
It wasn’t that he was boring. Quite the contrary. It was just that Jimmy had a habit of telling very long stories about things that Billy wanted no knowledge of. Billy was now the less than proud owner of many unpleasant images that he would be stuck with for life, thanks to Jimmy’s generosity with his personal information. When Jimmy imparted his worldly views of his life experience, it soiled Billy’s existence.
Jimmy launched into his story even though he knew that Billy probably wouldn’t listen. It was just something he had to say out loud; just to see if what came out of his mouth matched what he had just lived through.
“So last Thursday my goddam car was booted and towed. I had to get down to traffic court and pay my goddam parking tickets and get the goddam car out of hock. I had to take the goddam bus. I hate the goddam bus.”
Billy was already looking for things to clean. Jimmy continued.
“Not only did I have to take the goddam bus, but I had to get up early! Goddam traffic court closes at 4:00 in the afternoon! So I get on the bus, and who do I run into? Joey. That mope.”
Joey was another regular. Joey had been a middleweight boxer going nowhere, getting a few bucks a fight to be the punching bag of someone on the way up, when he decided to make a career change. Joey wanted to be an actor, like Tony Danza. He figured that Tony Danza had gone from being a fighter to an actor and he could do it too. There were just a couple of problems standing in Joey’s way. He was completely devoid of training and any skill, and had absolutely none of the charm that Tony Danza possesses. Joey quickly became an ex-fighter-out-of-work-actor-wannabe.
Jimmy downed his shot and took a couple of gulps of beer before continuing. Billy was polishing the coffee machine.
“It’s crowded as hell on the goddam bus but of course there’s nobody sitting next to Joey. He sees me right away and insists I sit with him. He goes into this whole thing about how he’s broke and living with his sister and her kids and it’s driving him nuts and how he’s got to get out. I figure he’s hitting me up for a loan, so I tell him about how broke I am over the goddam tickets and the goddam car. He says to me, ‘you need money too?’ and I says ‘yeah.’ So then he says to me, real loud, ‘I’m gonna boost a bank.’
“I figure he’s kidding and I start to laugh, and he says ‘I’m serious. I got a place all picked out. There’s no cameras in there and the guard is half asleep all the time. It’ll be a piece of cake. I need a second, what do you say?’
“I look around and there’s a dozen people staring at us. I says ‘Joey you’re nuts. Don’t say another word. I don’t wanna know nothin’ about this.’
Jimmy took another gulp of beer. Billy stopped cleaning and started listening.
“So I get off the bus at traffic court and after standing in line for an hour and a half, I find I gotta get some more money from the cash machine to get the car back! I took too much time to get there, and they charged me a goddam storage fee! So I go to this place around the corner. I’m outside at the cash machine and some asshole has spilled some sticky shit all over the goddam machine and the number buttons are stuck and it won’t take my card! I go inside the place to see if there’s another machine, and there’s Joey! He’s sticking up the place! He yells across the whole place ‘HEY JIMMY! I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T COMING! GIMME A HAND HERE!’
“I’m totally frozen like a goddam deer in the goddam headlights and like twelve cops come running in! Goddam teller tripped the goddam silent alarm before I even walked in the place! Nearly everyone in the bank said that I was with Joey. Look what they did to my goddam shirt! They dragged me to the goddam paddy wagon and threw me in the back in a goddam puddle of who-knows-what! I spent the night in jail and it wasn’t ‘til a half an hour ago that they finally figured out that I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it! Can you believe that shit?”
Jimmy polished off the beer and signaled for another. Billy obliged.
After a long silence Jimmy felt he needed more conversation. “So what was your day like?”
“Three small lunch groups, took a couple of deliveries, sold a few lottery tickets, nothing out of the ordinary… just like yours.”
Jimmy nodded to Billy, understanding.

Lucky Odyssey

2004-07-10T11:47:00.000-04:00

LUCKY ODYSSEY
(An Average Day in L.A., 12/1/94)

Driving home trying to figure out what to make for dinner, I heard the ad enticing me to visit the friendly , helpful, knowledgeable man in the meat department at Lucky.
“That’s it!” I said to myself, out loud. It’s not unusual for me to talk to myself in the car. “I’ll make pasta with prociutto, broccoli and garlic sauce! There’s no meat in the house. I can stop at Lucky. It’s on the way home.”
I found the friendly, knowledgeable, helpful meat man stocking the cooler with roasting chickens.
“Where do you have prociutto?”
“What’s that?”
Uh-oh. “It’s Italian spiced ham.”
“Never heard of it. If I never heard of it we probably don’t have it.” He went back to stocking the cooler. Yes, indeed, knowledgeable and helpful.
Settling on making my continuously variable no recipe “Rob’s Famous hodgepodge Of Whatever Is In The Cabinet Delight,” I wandered the aisles trying to remember what we were out of in the home kitchen.
I ran into my good friend and neighbor (and landlord), Dave. He was just finishing up and was getting into the checkout line, but I still had things to locate.
Several minutes later I was done with my shopping. Dave was still at the checkout counter with a long line behind him, people obviously getting frustrated. Two managers were working on the machine. I couldn’t stop myself from giving Dave a good-natured hard time.
“Did you break the cash register?”
“Don’t get in this line! There’s something wrong here!”
I looked at my options.
With only six or seven items in my carry-basket, I easily could have gotten into the express line unchallenged, but with at least twelve people in line there, it appeared to be anything but express. All of the other lines were much shorter.
Quickly stepping into a line with only two people turned out to be a poor way to occupy the next fifteen minutes.
The woman at the front of the line was nearly done and next was a guy with only a few things and he was already loading them onto the conveyor. The woman was getting her last items checked and was preparing to pay.
I looked over the guy in front of me. His thick, dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but nothing else.
I couldn’t help but notice his cheap, ill-fitting wig of light brown hair with his own gray sideburns and fringe sticking out from under it. His sunglasses also couldn’t mask his pockmarked face, his extreme overindulgence in after-shave, or his shiny polyester resale shop seventies disco shirt. The contents of his basket were dozens of cans of cat food and a bag of apples.
It was the first of December and the woman was cashing her welfare check. The line stopped completely as the register broke down. There was something wrong with the printer or something having to do with paying by check.
By now, I had put my things on the conveyor and there were people behind me. There was no way out.
Mr. Saturday Night Fever stood silently in front of me while the cashier tried to solve the problem. I began to count the cans of cat food, just out of curiosity. There were over fifty cans-- about half a dozen each of several different brands. A week’s supply for nine or ten cats that apparently all demanded their favorite flavor.
A finger started to incessantly poke me in the back. I turned and there was a woman about fifty of so, slightly pudgy with stringy salt and pepper hair and a few missing teeth. Pointing at one of the checkout stand magazines featuring a gallery of photos and stories about America’s Favorite Serial Killers, she launched into her thought for the day segment on the talk show in her head, where I was the day’s guest.
“How about that Dahmer guy? He got what was coming to him didn’t he?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“They should have killed him the day they caught him.”
“Uh-huh.”
The guy in front finally spoke. “What the Hell is taking so long?” The sunglasses couldn’t mask his affected lisp either.
The manager came over to help the cashier as the poking in my back resumed.
“You know, maybe they should have let him live longer so that he could have been miserable in prison, you know, all locked up like that with everyone hating him openly... YEAH! They should have made him miserable for a good long time and THEN beat him to death!”
“I guess they could have done that.”
“They SHOULD have!”
“Uh-huh.”
Then from in front of me: “These MEXICANS with their FOOD STAMPS! Why can’t I get food stamps for my CATS?”
Poke poke poke. “O.J. is guilty, I know it.”
“Really? Were you there? Do you know someone working on the case?”
“No, I just know it.”
Then from in front of me, louder this time: “Wish I could get food stamps for my cats!”
Poke poke poke with one hand, pointing at a copy of the Sun with the other: “She deserved it though. Will you look at that! She was a coke snorting lesbian! Just like that Heidi!”
“Heidi Fleiss is a lesbian?”
“She WILL be after a little while in the SLAMMER! Why do these FOREIGNERS get FOOD STAMPS? I should get food stamps! It costs A LOT to feed my cats!”
Finally whatever the problem was got resolved and the line moved forward. I escaped the store, got myself home and ordered out Chinese.

Ten-Four Good Buddies, Over and Out

2004-07-10T11:45:00.000-04:00

Ten-Four Good Buddies, Over and Out

Dear Sirs:
Now that the production has opened and seen its first public performances and press reviews, I am filing my report as requested.
I am severely dissatisfied with the progress and state of the dance program that you employed me to be production manager of. I write to you today to outline my grievances surrounding the events of the past few weeks. I find at least some guilt in each of you, therefore I am writing to all of you.
First, Mr. Pembroke. I realize that as a megastar of the industry, your schedule prevents you from showing up to rehearsals, over-committed to so many projects paying you so many tens of thousands of dollars each. Your lack of being on the scene kept you from dishing out the abuse that I suffered at the hands of your partners, therefore I have little ill feeling toward you by comparison. I like you just as a prisoner under interrogation likes the cop that abused him the least. The initial reviews are in: What you contributed to the project is exactly the same piece that you have choreographed in three other current shows running in major cities. You have the least of the guilt, along with the least imagination.
And now, Mr. Edgerton. I must say this in your defense: You are the only one who in any way acknowledged that I was poorly treated. You should know. You dished out half of it. You said that the production and its conditions turned you into something you don’t like, and never wish to become. I accept that. You are something I don’t like and never wish to become as well. A jet-propelled asshole. With your apology of the other night, you feel as though you are absolved of guilt in your abusive treatment of me. Since you are an atheist, it is me who must absolve you. You have no God and no priestly figure to do it for you. Not only do I not accept your apology, I do not accept your dismissal. There are still twelve weeks left on my contract, and I expect payment in full. You feel guilty? You want absolution? Here is your opportunity. Put your money where your large, backbiting mouth is. You’ll get your absolution when the check clears. Until then, fuck you. If I don’t hear from you within the next fourteen days, I will be in contact with the National Labor Relations Board. I’m confident that you will find it infinitely easier to pay me off rather than have a battalion of federal investigators, wearing jack-boots and miner’s helmets, marching shoulder to shoulder up your cavernous rectum.
Last, but far from least of the partnership, would be you, Mr. Pudnicki. The wunderkind of Broadway dance. Obviously you can fool all of the people some of the time. Not this time, pal. The feelings I hold for you are akin to what I previously reserved for my high school football coach. Please accept this warm invitation to descend to the subway station beneath your office building and French kiss the third rail.
I have evidence that you intentionally set me up with impossible tasks so that when they were not completed, you could verbally abuse me publicly. You took my reports on the lack of feasibility to execute your ideas within budget and altered them. You even physically grabbed me. The only reason you still have all your parts attached is because at the time of that incident, I still held out hope that once the rehearsal process was over, I would be rid of you and that conditions would improve. Any further touching of me will be regarded as an attempted assault and I will defend myself accordingly, and I will defend myself until you are a motionless blob of ectoplasm. Don’t forget: I lived for years in neighborhoods that would make you wet your didies just to drive through, Mr. Beverly Hills princey-boy.
For some time, I have wanted to call you a piece of shit, but I now realize that to do so would be a disservice to self respecting shit worldwide. You are not worth what I scrape off the bottom of my shoes after I have been dancing in a dog park. Judging from the reviews in the Los Angeles Times and Variety, that dance would be far more interesting than anything you could choreograph.
Cordially,

Reprieve

2004-07-10T11:36:00.000-04:00

Reprieve

Everything was gray in Butch’s world. He looked around his tiny cell for what seemed like the ten-thousandth time. No way out.
The smell! It was completely overpowering. He sensed the deaths of many others who had occupied this same, too small place.
Death row. He knew it, even though he could not understand the language of the people who were his keepers. There was no mistaking it. Every day since his arrival in this bleaker than bleak place he heard the terrible wailing of the others who shared his plight. Depression set in as soon as he arrived. At first his mind raced with thoughts of escape. He clawed futilely at the concrete floor. As each day passed, resignation grew.
He had done nothing wrong! When he was captured, all he was doing was walking down the street! Out of nowhere, men in uniform drove up in a large black and white truck. A chain was put around his neck and he was dragged by the throat to the truck and thrown into the back, then driven to this hellhole.
Butch was stripped of freedom and dignity. Internment without trial. He was treated like he was some kind of terrorist, but he was innocent! Why?! He was as mystified by his circumstances as he was depressed by them.
The food was terrible. Dehydrated meat mixed with corn meal, accompanied by not enough water. Tasteless and barely enough nutrition to sustain him. He grew weaker by the day.
The deadly monotony was broken occasionally by people who would walk by his cell and look at him and mutter in their incomprehensible language. In addition, once a day, the men in uniform came and dragged him out of his cell by the chain around his neck. He was then taken to an exercise yard to walk for twenty minutes or so. He knew the end was near.
A man, a woman and a child who appeared to be their young daughter came and looked into his cell. There was an indescribable aura of warmth about them that Butch felt, but could not describe.
A uniformed guard opened his cell and grabbed the chain. He handed the chain to the man, who in turn handed it to the girl. She spoke to Butch in her strange language as though he could understand. She had a reassuring tone that came through loud and clear.
Butch jumped up with excitement, licking her face and wagging his tail uncontrollably. He was saved.

Subway's Greatest Hits, Part 1

2004-07-07T14:35:00.000-04:00

Subway’s Greatest Hits, Part 1

In the city so nice they named it twice there’s a transportation system that is easily accessible to all. For two bucks a ride, anyone can get just about anywhere on the cramped overpriced island of hustle.
I ride the New York City subway system almost daily, and have done so for four years now. In my capacity of part-time teaching artist in the city’s high schools I have now worked two school years in four of the five boroughs, spending more time on the subway going to and from various schools than I have spent in the classrooms. The things I have witnessed on the train cars and on the platforms could not be believed by the uninitiated. Some of the most memorable follow.

PERFORMANCE:

My favorite performers, bar none, were the E train gymnasts. Three inner-city youths who made a very good living (I know because I gave them money every time I saw them, along with almost every passenger on the car). They came on with a boom box, blasting rap music and taking turns using the bars as parallel bars, spinning on vertical bars and doing floor exercise stunts I had previously only seen in the Olympics in the aisles of the subway car, culminating in two of them on their hands and knees while the third ran the length of the car and did a flip over the two in an Evel Kneivel like daredevil maneuver. All this performed on a moving subway train. I saw them several times, and nobody ever fell during a stunt and no passenger was ever injured by errant body parts.

MUSIC:

Some very skilled musicians that I have encountered include: A Tracy Chapman look-and-sound-alike (hell, maybe it WAS Tracy Chapman) on the E platform at Lexington and 53rd Street. A classical string quartet in the passageway between the 6 train and the F train at Bleecker Street. A four piece Blues band in the station at 34th and Broadway (I bought their CD). All manner of players of exotic Asian stringed instruments. A Mexican duo playing acoustic guitar and accordion skillfully singing Mexican folk songs. An outstanding a cappella do-wop quartet. These people play for change and dollar bills for long hours, and most of them are a breath of fresh air. Conversely, there’s…

MUSIC?

There is an acoustic guitar player who has steadily improved over the years. He has truly gotten to be a skilled guitarist. His problem: he insists on singing. This is a man whose voice sounds like his nose, larynx, and testicles have been seized by an army of living clothespins. I’m sure that military intelligence will be using him shortly at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan to excise confessions. I know I would confess to just about anything after a few hours of this guy.

Just the other day I was on the R train and a highly skilled sax player who’d reached the end of his rope was blasting “Pop Goes the Weasel” and followed that with abstract trills that could make rats go cannibalistic. When people began screaming at him to stop he screamed back that he would stop when they gave him money. “Give me money and I’ll go away! I won’t stop until you pay me to leave!” He achieved his goal and moved to the next car and began his blackmail by audio torture on a new set of commuters.

On occasion there is a singer-guitarist that pollutes the L line. I have seen this guy at Union Square and at Bedford Avenue. At Union Square I heard him slaughter “No Woman No Cry” and asked a fellow traveler on the platform if he thought Bob Marley would be flattered or appalled at the sound of this. The traveler listened for a couple of seconds, looked at me and laughed as we both said “appalled” at the same time. This guy is one of those people who screech louder at the end of each verse for punctuation. I wanted to be in possession of a stun gun at that moment. At Bedford Avenue I saw the same guy wailing random notes until I figured out that he was singing John Lennon’s “Just Like Starting Over” and came to the conclusion that he only performs songs by dead songwriters to lessen his odds of being assaulted by an artist. When I heard him on the Bedford Avenue platform I prayed that the train come as soon as possible, not just to be carried away, but because I thought that the sound of the train’s braking system would be a pleasant change.

Whenever I hear a substandard musician or someone trying to be a substandard musician (substandard being a quantum leap upwards for some of these people) I recall the story of Sonny Rollins. The jazz great became unhappy with how he sounded and disappeared from the scene for two years. He played under a bridge where nobody could hear him play, his sound drowned out by traffic noise. Two years of playing several hours a day where nobody could hear him, until he was satisfied with his technique. There have been some subway musicians that I have told that story to, hoping they get the hint. On one occasion, when the offender listened to my retelling of the story of Sonny Rollins, smiled and nodded and took up his instrument for a fresh assault, I said bluntly “I’m telling you to go play under a bridge for two years.”

COMING SOON: PASSENGERS.