A Little Bit of Happiness

This season has been particularly uncheerful for me. There are a variety of reasons, glum, adding up to me silently wishing it would all be over. There were parties we were invited to, didn't go. There's a stack of cards unattended to and shopping that never got done. I missed most of the specials on TV and even the annual barrage of yuletide tunes that I usually find so festive seemed more of an annoyance. I just don't care.

Now today, Christmas Eve has blasted through the door like a big fat entitled uninvited guest and I'm trying to hide in the closet. I certainly didn't think I'd find a hope of Christmas Eve salvation. I dropped Trace off at the fish store for dinner stuff and stood outside in the cold and the rain. The line was out the door. We were in Bensonhurst, where I am from. I only live a short distance away but I rarely get back here. None of my friends are still here, my father is gone and most of the places I spent my life in were long gone too. As I stood on the corner I remembered my Bensonhurst, a place so close to my heart that it beats with a Brooklyn accent. I love this place for it made me what I am mostly. As I looked up the avenue I saw the music store where I spent many many weekend days learning to play drums and guitar and worshipping the older kids who got to go to clubs and concerts. We'd sit in the store all day and I'd listen to the owner's son play guitar and tell tales of being in bands and going to shows. I learned so much of my humor, my love of music and my want to play anything that makes sound from those precious days. All the metal heads would stop by and some touring celebrities would come in for strings and things when they came through. I have many cherished memories dating back 27 years to that tiny building in that old Italian neighborhood.

I smiled to myself, hungry for something I couldn't find anywhere else and began walking toward the store. I stepped through the door and there were the owner, Big Mike and his son, Little Mike still stringing guitars, still arguing, still telling jokes and throwing things. The store hadn't changed much; there were guitars and drums and things all over the place. The employees were usually friends of the family in a constantly rotating cast. There was a six foot hero in plastic wrap on a row of amplifiers and a hungry looking group hovering. Mike looked up and recognized me with a huge smile. We hugged and laughed and told a few quick one liners and I felt tension melt, I felt home. There was always a stool by the counter for anyone to sit and hang out. I sat and made myself at comfy. Soon we were telling stories of old mobsters, actors, musicians and friends long dead. There was the ongoing argument started in 1984 about what an over rated guitarist jimmy page was. Stairway to Heaven was on and when the guitar solo came on, Fat Sal came sliding into the room and frantically picked up a guitar off the rack and played note for note in tune. He disappeared just as fast after the song ended. I looked around and felt so full of life and so full of memories that I just sat teary and for the first time in weeks I laughed hard.

Mike looked over and said, "Hey, Tommy, you remind me so much of your father, may he rest in peace. He was a good man." I asked, "Really?" "Oh yeah, you sound just like him, look just like him and that's good because you'll always keep him with you."

I really miss my father.

I went and saw The Old Man behind his desk, we smiles and shook hands warmly and spoke Italian, what little I still can. I really need to relearn.

For a brief time, I was home, in my old neighborhood. It was like the old days, my father would come bursting in the room any minute. We'd drink wine and tell more stories and laugh and cry and fight until it was time to go home.

You remember this song:

There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

 

 

Soon it was my time to head back out in the rain and the gloom but I was warmed now by tender reminiscence. Before I left, Mike bellowed to me from across the room, "Hey, Tommy, you can't leave without taking a piece of sandwich!" We unwrapped the giant hero and he tossed me a couple of pieces. Turkey, ham, roast beef, American cheese and a bit of antipasto spread for those wondering. "You should come by more" he growled in his thick Bensonhurst accent. I missed that, too. We hugged our Merry Christmases and I walked down the avenue eating my sammich. For the first time all season, I was happy.

So, to those I know and love both near and far, a Happy Christmas to you and those you keep close. May the season's warm embrace keep you comfy.

T

New York City: $103.50, Tom: $0.00

You know those days when you are so hungry that you find yourself doubled over in a kind of nauseating pain. It's the kind of pain that defies logic because you feel like you want to vomit but your stomach is quite empty. That's what I was walking around with all morning yesterday. It made me irritable, impatient and prone to fits of uncomfortable singing…

I had a job downtown that would permit me just enough time to grab a roll-o-sushi at one of those Asian Everything markets near Union Square and eat it on the train back up to work. I was so hungry that this little rolled up bit of rice, avocado and imitation crabmeat looked like a Porterhouse steak. I couldn't wait to get this hot little number alone.

NOTE: As a cheap date, I am equal to none.

I happily skipped up Broadway toward Union Square like a ten year old who just got kissed by the cute girl who started growing breasts. As I passed Forbidden Planet, a popular comic store, my eye caught a few goodies in the window. This being the season, I figured I'd start on my list.

Q: Do I look like a thief to you? Do I look like the kind of guy who would pilfer Geek Porn? I was stopped by the hipster slacker security force-of-one who insisted I check my bag at the door. I like to be cooperative but when it comes to strangers handling my food, I get a bit touchy. I gave in because I wanted to see if they had that new Kirk action figure rumored to be in residence but I did so under protest. I made my list and proceeded to reclaim my lunch, hang on baby, papa's comin'.

Here's where it gets good. I should have grabbed the bag by the handles but in my haste I just palmed it from the bottom like I was holding a stack of books secretly greased with butter. As I made for the door the phone rang. With my free hand I answer and press my shoulder to the door - which doesn't move.

SLOW MOTION HOLLYWOOD EFFECT: The door doesn't move, I slam and collapse into it like a crumpling piece of paper, the phone snaps shut in my face and my precious lunch goes momentarily airborne and slams into the grimy wood floor.

MY GOD, THEY LOOK LIKE ANTS IN SNOW CAMMO FROM UP HERE! Um, no, that's lots of rice on the floor, Captain. And little bits of imitation crab. I glared at the slouchy bag check guy who turned so fast you'd think a parade of naked Rockettes kicked on by.

I was now furious. Blood-in-my-eye-want-a-human-sacrifice-they-cancelled-Star-Trek-again furious. Now, I can take a lot of things, suffer many indignities, deal with many a personal injustice but I can not take someone messing with my food. I drew my umbrella, ready for blood but since there were children around composed myself. I had no choice but to leave. So I did. And I left the mess for them. I continued up Broadway with my stomach in a knot. I was hungry and out $3.50. I hate that. Two things I hate most; wasting food and wasting money. And reality TV. The phone rings again, it's Trace. I'm straining to hear her through the stuttering signal. All I hear is bits of digital flotsam; "I'm….bip…leep…bop…hayep…you." I think she's at the subway – or ordering a subway, or ran into Hemmingway. I try to tell her lunch is waiting for her in Forbidden Planet's new cafeteria but she can't hear me either. In the middle of New York City in the United States of America in the year 2008, I am on a piece of crappy technology that can't keep it up long enough for me to get directions. I was so intensely concentrating on listening that I failed to notice that I was standing in the middle of 14^th street – against the light. I looked up to see the front end of a bus growing larger in my field of vision. Just as I was about to scream into the phone for help I heard the distinct chime that says, "Call dropped" . "Beedlyeoop."

THE SCENE: Me, hunched and wide eyed in the middle of the street clutching a dead phone, bus bearing down on me, furious, confused and hungry…..

Knowing I was about to die under the wheels of the MTA's finest, knowing ATT would have the last word in my private little war with cellular technology, I decided on one final act of rebellion; I grabbed the little black flip phone by both ends and just as I was about to rip and tear, I heard that voice once again over my shoulder, "You know if you do that you will have to replace it and you'll be out a cool hundred for this one and who knows how much for the next. Just be patient. And get out of the street." Yes, cooler heads. I loosened my grip on the phone I heard that other voice out of nowhere, dark and ominous: "DO IT, DO IT NOW!!!!" and I tore the little phone in half and screamed, "LOOK AT YOU NOW, BITCH!!!!! YOU LIKE THAT?? HUH? HUH? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!" And I dodged victoriously out of the way of traffic and to the station.

As my elevated pressure returned to more suitable atmospheric conditions I stopped laughing long enough to realize just how much 6 little pieces of rice and crab cost me…..

And what are you having for lunch?

Tommy.