I had a few dreams last night but I only remember the last one. I was in a car being driven by Lily Mastro with her sister Ruby in the front seat. I eventually rode in the front seat as Ruby splayed out and was reading something aloud. My sister was in the back seat as was Bill. We approached the area where the Century Theater used to be and it turned out to be a road hugging a cliff. I was worried that Lily would drive over the edge, but she was driving slow enough on the highway that it was not really anything to be concerned about.

Then there is the drama that is Mike. He is out of work, and I have been helping him out when I can. Sending him job postings, things like that. Also paying his phone bill. He does pay me back but sometimes his timing is awful. Yesterday he was supposed to meet me at the train station and we would go pay his phone bill.

But it was raining, and the bill did not have to be paid until today. So he stayed in while I walked home in the drizzle. It really was barely drizzling. So today he called me at work, asking for the phone bill assistance once again. I mentioned that this could have been taken care of yesterday, but he did not want to hear it. This happened, that happened. He gets belligerent when I try to explain my side of how I am feeling.

He is a narcissist after all. I pay his bill online once more and mention that I should not have to deal with this at work. I am not flush with cash, and I am trying to keep it together myself. His beloved doesn’t have any money and lives in California. The Beloved quit his job and took a job that he does not like, so I think he left that job as well. He’s relying on a government check for being a veteran. And who knows when that will come in? The Beloved does not know. It’s always just out of reach it seems.

Then I get a text from Mike. He’s leaving. He is going home and sorry he upset me. It was rather guilt-trippy; how dare I get mad at him and say all this could have been taken care of YESTERDAY. There was a plan that he did not want to do. He can be quite a brat.

So he was leaving. I called him and had heated words, telling him he was biting the hand that feeds him, which he said hurt to hear, but what else could you call it? I got back to work and, being me, asked if he was still at the apartment. If he was leaving, he should take one of the frozen lasagnas, but he replied he was not going home. He did not want to leave me alone, and he did not want to be alone.

Jim Kendall is a name that floated to my head as I walked home. He was in a band of sorts back in the 1980s/ I think he played keys. Jim DeRogatis was on drums, I played guitar and there might’ve been someone else involved. Jim Kendall was a nice guy. I think he was gay. The ‘band’ lasted one rehearsal if I remember. I saw Jim Kendall a few times after that. Jim DeRogatis I saw a bit more, he was a Maxwell’s habitué.

Once again Mike is asleep on the couch. I am in front of the PC. Bill is on Cape Cod. I need a break. This would be the time Bill and I would be in Ocean Grove. This is the second year in a row we have not gone. It’s a disappointment.

I worked with Mark Warner and Chris Murtaugh about 40 years ago. Good guys, decidedly straight as six o’clock. I last saw one of them maybe 30 years ago when I used to ride my bicycle up to and over the George Washington Bridge. It was on Riverside Drive in the shadow of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. It was a brief greeting and I never saw whichever one I crossed paths with again.

I may have written about Bill Murphy in a previous post. It took more than 40 years to realize I was probably mean and cruel to him. Looking back I probably took my brother Brian’s cruel line that ‘it looked like someone set his face on fire and put it out with a fork’. Cruel, graphic and albeit, funny.

Did I say that to him without cause or was it in response to something he may have said on the school bus 50 years ago? In any event, he did not let it go for four years and did his best to fuck up my high school years and I am writing about it a half century later.

Elizabeth Baldwin was a sweetheart and a talented woman I worked with at Wollf Olins or as I used to call them McMahon and Tate. Elizabeth was one of the few allies I had working on Varick Street. When we parted ways I believe she was pregnant and now that baby she had is 20 years old.

Betty Colatrella was a funny, acerbic woman who lived above Maxwell’s and waited tables. She previously worked at the Bottom Line and loved music. Betty moved to Colorado, where the climate was better for her encroaching multiple sclerosis. John Ozed was friends with Elizabeth Colatrella and Albert Ross tried to befriend her but was unable to.

Now I am home. It’s a gray evening. Occasional rain, Paterson was on the news because of floods. Rochelle Park was on the news due to a house being shot up last night. I have to say I never thought I would write that line. Rochelle Park was the route I would take on Friday nights from Lodi to the Garden State Plaza in Paramus. Mostly to buy records at Sam Goody with a 30% discount card.

I recall sitting on the floor of the underground concourse hallway and some guy mentioning the B-52’s which prompted me to pul out the famed yellow album of their first record and getting some sort of coolness recognition for it.

Then if I was not getting a blow job in the concourse mens room, or after being fellated I would run across the cloverleaf connecting Routes 17 & 4 to get to Alexander’s department store where most every album was $4.99.

I would also stop at David’s Cookies which was in the basement of Bamberger’s and inhale a few cookies before the trek home down Rochelle Avenue.

Once I got home, my parents would be out at the VFW most Friday nights and I would play my latest purchases on the family stereo, not having a stereo of my own at that time.