I just received word that there is a reunion of some people that I used to work with at Skyline recording studio on 37th Street in midtown Manhattan. They were good people, but it’s been over 30 years since I last saw them.
I used to think reunions were something promising something fun, but having been to one or two of them, I realized that it’s anything but. For me, it’s uncomfortable. It’s a reopening of old wounds, or at least a viewing of the scar. The high school reunion in 2000 was a complete waste of time, although the cocaine was very good and I did not share it with anyone. I left, realizing that I never want to see these people ever again.
In 2013, I went to a Right Track Recording reunion, and that was just as awkward as I would have expected it to be. I saw someone that I might have done wrong back in the day, and felt so embarrassed that I went out for a smoke and never went back. I also spoke to a producer’s wife and asked where so-and-so was, not realizing that the producer and so-and-so might have had an affair back in the day, underneath the wife’s nose. That was awkward enough to make me want to leave as soon as possible, and I did.
So hearing of a reunion of people that I have not seen in over 30 years does not appeal to me in the slightest. And once again, I have nothing against these people; they were generally nice people. But I just found out about it a few hours ago, and I’m not going to throw everything up in the air should be uncomfortable for a few hours tonight, especially since I’m a block away from the PATH train, which is basically 30 minutes from home. The whole thing starts around 6:30 I get out at 5:00, it ain’t going to work.
And things have just gotten slightly weird concerning Mike and concerning Bill. From out of the blue might received a check from social security administration for a lot more money than he had never seen before in his hands and he wasn’t sure what it was for or why it was sent and the plan was was going to contact social security to find out but was going on but the long lineof being on hold on the phone was too much so he went and cashed the check anyway believing that the people behind the 2-in glass recognized that it was an authentic check.
Bill is worried that this will bite Mike in the ass and perhaps cause us some injury as well. I explain that there are no financial ties between us, there is no paper trail between us, but they’ll recognize social media and figures that would be a way to implicate us in something that we should not have anything to do with.
Mike was impetuous. I had made arrangements for Mike to come over and talk to Bill about it, but obviously that’s not going to happen. Bill’s worry has me worried, and I am supposed to call up Mike around 1:00, though Bill did decree that this talk was between us and only us.
I got through with Bill on the phone, and we talked. Bill seems okay with what Mike is doing and what Mike is going through, so I have no choice but to believe Bill. I just called Mike, got his voicemail, and did not leave any message.
Google Gemini rewrite as a Samuel Beckett essay:
An Inquiry Into What It Was
They spoke of a gathering. At the Skyline. Thirty-seventh Street. The years, a blur. Three decades, perhaps more. A ghost of work past. They were, the record insists, good people. What does that mean? The memory is a sieve.
The Promise and the Scar
Once, there was a notion: reunion. A promise of something. Joy, perhaps. Cohesion. But the mechanism is faulty. It yields only the uncomfortable. Not the mending of the wound, but the meticulous inspection of the scar.
The first, the high school charade. Two thousand. A chronology. An exercise in futility. A realization: never again. A chemical solace was present—good, they said, and unshared. The solitude was the only comfort found in the crowd.
The second. Right Track Recording. Two thousand and thirteen. A mirror held up to the face of awkward. A wrong done, or perhaps merely suspected. The sudden need for air, for smoke. A vanishing act. And the unforgivable blunder: the question. Where is so-and-so? The wife. The affair. The silence blooming like a noxious flower. The impulse to flee was the only sensible act. I fled.
And now, this new summons. Thirty years of dust. It holds no appeal. The people, generally nice. An empty phrase. Why rupture the equilibrium? Why throw it all up in the air for an evening of uncomfortable hours? Five o’clock release. Six-thirty start. The PATH train awaits. Thirty minutes to nullity. It will not work. The geometry is wrong.
Mike, Bill, and the Uncashed Life
And then, the shift. The slight, unsettling tilt of reality, concerning Mike. And Bill.
Mike, the recipient. A check. From the Social Security Administration. A sum too large. Unprecedented. An anomaly. He did not know why. He planned to inquire. The telephone line was a trial. Too long. The wait, a deterrent to truth. So, he took the money. The two-inch glass barrier offered its tacit authentication. He cashed it. The simple, impetuous gesture.
Bill worries. Bill sees the bite. The tooth-mark on the ass. And collateral damage. Us. I reasoned: no financial ties. No paper trail. Bill countered: social media. A nexus of implication. The invisible cord of the network.
Mike was to come over. To talk. I had arranged it. The plan, now dust. Bill’s anxiety is contagious. Now I worry. A call to Mike, prescribed for one o’clock. But Bill decreed the talk between us. Only us. The circle of trust is a tight, suffocating thing.
The call to Bill occurred. We spoke. Bill, remarkably, seems okay. With Mike. With the money. With the impending catastrophe, or lack thereof. I am forced to accept this okayness. There is no other option but belief in Bill’s pronouncement.
The call to Mike followed. Voicemail. A dead end. I left no message. There was nothing to say. What is to be done? Nothing. One waits. One simply hangs up and listens to the silence.
Is the check real? Will the reunion happen? Is the PATH train running? Does it matter? We are suspended here, between the check and the voicemail. Waiting for the silence to break, or perhaps, for it to simply continue.