December | 2011 | johnozed

Darlene Love is singing White Christmas from the Phil Spector Christmas Album. It’s a bit brisk outside. It is day two, eleven hour shift. It has been quite busy. The plan for Thomas to close the store tonight so that I might get a twenty minute head start and get to the bus so I could be home sooner has fallen by the wayside due to the inept schedule for the week.

Who knew it would be so busy, a fucking week before Christmas Eve? Zack had Thomas come in an hour earlier to help out since it was so fucking busy. So I will be closing tonight and opening tomorrow. It can be done but it will not be easy. I have to be up at 7:00 in the morning to catch the 8:00 bus since there is no 8:30 bus. And since I have to open the cigar shack I should be there by 9:00. At least I will have my egg sandwich before yet another eleven hour shift.

Word is out that Madonna is making a surprise appearance playing with the dreaded Wynton Marsalis Salad Bar Band tonight. Not my cuppa tea. It’s been very busy tonight and sales expectations were met and exceeded making Zack a very happy and giggly man. Forty minutes to go then the hustle.

Thomas is just about to head out and hopefully it won’t get too busy. Left alone to man the shack it won’t be easy, so people will just have to wait. And I just had two gentlemen in the store and they had me running back and forth like a chicken sans head. Twenty three minutes and Thomas is long gone.

Tomorrow will have a full staff minus Thomas and for myself I just have to make it through Monday before I get two days off in a row which is quite rare. This morning I was fortunate to see Bill for a few minutes before he passed out after driving to Atlantic City. He is doing that again tonight and I won’t be seeing my beloved until tomorrow night.

I just checked the numbers and they match up so that should be one less thing I have to worry about tonight. I will still worry about Bill though.

It’s funny, at least once a day someone will ask if we have Cuban cigars at the cigar shack and they are incredulous when I tell them they are illegal. Most people don’t know their history. Listening to Section 25 right now, no more holiday music. I’ve had my fill. Actually had my fill before Thanksgiving.

The rest is just a violation of the Geneva convention and that is another thing people don’t know about, what is the Geneva convention. Was John Kennedy Toole right? Is this really the way it is? Sixteen minutes to go and they won’t go fast enough, that’s for sure.

Killing time on the killing floor, that is what I am about.

Endless texting from Julio, trying to entice me into having a pint. I just got home and since I have to get up early, it ain’t happening but he will not take no for an answer. I still have to eat dinner and it’s 11:20. I suggested Tuesday or Wednesday, saying Tuesday would be better for me. After an hour of telling him that he finally tells me Tuesday is his job’s holiday party. His job, which wouldn’t hire me since I am not a woman. They’ve had such bad luck with women in the position, why not continue that direction?

He is also worried that I will be like his father, hooked on Xanax. Me, taking 0.05 once a week maybe, yeah I’m a regular William S. Burroughs. I love Julio and I appreciate his trying to get me out tonight as well as out of my own way, but not tonight. And now I feel guilty but I guess I am being responsible.

14 Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuss Auf Lie

Well it’s certainly been a long day. Zack and Bradley are hootin’ and hollerin’ in the office, I am manning the front of the store, Who knows what is so funny? Not my concern. I just want to go home. Day one of four eleven hour days. Tomorrow it will be Zack and Thomas.

Last night was definitely a lot of fun. I made it into Manhattan to Bill’s office holiday party. Nice people, good food and a few Amstels for me thank you very much. The combo, Smooth N’ Fusion did an excellent job and I shot video for every song they did. I haven’t had much of a chance to upload them to YouTube but I will soon enough, when I have the time.

Just now an elderly Eastern European woman came in after having a problem with a local pricey supermarket. Covering her mouth as she spoke I could barely figure out what was being said through her thick accent.

I recommended she talk to an auxiliary police officer in the area and she said they weren’t around, so I poked my head in the office where Zack and Bradley are laughing at spread sheets and told them I was escorting her to the auxiliary cop who was as usual quite nearby..

They barely noticed as I walked out, so engrossed in Excel. SO back to the party, food and drinks and excellent songs performed by Bill and company, starting with I Wish by Stevie Wonder with a charming gaffe on Bill’s part.

Bill had also rented a Zip Car to take some equipment back to where he stage managed last month and then we drove Kirk the flautist and a woman from the cultural center up to the Bronx. I hadn’t been to the Bronx in years and driving up the Grand Concourse was a trip in itself. Not as run down or burnt out as I heard or previously seen, some truly grand buildings with holiday lights.

I know it looks different during the day but last night the Grand Concourse was looking magical. After dropping off our passengers it was a trip to figure out how to get back and my GPS on the smartphone was near dead but still we figured if we get wet, we would be in the Harlem River and more than likely had gone too far.

But that didn’t happen as we drove on the Martha part of the George Washington Bridge. Bill had a great laugh when I suggested we take the Martha, having never heard that before whereas I thought that is what everyone called the lower level of the bridge. Home later than expected but with not a care in the world, just driving around with my beloved spouse after seeing him play his keyboards and swinging and singing and getting merry like Christmas made for a wonderful evening.

Now I just want to get home, 25 minutes left. Zack not in any rush to get home to his expectant wife and daughter and Bradley just being Bradley with no particular place to go. I made haste and got out of there as Bradley farted around trying to figure out what a boy from North Carolina could do in midtown Manhattan. I was all set to go when he asked me to wait up and wait up is what I did just so he could skip away, perhaps into the headlines of the New York Post.

As I rode the bus, Julio texted me, Stine and Alexander are in Denmark and he was looking to go out for a pint. If I had a normal Monday through Friday job it would be no problem, but since tomorrow will be day two out of four eleven hour shift days, it’s not going to happen.

Welcome to the future.

22 – Ode to Billie Joe