A career in security or law enforcement. Me. Can you believe that? Well I’ve seen the commercials on TV. I really do want to put crooks behind bars. But I’m sure there are tests and I don’t test well. I remember a few years ago, I was doing what I seem to do a lot of these days. I was looking for a job. The economy was better then. More Prospects. But now, oh it’s slim pickin’s.

It used to be I’d be walking to the job that I didn’t like or was temping for, and I’d see someone sweeping a sidewalk and I’d think, ‘Wow. That’s such a great job. I want that job.’ So one time, when I was looking, I was hanging out with my friend Miriam and her friend Andre. Dre was a good looking cat but man his brother was drop dead gorgeous. Lustily I digress.

So Dre was working as a doorman. A great union, great benefits. Sounded like the type of job you do until you’re 70 or so. Then you go home and die. Promising. Despite the fatal end, everything would seem to be in place. He told me that they were looking for people of my complexion, i.e. freckled. It sounded like a great gig.

When I told some friends about this possible job, they cautioned me, no rather told me not to take the job. I’m simply not the subservient type. I laughed them off.

There were three interviews and a psychological test. The second interview at 60th ST and 9th Avenue in the city was the oddest. The interviewer was seated in front of a painting that seemed to match his tie and created a trippy like atmosphere right behind his head. But I remained grounded and passed the interview.

He sent me to a testing company for security companies. They kept emphasizing in the interviews that being a doorman is more than holding doors and helping with baggage. It’s security. When the barbarians are at the gate, and they’re trying to get into apartment 3L, it’s up to you to stop them.

Seems fair enough. I’m sure they’d do the same for me.

The test that I was given was about one hundred questions and those questions were the same 9 or 10 questions reworded over and over again. I aced the test in about 15 minutes. Other guys in the room were really sweating over it. “If you saw someone take a pen from home from the workplace would you tell a supervisor’ ‘Yes, I would. Stealing is wrong, PERIOD.’

I got the job. I was in training. I’d be wearing a suit and tie (still a novelty for me then) and white gloves. I was working with the unionized doormen, who I found out, might go on strike in a few weeks. It was a dreadful job. The doormen kept thinking I was a scab, (and maybe I was being groomed for one) and the tenants kept asking me if I was a replacement doorman. It was a building on the FDR drive built in the 1960’s white brick modernist style. Now it was dingy white brick. And it was rather dark inside. Dark windows, low lights. Elevators full of blood. Like the Overlook Hotel on the Upper East Side.

‘Hello Johnny. Play with us.’
It was not the job I envisioned. I was not held in high esteem. I’d stand there and push the revolving door while someone would stand there and take baby steps and never touch the door, at all. I guess that’s why they paid exorbitant rent or maintenance fees so they wouldn’t have to leave the building and possibly breakout in a sweat.

Then there were the Sundays I worked, when Mr. & Mrs Nutsack would come back from a wholesale club with an SUV filled with food. Loose food all over the place since they didn’t use and bags and saved even more!

I’d have to help them scoop whatever it was onto the cart and try to wheel it in while keeping everything intact. I think this was part of the ‘Beat The Clock’ game show in the 1970’s.

I had enough. I’d normally hold the door for people if I was in public situations, but while working this job I wouldn’t. My friends were right. I’m not the subservient type. But I’m not the opposite either. I’m right there in the middle.

Feel free to comment fuckers.

In the early 1980’s in Passaic NJ there was a New Wave club called Hitsville. The theme of the club was black and white checkerboard. I enjoyed the club. I wasn’t allowed in being underage, but I had my brother Brian’s License. I only used it to get into bars. This was before photo ID’s. Brian and I looked enough alike and were close enough in age for me to pass.

I became a member of the club which got me nothing but invitations in the mail. There were some pretty big names there in the little underground new wave/post punk scene. I saw Bauhaus, who were just too pretty and posey for my tastes, Stiff Little fingers, who thought I worked at Hitsville (and the staff at Hitsville thought I worked for the band).

The band that sticks out most in my mind were Siouxsie and the Banshees. I had seen them in 1980 on their first American date at the Palladium. I was a fan, I really enjoyed their first record. I went with Laszlo Papp and one or two of his friends. It was a great show, she was on top that night.

I figured that what people did after the show was head back to the suburbs. Boy, was I surprised.

As we walked back to the car, Laszlo said that we were going to the Mudd Club. I didn’t want to go. It was not on my list of things to do. I was pretty much straight edge in 1980. Didn’t drink much and never did drugs.

I said to Laszlo that we couldn’t go to the Mudd Club. I had to get home. ‘Tough shit. Take a subway to the Port Authority and get a bus home.’ I couldn’t believe this. I was freaking out. I was still very much a babe in the woods concerning how to get around the city. Or more likely how to get around anywhere.

But I got in the car. We drove down to White Street from the Palladium and parked around the corner. It wouldn’t be too cool to pull up in front of the club in a muscle car with Jersey Plates.

I must’ve looked like I was on a bad acid trip. I tagged along with Laszlo and wandered around while his friends hung out with the Banshees. I kept thinking about my mother being worried. I heard Kiss Kiss Kiss by Yoko Ono in the club. John and Yoko had just released it as the B-Side of the new single.

But I couldn’t get into the swing of the night. I was such a pussy. I was still very much in Lodi. Mind, body and soul. I walked around the club, not really talking to anyone, and drinking cokes. After Laszlo and his friends had enough of the Banshees and the Banshees more than likely had enough of Laszlo and his friends, we piled in the car for the drive back to New Jersey.

The sun was creepin’ up.

Laszlo dropped me off in front of my house and I tried to sneak inside. My mother, who had been up all night in the living room, stage whispered, “Where the hell have you been?”

I told her I went to the concert and then to a club. Then I went to my bed and slept. Two hours later, my mother shouted upstairs to wake me up. I said I wasn’t going to work. She said I was.