Full English Breakfast

Full English Breakfast

I woke up the morning after Debra’s funeral on her sofa with not so much a stinking hangover but a desire for a full English breakfast. Some young guy was snoring on the other sofa. He was mid twenties, very small, but had a big character, in an unassuming way, the type that sneak up on you as the night goes on. He was a good friend of Debra’s sons who owned the little quaint Victorian cottage now that she had passed away only weeks earlier, just after the New Year. I couldn't remember the guy's name snoring on the sofa but only a couple of hours earlier we talked about British boxing in Debra’s old kitchen as we snorted lines of cocaine on the kitchen counter with my twenty pound note that was now in his pocket.  I didn't think to ask for it back; it was my contribution to the festivities. I think that was the last time I ever did cocaine. Cocaine- the treat, the special occasion, often late at night, when someone brings it out in the open for all to share, in this case it was this young guy on the sofa snoring. We all wore black and needed something to numb our grief. There was a bottle of Captain Jack’s rum and Coca Cola cans, a water bong, and scattered Stella Artois cans. We didn't listen to music or have anything on the old television in the front room where Debra used to watch EastEnders and we used to talk, write and smoke. I’d never done cocaine in Debra’s house and it did seem a bit strange to do the evening of her funeral. The cocaine kept coming out of my nose and dropping down onto my blazer. It glowed. At first I thought it was dandruff. I picked a couple of granules and stuck them back into my nose. I always slept on the sofa when I crashed at Debra's. Her sons were now the owners of the cottage so I wasn't sure whether it was cool for me to do so still. Whatever the case, I think they figured I had the furthest distance to return home and wasn't in any condition to do so. 

I stumbled through the kitchen and saw the remains of the night before. I poured myself a glass of cold water from the tap. The glass was tall with water stains. There was no room in the sink to clean the glass or the looks of any washing up liquid. My head and neck ached as I tilted the tall glass back and let the cold tap water enter my throat. Ahh! Out of the corner of my eye I saw Debra’s bookshelf, right next to the entrance to the bathroom and toilet (a good place). I walked over to the bookshelf with my glass of water. There is something about a nice glass of tap water and a good bookshelf. Debra’s bookshelf was hung up on the wall but it was still difficult to decipher the titles as there was a shortage of light in the corner where it hung so I had to squint. There was a section holding up the right hand bottom corner for Virginia Woolf paperbacks- Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, etc.. Debra loved Virginia Woolf. Father’s and Sons, The Big Sleep, Revenge of the Lawn, Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Good Morning Midnight, The Hearing Trumpet, Rabbit Run, and a bunch of others I stood and stared at with my glass of cold water in my hands, taking the occasional sip to savour the moment. I decided there that I would take a couple of books. Debra was dead. Her sons didn’t read. It wasn’t their thing. They wouldn’t even notice, so what did it matter? Debra always praised Virginia Woolf so I decided that maybe she would be a suitable choice. Debra was an English literature teacher at the college where I used to work teaching basic mathematics to construction students. I grabbed down To the Lighthouse and took it into the bathroom with me. I read the first two pages (8-9) on the throne before I finished my poo and my glass of water.  I then went back to find my bag to smuggle the books out. The young guy was still snoring on the other sofa. I grabbed my bag at the foot of the sofa and took it back to the bookshelf. I took Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. My criteria was simple; grab what you haven’t read yet. I grabbed Rabbit Run. I grabbed Moby Dick. I grabbed A Bend in the River. I grabbed Journey to the End of the Night.  I still haven't read them. 

I walked out the front door and up the street in the early morning February cold. I craved an English breakfast so I walked into town where I could find a nice cafe and catch the 281 bus back to Twickenham and then the 267 to Isleworth. As I came into town I asked a man with a helmet on his head if he knew of a good place to get a good English breakfast. He told me to continue up the high street and turn right. I was heading in that direction anyway and I knew the road he meant. It was cafe row and the choice of English breakfasts. At this hour of a dead winter morning the cafes in front of me were all empty. I flipped a coin in my head and entered an empty cafe and ordered a full English breakfast with coffee and a glass of tap water. I had the place to myself and I felt like I was back at a greasy spoon in New Jersey or old Portland, Oregon. I reached into my bag and pulled out To the Lighthouse and tried to read the first page again. 

Ruse

Ruse

I came to La Gaillarde, Normandie, France, a little before the film crew arrived, to help my brother put the finishing touches of turning his house into a hotel. I did the painting and decorating. The rooms were now all equipped with en suite bathrooms. It all needed a fresh coat of paint. The film crew were the first guests at the hotel. It was a small film called Le gang du Cafe. 

The director Arnaud got the best room in the house, the one with the best view of the countryside and the biggest bathroom and bathtub to soak his bones after a day’s shoot. It was his first film. Le Gang du Cafe was a book Arnaud wrote some twenty years earlier about his youth and summers spent in la Gaillarde. Logically he was the director of the film adaptation, although some of the crew resented this; they felt he hadn’t paid his dues. Why should he get to direct a feature film when he’d never even directed a short? Arnaud was previously the editor and chief of La Liberation newspaper in Paris. He was now pursuing something purely creative. It must have been odd to glorify his own story on film- his youth, thirty-five years later. Arnaud co wrote the screenplay with Jules, an interesting character who resembled greatly Jules Renoir. Jules had done a lot of screenwriting, and knew the formula, so he was there to help Arnaud turn his book into a screenplay.  Even after filming had started they still tinkered with the script. They sat at the kitchen table early in the morning discussing dialogue changes over coffee and croissants, etc. They didn't mind me being there because I never really said anything. I pretended as if I wasn't listening, not bothered. 

At the same time Le Gang du Cafe was happening I received correspondence from Christian Jones, the film maker. I knew Christian from his first film, the cult classic Lackeys. I played a Latvian opera singer in the film, a brief cameo really, nothing to write home about. Christian had made a handful of films since Lackeys and was in the process of finishing his latest venture called Barney and Quiet John Save the Day. He contacted me out of the blue to say that he had been trying to contact me for some time. He told me he had wanted to put me in the film but couldn't find me. So the next best thing he could do was put the character I played in Lackeys on the tee shirt of the main character Barney, my mug up on the screen, on Barney's tee shirt. Christian also said he wanted to use one of my songs on the soundtrack, this was the main purpose of the call. I had sent him a CD of my music about a year earlier. No reply. Nothing. I had forgotten all about it. Now everything seemed too good to be true. 

‘Which song?’ I asked. 

‘Any one?’

I thought this strange. ‘Any one?’ He said this as if it didn’t matter which song. How could it not matter? If he was an artist it should have mattered. It would have mattered to Stanley Kubrick, John Ford or Orson Welles.  I was realising that he couldn’t have liked the CD I sent him, that he probably didn't even listen to it. He was lying. It was a ruse. If he were honest and just said- 'listen, I never got you to sign a waiver for Lackeys;’ I would have said ‘fine.’ I had not signed a waiver for Lackeys so they were using my image without my permission, nor had they had my written permission to use my image on the tee shirt. Obviously, one of the lawyers from the film realised they were using my image without my permission and raised the alert. It was left to Christian to present the ruse to get my signature and agreement to use my image. They feared I could come later with a big lawsuit so nip it at the bud. The dishonesty of the whole affair- the ruse- built up an expectation in me where I got other people to buy into the lie as well, which was the tragedy of the whole affair. Christian wasn't dangling money but false hope. Hollywood hope. Unfortunately, I got others to buy into it as well. 

My brother and I were drinking beers together at the café across from the church in La Gaillarde. ‘I smell a rat,’ he said. He confirmed my suspicions and I knew he was right. None of it made sense. It had the smell of rat written all over it. Still, I did not want to believe Christian Jones was not genuine, that this was the way the system worked. Nor did I want it to get ugly. I looked at it as an opportunity to contribute to the idea, the creation. I suggested to Christian a more appropriate song- something in line with the character I played in Lackeys. The character of Fyodor was a Latvian opera singer.  None of the songs on the CD I sent Christian where remotely Latvian or operatic. I suggested I record an opera song in the spirit of Fyodor. It didn’t make sense to have Fyodor singing a folk song with an operatic vibe a la Freddy Mercury and Queen. Christian said this was a great idea- record it. We will use it. Definitely. Once again I found this strange because he hadn’t even heard the song yet. 

The song I had in mind was a folk song but I could make it sound operatic as well as Latvian. I had a friend in Paris with a Latvian name and pure Latvian blood. He was also a great guitar player and could easily come up with some good heavy metal licks to transform my folk song. It made perfect sense and sounded good. I proposed the idea to Yevgeny over the phone. He worked for the French version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire as a lackey himself at the time and was looking to break away and do something more creative. He was interested of course. It was Hollywood and he thought there was some money in it and it would be good for his music career.  Yevgeny proposed the idea to go down to Montpelier to record the song with some friends of his as it would be cheaper than going into a studio in Paris. It was in the south of France, nice weather, and we had a place to stay. His friend had good computer and music software and a sound engineer, most importantly. So off we went by train to Montpelier. We had our own compartment (guitars out) where we turned a folk song into a Latvian operatic masterpiece.  We were ready to record. 

We had a place to stay at this hippy guy Benoit’s apartment. Benoit was a bassist and used to be a high powered accountant before he decided to pursue more spiritual pursuits than dealing with money. He was still into the numbers and often talked about the power they hold.  Benoit was living off his redundancy pay, smoking ridiculous amounts of grass and hash and playing bass for hours on end.  He converted to Islam some months later and last I heard he was living in Syria teaching Islam. At the time I knew him he was mid stage of his spiritual transformation as he was still clinging to things in the material world, but just barely.  John Coltrane was in the air a lot and Benoit played along. Spiritual vibes floated through the air incongruous to what was happening in Hollywood and Normandie. Benoit, to be fair, smelled a rat with the whole Hollywood thing, more than we did. He saw it as business and it didn't interest him as he stroked his growing beard and spoke English with the thickest of French accents. 

'Jean, you talk bee’s nest. I don’t want to talk bee’s nest.'  

I began to wonder if we were ever going to record the song as we continued to smoke ourselves into a spiritual haze where business became to mean bee’s nest. I felt France was surely forty years behind America. The hippy vibe of Montpelier was as strong as it was in 1960’s San Francisco. The only thing missing was people saying ‘groovy’ and ‘far out, man.’ I started to put the pressure on Yevgeny to get these cats in gear, as it seemed they had no interest in recording and the clock was ticking.  Christian Jones said we had a week to send him the recording to incorporate into the soundtrack. The first three days in Montpelier we did nothing but smoke weed and hash in Benoit’s apartment. When we weren't in the apartment we walked the streets and listened to street buskers. I wore a red Hawaiian shirt a la Tony Montana. Yevgeny wore a similar one. We bought the shirts as soon as we got into town. They seemed appropriate. His shirt had parrots on it. Mine had coconuts. After the third day I desperately needed a shower and my Tony Montana shirt started to reek. It was then I laid in to Yevgeny. 

‘Listen, man. We came down here to record and these stoners have no interest in recording anything.’ 

‘Jean, Jean- relax… it’s okay. Don’t worry. There is time.’ 

‘No, there isn’t time. We’re running out of time.’ 

‘Okay… okay; I will talk with them.’ 

‘When?’

‘Jean, relax. C’est cool.’ 

‘Ce n’est pas cool, mec.’ 

‘Okay, okay.’ 

We finally recorded the song over three days at this guy Pierre’s apartment. Once they got to work on the song and could see the potential they were all quite keen and optimistic. Hollywood wasn't

so bad after all, especially if there was some money and fame at the end of the rainbow. I sent the song off to Christian Jones. He promptly responded. He said he loved it and that it was going to be used in the biggest scene in the film. The Montpelier musicians were all very happy.  We had a celebration in the streets, on the steps of the church. We all drove to swim nude in the Mediterranean sea at midnight. We sat on the beach sipping champagne and toasting the moon. I was eager to get back to Normandie with a bit of good news. 

The day Yevgeny and I were heading back to Paris after some heavy celebrating I got an email saying the song didn't fit the scene or any scene. They wanted to use another song, a folk song from the CD I sent him earlier. I didn't know what to say really but I felt that I shouldn't push any kind of control over someone else's creation- if you could call it that?  The musicians in Montpelier were needless to say pissed off. All of a sudden it was business to them and Benoit smugly said, ‘I told you so. I don’t like bee's nest.’ I looked for answers to appease them. I explained to them that it was out of my control- that I was the victim- that it was not my right to tell a film maker how he should edit his film. They felt that I should have demanded the song be in the film- that it was a promise and Cristian Jones did not follow through on his promise. They were right. It was the promise that there was something at the end of the rainbow instead of just the straight up truth. But at the time I did not want to tell Cristian Jones how to make his film, not that he would have listened anyway. 

Yevgeny stayed in Montpelier and I returned to La Gaillarde. I haven’t seen him since. Unfortunately, he won’t talk to me…………… Thanks Hollywood. 

The last time I tell someone to stick it up the wazoo

The last time I tell someone to stick it up the Wazoo

The first time I can remember telling someone to stick it up his or her wazoo was when I was nine. The teacher, Miss Whatsherface, told me I had to step away and not participate in sports' day after I tried to defend a fellow student who was being bullied. Believing strongly that I was unfairly treated pushed me to do it. I told Miss Whatsherface to stick sports' day up her wazoo. That was that, the first time of significance I can remember being so bold and stupid.

The second time I told someone to stick it up the wazoo was when I was eleven and playing baseball. I was at bat. There were no strikes against me, three balls.  I then proceeded to watch in slow motion three strikes hit the catcher's mitt. I didn't even swing the bat, or even take it off my shoulder for that matter. I figured the bum on the mound couldn't possibly throw three strikes in a row by me, but he did, (according to the umpire) and I was out. I told the umpire to stick it up his wazoo. He then kicked me out of the game in the most demonstrative way that umpire's do- 'you're outta here.' It wasn't the umpire’s fault I didn't swing the bat. Even if they weren't strikes I could have hit them. Poor ump, he was just trying to make some extra cash, and he probably figured umpiring baseball matches was a good way.  

The third time I told someone to stick it up his or her wazoo was in the school library.  I remember how old I was because I remember the school. I was fourteen.  In this particular instance I was flipping through magazines in the school library.  They had a fantastic collection. I particularly liked reading about sports.  Well, we used to steal quite a few of the magazines. We’d cut the pictures out and hang them on our bedroom walls. The librarian soon cottoned on to what we were doing in the magazine aisle, and that quite a few of the back catalogue were missing. Of course I denied everything when she accused me. Of course I didn't like that she was accusing me and fought my corner very well, until I made the mistake.  I was almost out the door when she said, ‘and do you have anything more to say for yourself, young man?  I did, of course, but I hesitated for maximum effect.  

‘Yeah, lady- stick it up your wazoo!’ 

The fourth time I told someone to stick it up his or her wazoo was when I was seventeen. This time I was playing basketball and the coach and I didn't get along.  He was a short guy with a short guy's complex. What was he doing coaching basketball?  If he knew what he was talking about I would have given him some slack for being a midget, but no; he didn't know anything about basketball. He was a Golden Gloves boxer; rumour had it. He was also a real hot head so we were bound to butt them together sooner or later.  Well we were into the first quarter of the game, and I was riding the pine.  I did not like riding the pine, so after a while, as the other team piled on the points, I got angry just sitting there watching my team lose.  So it was a hopeless situation and I did the only thing I could think of- leave, walk out, get up and go.  I was on my way out, passed the parents, cheerleaders, etc. I could hear the whispers...‘Where is he going? He can’t do that.  Mr. Shorty is going to kill him.  He was a Golden Gloves boxer, you know.’  I was almost out of there when my older brother grabbed me. He was in the stands behind the cheerleaders but he caught me at the door underneath the bleachers. ‘Where are you going?’ he said. ‘I'm going home,’ I said. ‘You can’t just leave in the middle of a game,’ he replied. He reasoned with me there under the bleachers and talked some sense into me and got me to sneak back in and make it look like I just needed to have a wee or take a crap.  Coach Shorty knew better, plus I didn't get his permission. It was written on my face- my hatred for his stupid military mind games. Oddly enough (he was an odd man); he put me right in the game as soon as I came back from my supposed crap. I played okay but I wasn't in there long enough to break a sweat before the first half whistle blew and a fifteen minute break. Shorty didn't say anything at half time about me walking off but he had that look on his face. Second half, same old story, back riding the pine until the end of the game we lost by twenty something points. After the game we shook hands with the other team and made our way to the dressing rooms.  Shorty made his move, ‘why did you walk out during the game without permission?’ I couldn't resist, ‘stick it up your wazoo, Shorty.’  He turned bright red.  He had a white albino bonnet which made him look really funny when he was angry because it accentuated his bright red face. God, I hated that man. I walked into the dressing room with Shorty breathing down my neck.  He let rip as soon as I pushed the doors open. ‘That’s it. You’re through. You’re not going to college. I will see to it that don't get accepted nowhere and drive a garbage truck the rest of your life. You’re not going anywhere in life. You are a loser.’ He got right up in my face. Nobody told Shorty shove it up his wazoo.  But I did, and I did it again and again and again and there was nothing he could do about it but turn the brightest red you've ever seen.  I don’t know what exactly I said to him but I really let rip with the expletives and he was firing them back at me too, not very professional behaviour for a teacher or coach. He even had his fists clenched and cocked but he knew he couldn't hit me as much as he wanted to. I really made him look like the fool he was. He would have been finished, a bum, teaching career over in one swift punch.  He should have been finished anyway but he got away with it because I didn't push the issue. 

There was a time when someone told me to stick it up my wazoo, except I was the teacher this time, in London, out by Heathrow Airport. A student was goofing off instead of completing the assignment clearly displayed in my lousy handwriting on the whiteboard behind where I sat at my desk grading papers. I asked the student to come to my desk so I could look at his exercise book- no date, no description of how Hitler’s rise impacted the rest of Europe, no attempt at reading the passage in the text book. Nada.  I told this student to go back to his desk and get to work or he would be spending his lunchtime with me, and that I'm very boring and he would much rather be outside with his friends. He went back to his desk after making a lame promise. Ten minutes later I called him back up to my desk- same thing. Nada- blank piece of paper except for a penis and two testicles in the bottom corner. I told him he would be spending fifteen minutes at lunch with Mr. Boring to make up for the time he had wasted so far. He wasn't happy, but he walked back to his desk and started writing furiously knowing the bell would ring in a couple of minutes. After the bell rang he came back to my desk and presented to me his work. He was very proud of himself. Students were coming and going from the classroom and I was preparing my next lesson. I looked over his last ditch effort. It was an abortion, an embarrassment to mankind.  I told him that it’s not a race, that he needs to take his time when he is composing his sentences, that he needs to use the whole lesson to complete his work, not just the last three minutes. He said he took his time, why did I think it took him so long to complete? Some of these students think you were born yesterday. I told him that it’s not about speed or quantity but quality. I also called him lazy. He didn't like that. Nobody called him lazy. I told him to calm down and we could talk about it at lunch time. And you can guess what he told me to do.  

'Stick it up your wazoo, you Yankee prick!!!!'     

I remember the fifth time I told someone to stick it up his or her wazoo. I was fourteen. I was crossing the street and a car slammed on the brakes.  The driver then honked in my face so I flipped him the bird. How dare he ride down the road whilst I was crossing it? Was he blind or something? He got out of the car and approached me standing in front of his car with my bird still erect. ‘What’s wrong with you, kid?’ I didn't say anything. I held my ground and turned to him holding the flipped bird in front of his face. Luckily, he was smart enough not to whack a fourteen year old idiot, even though I did deserve it. We were sort of rowdy back then. We didn't really have any rules. Dad died when I was eleven so my brothers and I ran a little wild in those years.  We used to bang about the local YMCA and library causing trouble in the years before his death and we continued to do so into our mid teens. We weren't mean or anything, just sinister and cunning in our pursuit of a thrill. We became a little more respectable as we got older. Our rowdy years didn't last too long luckily. The law had cottoned on to us and we had better things to do than cause mischief.  That’s all it really was- mischief. We were bored really and looking for adventure-thrills.  Stealing was a thrill.   Vandalism was a thrill.   I forgot that I had flipped that guy the bird in the middle of the street.  It was my brother that reminded me.  I’d completely forgotten about it until I told him that I was trying to remember all the times I'd told someone to stick it up his or her wazoo and he reminded me of the flipping the bird incident and the Stromboli incident, which occurred around the same time, and did not involve me telling someone to stick it up his or her wazoo, but someone telling me to stick it up my wazoo. 

There used to be a pizzeria across from the Junior school called Stromboli King. They specialised in this unusual Italian speciality, the Stromboli, yet the owners were Chinese. Behind the counter was a very large sign that read: 

What is a Stromboli? 

And a description below, very clearly laid out for the customers:

A Stromboli is a type of turnover (folded pizza) filled with mozzarella, salami, capicola and bresaola and vegetables. 

We walked in everyday after school and waited in line. Stromboli King was very popular after school with all the kids from the Junior School across the street.  It was usually packed. None of the students ever ordered a Stromboli, just a slice of pizza or two. When we got to the counter we would look perturbed as to what to choose from the menu behind the Chinese man.  Inevitably we would ask after much deliberation, ‘what’s a Stromboli?’ and the Chinese man would get annoyed and point at the sign behind him. 'Oh, okay, sorry didn't see the sign.' Then we would order a slice of pizza. At first he didn't mind but after several months he started to get a little fed up with us asking him, ‘hey, what’s a Stromboli?’ One day I walked in and had an extra long deliberation at the counter, I dragged on my decision making process for almost a minute before I finally asked, ‘hey, what’s a Stromboli?’ The Chinese man had enough.  He blew his top. 

‘Go stick it up the wazoo!!! Stick it up the wazoo!!’ he said and chased me out the front door and up the street.  

The last time I told someone to stick it up his or her wazoo happened with my older brother a couple of summers back in France. We were drinking whiskey and talking about growing up. It was early in the evening and the sun had almost set completely. Funny thing is we were talking about Mr. Shorty. My brother was giving me grief about how I shouldn't have quit the basketball team, that I shouldn't have told Mr. Shorty to stick it up his wazoo, that I had an attitude problem when I was a kid, etc. etc. I listened and listened and reasoned and reasoned about how Mr. Shorty was wrong and that I was right to stand up to him, that I was the only one brave enough to stand up to his Nazi regime, and that Mr. Shorty was a bad role model and should never have been a teacher or coach because he was not only bad at both but also highly unprofessional. Well, my brother likes to boar in and I should have just walked away, but instead, I told him to stick it up the wazoo. I stupidly illustrated exactly what he was talking about, that I had an attitude problem. Still. 

And that was the last time I told someone to stick it up the wazoo. I hope it’s the last, I really do.  

Out of Colour, Out of Mind

Out of Colour, Out of Mind

I found Debra’s white tee shirt at the bottom of my laundry basket. It was the day of her funeral. I held the wrinkled white tee shirt in my hand and felt as if I should shed a tear. It was so soft to the touch. I'd actually forgotten about the tee shirt, like a lot of the clothes I've lost track of along the way. The tee shirt had obviously spent some time at the bottom of the basket. I tend not to wear white very often so it's pretty rare for me to do a white wash. The white wash makes its way to the bottom of the laundry basket eventually. Colour takes precedence in my laundry basket hierarchy. Out of colour. Out of mind. It all seemed so sad. It was a nice tee shirt that didn't deserve to be treated so badly at the bottom of the laundry basket. I always loved it for some reason, it's soft thin feel. It seemed to cling to the body in a static electric way. It was actually a designer tee shirt of the highest quality that will remain nameless for Debra's sake and the fact she disliked name dropping products in songs and stories, especially a corporation such as Tesco, something I found out first hand when she critiqued one of my stories. It was her only objection, that I mentioned the name of a product.  God forbid it was a corporation such as Tesco. I was just stating a fact in relation to a character. It wasn't that big a deal. All friends have differences.

Whenever I slept on Debra’s sofa she brought the tee shirt down for me with a pair of pajama bottoms and a furry blanket and I slept on her sofa with her Staffordshire bull terrier, Madagascar, sleeping at my feet. She was quite cozy, Madagascar, especially last Easter. It felt odd to hold Debra's tee shirt knowing that she had died. I thought of Madagascar and her two boys. And all her friends... the neighbours on her street who were close to her and found her dead after they heard Madagascar barking and barking for hours on end, or so the story travels sadly. I still had her white tee shirt in my laundry basket because I wore it home from her place by accident after I put my flannel shirt and sweater on over it in the morning. We drank coffee in her garden and she told me her troubles and I told her mine. 

I didn't expect Debra to die. I'd only seen her a couple of months earlier and she looked fine. She was fifty three years young. She was walking near the train station during her lunch break near the college where she worked and not far from where I worked at the mental institution. She was with another English lecturer when I passed her.  He looked like an English lecturer anyway, or History. He had an ever thinning pony tail and wore a brown corduroy blazer with what looked like matching corduroy trousers. They were deep in conversation when I turned the corner. I knew what they were talking about by the look on Debra's face when our eyes met. We had that connection. We squinted in each other's eyes, like two Lieutenant Columbos. I knew that they were talking about the script Debra and I wrote together some months earlier. I could tell by the look in her eye and by the fact she shifted her glasses in a nervous way and looked away. I wanted to say hello but she didn't allow me the opportunity. 

I sent Debra a couple of text messages to sort of open the door to a reconciliation but I wasn't serious enough in my messages to merit a response, which I regret  (I should have been more serious). She wanted a proper apology from me and I didn't feel I had done anything wrong. I thought she was being silly really. Childish to be exact. I was only guilty of trying to fix my dear buddy, Pete the Tooth, up with her because he asked me for her number after they met in the Red Lion Pub and got on famously, or so it seemed to me and the Tooth. I told him that I would have to ask Debra if it was okay but I didn't see why not. When I asked her she said she didn't want me to give him her number. I asked her why not and we had a bad argument on the phone over it. I didn't like the reasons why she wasn't interested in the Tooth, that she was judging the Tooth on his nickname. I called her ‘shallow minded and she said that I was a ‘nasty man.’ I thought the whole conversation was a joke but she was serious. She really thought I was a bastard and I was offended she thought so. All I did was try and put two people who wanted love together. 

When Pete the Tooth met Debra at the Red Lion pub it was six months before Debra died. Debra knew Pete from a story I had written about him called Pete the Tooth, which I’d asked Debra to read for me. I felt that she formed an opinion of Pete already based on the story, which exaggerated aspects of Pete's personality, like his drinking and irascible nature at times. I tried to explain to her that he wasn't really like that, that it was exaggerated, that she didn't have to call him Pete the Tooth, that I’d invented these things about Pete for the sake of the story, to make the character more interesting, that in fact, Pete the Tooth was a far more interesting character than the story, a much better person, and that I thought they’d make a great couple. Debra was very offended that I thought they'd make a great couple and didn't want to talk about it any more. She hung the phone up on me and that was the last time we spoke in person. 

When I told the Tooth that Debra died he had an odd reaction.  He looked pleasantly relieved after the initial shock that hits people when they discover someone they knew or met has died. They replay the events of their encounters with the newly departed in an astonished awe and take stock of their own mortality. Even though the Tooth didn't know Debra that well he had strong feelings for her. It was written on his face. He often asked about Debra and talked about her and the time they met. Their meeting didn't obviously hold the same impression for Debra. The Tooth was quite moved when I told him Debra died. His reaction was slightly odd but the Tooth is actually the most sensitive man that I have ever met. He's also probably my best friend. I asked him why the reaction and he explained.  

‘I had a crush on her from that night you brought her in the pub. She was my type. So honest, and smart, and interesting. Imagine if she did fancy me and we got together and then she died so suddenly. That would be the fourth time in my life something like that has happened to me, so suddenly, and I don't know if I'd be able to handle it again. You know my first wife went off with the next-door neighbour. That nearly killed me, took me years to get over that. I didn't see it coming.  I thought she loved me.  I still haven't gotten over that one. And then when I realised that my second wife was a lesbian, which really wasn't a surprise, but it hit me just as hard really as I was having a mid life crisis at the time. Even though I never married the third one we were together the longest. Unfortunately we fought more than the others and at my age I am too old to be fighting so it was a good thing she kicked me out, after the initial shock, but if Debra and I got together and she died six months later, that would have really done me in. I feel very blessed actually, at the moment.'  

The Tooth had a strange way of cheering a guy up. He also had strange logic sometimes. I couldn't help but thinking that maybe he could have saved Debra. Who knows? She told me not long before she died that she wanted to find someone to love, that she’d been alone for too long.  I told her not to force it, that it’s not a requirement in life to have a lover or a friend. She had her dog and her two boys now grown up. What more could she want without complicating things further. ... She had lots of friends. She had her house. She had a new job, even if she wasn't making as much money as before, she had one.

What she said she really wanted was a lover and to write. I told her I couldn't be her lover but I could be her friend and I could write with her. So we did. We wrote a story about our lives called Parallel Universe. We spent Easter weekend planing and writing it. We had a reading of it at my place and people seemed to like it but like so many projects of this variety they require contacts, money, time, and a will of iron to see it through. Nevertheless, I'm glad we wrote the script together, that in the last year of Debra's life she started to write. I'd like to think she's looking over me now. Well, I can still hear her voice so she must be. 

Apparently, I heard through the grapevine that Debra found some interest in Parallel Universe from an English lecturer at her new job who had some connections in the industry.  I imagine it was the same lecturer she was walking down the street with the last time I saw her and we didn't say hello to each other. She felt stronger about Parallel Universe than I did, I guess. I'd like to think that we were taking a break from each other more than any kind of permanent falling out. I feel sadness but not guilt. 

I put Debra’s white tee shirt in the washing machine with all my other whites. I hung it in the garden near the shed and waited until it dried in the sun.  When it dried I put it on and buttoned up my only white button down shirt over it. I put on my only tie, appropriately black, and black trousers.  Luckily I had a nice black blazer Pete the Tooth let me borrow for the funeral.  I polished my shoes on the way out the door and hopped on the bus to pay my respects to Debra and talk to the English lecturer and others I knew through Debra and put some faces to the names of the others.

On the way to the funeral and throughout those days I sang a song to myself that Debra and I both loved. I sing it to myself whenever I think of her now. 

'Fire and soil... well who  cares... just take off your underwear.... and kiss the life... into me.... and death will fall.... at my feet.' 

The Walnut Tree Wine Cave

The Walnut Tree Wine Cave

One of my first jobs was at the Walnut Tree Wine Cave. The Wine Cave wasn't a cave at all. It was one of a row of shops in a shopping centre called Walnut Tree. There was a florist, pharmacy, travel agent, Wendy's burger chain, and the supermarket Stop and Shop. There was also the cinema where I saw Blade Runner when I was twelve. 

The Walnut Tree Wine Cave sold all types of alcohol in all shapes and sizes. Labels stared at you from everywhere and cardboard promotions dangled from the ceiling and filled any space not available to exhibit products. There were rows of shelves filled with predominately Ernest and Julio Gallo and Carlo Rossi wines, which were the same company and the big monopoly at the time. Gallo were master marketers and had every size and variety of wine you could imagine. Their 3 and 4 litre jugs of wine came in cases of four and were a pain in the ass to lug around. The Gallo and Rossi 3 and 4 litre jugs filled most of the bottom shelves. Their 1.5 litres filled the middle shelves and their 750 mills filled the top shelves. Gallo and Rossi flooded the market completely in those days but times were changing with the ripening wine boom and people’s desire to drink better wine. 

I didn't work behind the counter at the front of the Walnut Tree Wine Cave where the customers entered and paid for their items on their way out and very often purchased lottery tickets. I worked the shop floor stocking the shelves and cooler with wine, spirits, beer, coolers, soda and juices. Stock Boy extroidinaire.  I held the price gun in my hand or tucked in my back pocket. A holster would have come in handy. I walked around adjusting the price on the clicker then shot the price tag onto the new bottles of wine, whiskey, vodka, gin. Sometimes I tagged a new price over an old price. I was sixteen when I first started working at the Wine Cave and it was a good job, when it wasn't boring. I also took the deliveries in, checked the invoices, matched the items, checked for damages to the bottles or labels, made sure of the right sizes, etc. I made deliveries in the van to the elderly who couldn't walk any more and to other liquor stores in the area who we were part of our co-operative to stay competitive with the bigger liquor stores. 

Martin and his wife Agnes were the owners of the Wine Cave. They were in their sixties. Martin was of Polish descent and he liked to poke fun at himself for being a ‘dumb Pollock.’ 

‘I must be a dumb Pollock to be in this business.’ 

Martin had a day job as well repairing computers so he was hardly dumb. He came to the Walnut Tree Wine Cave at night to work and keep an eye on things. I usually saw him at the end of my 10 to 6 shift when he was coming off his 9 to 5. He was a stocky guy who reminded me of Lieutenant Columbo without the cigars and hair for Martin's hair was completely grey and he smoked Marlboro red cigarettes. Agnes worked behind the counter during the day and sometimes back in the office at night. She was soft-spoken and delicately mannered and always spoke glowingly of Martin and how he was one of those people that were lucky in life, that it was Martin who always won the raffles, that it was Martin who won in Atlantic City and Vegas. They were a good team. 

Brian was the manager. He was about 30 years old. He stood out because he was a sharp dresser and he always had something going on with his hair- a new style, a new colour. Brian had psoriasis, just about the worst case I've ever seen. Oddly enough, Martin also had psoriasis, probably worse than Brian's. Psoriasis was their bond.

Brian was much more self conscious about it than Martin. Martin was older and married with psoriasis free children and didn't have the same insecurities about it but he understood what Brian was going through and was like a father to him. For their bond of psoriasis people could be excused for thinking Martin and Brian were father and son, even if they didn't look at all alike. 

Martin and Brian didn't always agree, especially when it came to Ernest and Julio Gallo, (Carlo Rossi) and Albert, the Gallo salesman who came into the Wine Cellar every Friday afternoon. Albert usually arrived just about when Martin arrived, when Martin was off for the weekend, and in a good mood. Good timing. Albert looked like a Carey Grant gangster- impeccably attired to show that he was of worth- fancy suit, shoes, gold watch, rings, and necklace. Albert was a bulldog charmer of the first degree and he had Martin wrapped around his finger. He and Martin knew each other for years. Martin was loyal. I thought Albert was a character. He added spice to the place- the way he walked about the place as if it was his. He had amazing gall, like any good salesman. The problem was that Brian loved good wine and hated what Albert was selling, otherwise they would have got on fine. Brian wanted to improve the quality of the wine and beer on offer and this meant a battle with Albert. Albert would win the battle because Martin was loyal to him and Martin was slow to change with the times. Martin drank Budweiser. He didn't care much for anything fancy, just Budweiser. Brian liked to dress nicely and drink nicely. Martin was bluer collar and didn't want to change. Brian was blue collar and did. Martin used to crack open a Budweiser in the office when he came in from his day job. It was his store. He didn't care or believe in this fancy wine and beer movement Brian tried to persuade him into following. He did what he thought was right, and what he knew, what made him money in the past. He wasn't taking any chances. Better the devil you know. 

Martin was always friendly to me and trusted I wasn't cheating him. I could have many times cheated him by stealing a bottle here or there. I did the stock checks. It would have been easy. It was Brian who always charged me half price when I came to pay for a bottle of nice red California zinfandel I would be taking home after work to add to my growing collection. Brian was always educating me about wine so he felt a sense of pride that I wanted to take one home, so he gave me the stock boy discount. Brian was always cool to me and knew I was on his side regarding product placement and that Albert had too much say in the running of the store. Brian got me to appreciate wine. Whenever the salesmen came in with nice bottles to taste, ones Brian knew were good, he always invited me in on the tasting on the counter at the front of the shop. Brian let the wine swirl around in his mouth then spit it back into the glass. The salesmen always praised their wine and waited for Brian’s response, his affirmation that it is as good as the salesmen would have us believe. Brian would let him know what he thought. He could describe tastes very well, and tell you what was good about a wine, or what it lacked. 

There was another guy that worked at the Walnut Tree Wine Cave who had a really bad stutter and always wore a maroon vinyl reflective jacket such as the one football coaches wore in the 1970’s. His name was Ernie and I probably spent more time with Ernie than anyone else at the Wine Cave. I have never ever met another Ernie in all my life. Ernie was a lovely man in his late sixties and he and I spent a lot of time just chatting away, killing time. It was often boring, especially when the shelves and cooler were fully stocked and labelled and no deliveries coming in. We talked about sports mostly and sometimes politics. Once he got mad at me because I didn't know who Coretta Scott King was. I remember he asked me all incredulous, 'have you ever heard of Martin Luther King?' He annoyed me sometimes. I guess he got frustrated hanging out with a daydreamer all the time. Ernie didn't like it when he was talking to me and I would walk away with my price gun as if I was Wyatt Earp. He would follow me, attempting to get his point across, stuttering away in my wake. 'John ya ya ya ya you're walking away from me an an an an an and I'm speaking with you.' I don't know why he sometimes bored me because he was a very nice man. I guess I didn't like it when he lectured me. Maybe it was the maroon reflective jacket that he always wore. Why? I always wanted to ask him why he didn't wear other clothes, but it seemed a rude thing to ask. 

On pay day all the Stop and Shop employees came into the Wine Cave to buy lottery tickets, which was a pain in the neck for staff as it meant dealing with people's idiosyncratic ways and superstitions regarding their special numbers involving their grandchildren’s birthdays, marriage anniversaries... you name it. Sometimes the special numbers changed and Agnes would make a mistake punching them into the machine and the wrong number would come out. The customer would inevitably want to purchase the ticket with the wrong number. 

‘Don’t throw it away. Don’t cancel it! I want the mistake. I want the ticket. I want my lucky numbers and the mistake ticket with the wrong numbers too. It might be fate, you never know.’ 

We should have had a board on the wall or a notebook with these special numbers to save time as the people annoyingly read from some old piece of paper in their wallets or purse and a line would form behind them. The idea of the lottery machine was to get people into the store to buy alcohol or cigarettes but most of the people that came to play the lottery weren't interested in the alcohol or wine. The Stop and Shop employers that came into the Wine Cave every week to throw their money out the window were fools because they weren't going to win. They were wasting their hard earned money and everybody’s time. 

My grandfather was an accountant all his life and when he'd retired he still needed numbers. He believed in his blooming senility that he had acquired a system to predict the numbers before they were drawn. Grandpa had all the winning numbers from the past several years spread out before him on his dining room table. He was going to beat the lottery system. It wasn't superstition he was after or believed in, or luck or fate, but work. 

Giacomo Bistrot Robbed

Giacomo Bistrot Robbed

Giacomo Bistrot was an up scale Italian restaurant in town. My mother was friends with the owners. They were a nice Italian family running a nice family restaurant. 

I was fifteen years old and walked passed the old movie theatre in town one winter night when I spotted a black kid named Squirrel. Squirrel was a little older than I but I'm not sure how much older because nobody knew how old Squirrel really was because he didn't go to one of the schools in town any more. He went to another school in another town. I don’t know how he got his nickname but he was a character and a person that people feared. He was always nice to me for some reason. He never singled me out or picked on me the way he did others. I don’t know why. It was the same on this night. Squirrel was nice as can be. 

-Eh, Whitaker- you thirsty for some good beer?

-Sure, why, do you have some? 

-No, but I know where to get some. . . for free. Follow me. 

I followed Squirrel up the road that runs along the train line and down behind some shops. We came to the back of Giacomo Bistrot. They were having an extension done out the back. I followed Squirrel down into the basement area, which had some fencing surrounding the work. We pulled back the fence and squeezed our bodies through. Easy. We were in. We could hear people talking above us in the restaurant. My mother could have been up there for all I knew. We made our way into the basement area, which seemed to be the storage area for the alcohol. Stacked in front of us were cases and cases of bottles of beer- Becks, Heineken, etc and expensive champagne- Veuve Cliquot, Moet et Chandon. We didn’t want to be too greedy and conspicuous so we only grabbed a case of Beck's Dark. We took it back to an alley behind the movie theatre and cracked open a beer each and toasted. When we finished the beer I took my half of the case and Squirrel took his and we went our separate ways. I took mine back to the shed and shared them with my friends. 

The next weekend I was with a friend. We were bored and thirsty. I told him about Giacomo Bistrot. 

-What do you think?

-Let’s do it. 

This time we were a little greedier, we took a couple of cases and some champagne. We took it all back to the shed. It was so easy we got greedier. We enlisted some new recruits to help us lug the stuff across town and back to the shed. It did look a little dodgy- a group of fifteen year olds smuggling cases of alcohol across town. We managed to do it successfully. 

Some weeks later I happened to pass the local newspaper sitting on the kitchen counter. The headline read:

Giacomo Bistrot Robbed

Oh, boy. I read the story. No suspects, just that they’d been robbed of lots of alcohol, beer and champagne. My mother talked about it at the dinner table. 

-Those poor people, just trying to run a business and someone is robbing them blind. Why would someone do such a thing?

A couple of weeks later my older brother had a party with all his friends over. They were in their mid twenties and inside the house being raucous. My older brother had no idea we were up to no good out back by the shed drinking our beer. The champage was for when the beer ran out. One of my older brother’s drunken friends decided to take a walk around the yard in a drunken stupor and he heard us back by the shed and decided to pay a visit. He sat on a case of champagne as we drank by candlelight in the night-time cold. We didn't think anything of it. We offered him a beer. He slurred a bunch of words about how we had wonderful taste in champagne, then made his way back into the house with a bottle of our Heineken. 

We went off for a walk in the neighbourhood to find some action as you do when you're young and drunk. When I came back into the house later that night I discovered a bunch of familiar champagne and beer bottles on the table- Veuve Cliquot, Moet et Chandon, Becks, Heineken, all the same brands we had in the shed. I went out to the shed to have a look. Older brother and his friends had helped themselves. I ran back into the house and found him. He was with his friends drinking our beer and champagne- still slurring his words, only now worse. 

-I know where it came from. I’m not stupid. ... Where would you little kids get the money to buy this good stuff? It won’t take much to tell Ma....... and that is what I will do tomorrow. 

-Tell her then. You’re drinking it too. You shouldn’t be drinking it either. 

My mother figured it out the next day when she came down to all the empty bottles. It was the champagne that gave it away really. My mother saw the bottles of champagne lying all about and they weren’t the cheap variety, so she did a little bit of detective work and discovered to her horror that her own children had robbed Giacomo Bistrot. My mother watched a lot of Columbo and Miss Marple so she put two and two together. Obviously she wasn’t going to turn her own children in to the police.  

She called her friends, the owners, and explained. Luckily they were good friends and understanding and did not make it a police matter. The remaining cases in the shed were returned to Giacomo Bistrot and my mother paid the restaurant back the cost of the alcohol we drank. 

Bluff

Bluff

I cycled twenty to thirty miles a day that summer in Manhattan. I was a bicycle messenger. It was 1997 and I was 27.  I started my day at 112th and Central Park West and made my way down town to Greenwich Village and the financial district where most of my pick ups and drops off's were. I scaled the World Trade Center many times as a messenger. A bike messenger spends a great deal of time off the bike as well- in elevators, ringing buzzers, waiting for a response, walking around the block in search of the right address, all the while hoping someone doesn't steal your bike. The bicycle black market in New York City entire thrives.    

At the end of the day back up at 112th and Central Park West I showered and washed the car exhaust from my hair and pores. It looked like black ink pouring down my body to my feet and into the drain. A bike messenger wasn't a lucrative job despite it's serious lack of health benefits. I cycled Paris for a year so I was well qualified.  The problem with being a messenger was replenishing one's precious bodily fluids. Thirst could become very costly. Manhattan in summer is one of the hottest places on the planet with all that black tar and pavement sizzling and steam.  I loved it when it rained and cooled off. Nobody wanted to work when it rained because of the danger of crashing increased tenfold. I made a lot of dough when it rained and I needed the money. I didn't realise the danger of cycling in the rain at first. The danger is manholes. They are very slick and when wet the bike comes right out from under you, especially if you break over one. I learned this lesson the hard way and a scar on my arm to prove it. The other danger is car doors. Be prepared for them to open and ready to break or swerve without being run down by a yellow cab. I jumped over a car door one day as it opened unexpectedly. I was thinking bout James Dean walking the same village streets and if he ever happened to walk by or bump into Jack Kerouac or Edgar Varese. Bam! The bike went smack into the open door and I leaped over it head first. Luckily it was summer and the window was down. I had a sore shoulder for a couple of days. The bike and door were fine. 

I started writing a script that summer. I cycled during the day drumming up ideas and I wrote them down in my notebook back at the apartment at night. It was called Nomad. It took me a couple of weeks to write and think it was finished. I then ran an ad in the theatre trade newspaper Backstage for actors to audition. There were descriptions for all the characters. 

Joe: forty, rugged, ex baseball player. 

Cassie: 18, brunette, pregnant, 

Earl: 65, narcoleptic, sleeps on the bench in the local park

Etc. 

I was very excited reading the advertisement in Backstage. It was now official. But where were the responses? I hurriedly cycled back to the apartment from the village to a practically empty mailbox. There were a couple of actor's head-shots but very disappointing indeed. Each day- the same, just a couple again. Then Friday came and there was a note from the post office that I had a package waiting for me for pick up. The post office was wedged between some brownstones on the upper west side. I walked in and handed the friendly black man behind the counter the ticket. 

He looked it over and said, 'oh, it's you. You have a lot of mail, my friend. I mean a lot of mail.' 

'How much?' I asked. 

'Well, do you have a truck or big car?' 

'I have a big car,' I said. 

'Well, you are going to need it.' 

I had a car in Trenton stashed in my sister Cindy's garage. It was an old rusted 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88, the last car my dear old grandfather bought. I also needed to pick up some things from Cindy's so I took the train down to Trenton and drove the Oldsmobile back into the city and straight to the post office before it closed. The Oldsmobile was completely filled with actor’s head-shots and reels (trunk, back seat, front seat). There were also reels from directors of photography, sound engineers, 2nd assistant cameramen, etc. I could see nothing to the side or behind me as I navigated the upper west side toward the apartment. I lugged it all up to the top floor apartment. The entire front room of the apartment was filled with all this Nomad stuff. They said in those days that there are at least twenty thousand actors in New York. I'd say I had the headshots of five thousand. I began to sift through them and match them to the characters. I put a stack in the toilet for reading material. It was then that it dawned on me that the apartment was big enough to hold an audition. So a date was set, and I began to call all the pretty girls to play Cassie, and rugged guys to play Joe, and guys that could possibly be downtrodden enough to play Earl. 

The very first thing I noticed as the actors filtered into the apartment was they often looked nothing like their head-shots. The gloss was gone and who they really were was in front of you.  The actors climbed the four flights to the top floor and waited in the kitchen, which served as the waiting room. '

Help yourself to some coffee' the sign said. 

They practised their lines in the kitchen before they were summoned into the main room where they did a monologue, and then read the script of Nomad. It was interesting to be on the other side of the table and see people's nerves work for or against them.  

The problem with the whole project was that there was no money. The bluff could only go so far. Eventually the summer ended and the sublet and my time as a bike messenger. 

I moved down to Cindy's to live. I got a job in Princeton driving a limousine. I drove mostly to the airports- Philadelphia, Newark, John F. Kennedy. It was an okay job but I was too far away from Manhattan to keep the bluff going and the script started gathering dust.