Typing earlier than usual, not dictating on this Christmas Eve 2025. Not much is going on. I am waiting for a FedEx delivery of Bill’s gifts. Mike is at his crib, more than likely looking at porn or shooting videos of himself. The videos that we make aren’t porn, and they could be described as erotic, and that might be a stretch.
Bill’s plan for being on the road is still up in the air; he knows just as much today as he did last night. It’s quiet here in my apartment. Harry Potter is on. Bill calls it comfort food. So, I wait for a delivery. They say a 2:30 delivery, but you know how that goes. I do have to go to the supermarket, but feel housebound until then.
It’s a bit of a drag, overall. I’m dressed and ready. All revved up with nowhere to go. I keep looking at the FedEx tracking, and nothing changes. I want to get Elaine a plant, and I’m fairly certain they have them at the supermarket. I did go to a store in Hoboken the other day, but could not find anything I wanted to buy, and the salesman was helping someone else.
I spoke with my brother Brian the other day. That was fun. We reminisced about our neighbors growing up and also about the jobs we both had at different times. He was close to getting fired a few times, but wasn’t because our Mother, who worked in the office of the warehouse, was so well liked. And he mentioned that he showed up drunk a few times. He left the book warehouse job and worked at Pioneer Electronics in Moonachie.
I didn’t show up drunk but I was a fuck up. And I always got a pass due to my Mother’s grace. It was a double edged sword that haunts me to this day. I didn’t take the job seriously, though I did my best not to fuck up. Yet I did fuck up. I would pick orders, either listening to music or singing.
My not taking the job seriously led me to not take any job too seriously. Well, sometimes I did take things seriously, but inevitably I would be cheeky and silly. It’s been like that since 1978, and here I am in 2025 with mostly the same mindset I had 47 years ago.
Once I started smoking pot, it did get worse somewhat. By that time, I was not picking orders, but driving back and forth from Saddle Brook, NJ, to Manhattan twice a day. I was high most of the time. My friend Rand, whom I worked with, did tell me everyone knew I was high. My own Mother probably knew, but she was in denial.
It was a simpler time back then. I was living with my folks. Still in the closet. I did meet Jet Watley in the Manhattan offices, and would drive him home up by the George Washington Bridge through Central Park with joints burning most of the time.
Nowadays, I wait until later in the afternoon to light up. I get more accomplished throughout the day, but I still fuck up every now and then, but not with the same regularity I had 47 years ago.
Or so I’d like to think…
The Google Gemini rewrite as a Charles Dickens piece:
A Christmas Eve Vigil in the Year Twenty-Five
It was the best of hours, it was the worst of hours—it was the hour of the tapping key, an hour earlier than is my custom, and for once, the mechanical voice of dictation was hushed. It was Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-five, and a profound stillness had settled upon my chambers. I sat in a state of expectant suspension, tethered to the threshold of my dwelling by the promise of a FedEx courier, who bore within his chariot the seasonal offerings intended for my friend Bill.
As for our acquaintance Mike, he was ensconced within his own private rookery. One might imagine him there, perhaps occupied with shadows on a screen or vanity’s own mirror, capturing his own likeness for the world to see. We, too, have dabbled in the capturing of images—not of the profane sort, mind you, but perhaps what the world calls “erotic,” though to apply such a grand title to our modest efforts is to stretch the truth until it snaps.
The Agony of the Expected
The apartment was a tomb of quiet, save for the flickering ghost of Harry Potter upon the screen—a sort of “comfort food” for the soul, as Bill is fond of saying. Bill’s own fortunes, alas, remain as clouded as a London fog; his itinerary for the road is quite “up in the air,” and he possesses no more certainty this morning than he did when the candles were snuffed last night.
I sat there, “revved up,” as the moderns say, but with no destination permitted to me. I was a prisoner to the tracking number, that digital specter that refuses to move despite a thousand pleading glances. I had a mind to secure a botanical tribute for Elaine, but my previous expedition to a tradesman in Hoboken had been a dismal failure. The fellow was occupied with another patron, and I found nothing that spoke to my heart. Thus, I remained housebound, awaiting the stroke of half-past two—a time, I fear, that exists more in the imagination of the courier than in the reality of the clock.
Ghosts of Warehouses Past
To pass the weary hours, I let my mind wander back to a recent discourse with my brother, Brian. What a capital time we had! We summoned the spirits of our youth, recollecting the neighbors of old and the various employments that had put bread upon our tables. Brian, it must be confessed, walked a narrow precipice in those days; he was often on the verge of being cast out into the street by his masters. He even admitted to appearing at his post in a state of unseemly intoxication!
Yet, he was spared the axe, for our Mother—bless her sainted memory—toiled in the warehouse office and was held in such high esteem that her grace shielded her wayward sons. It was a double-edged sword, indeed! For while her goodness saved us, it allowed me to remain a most accomplished “fuck-up.” I did not drink, but I wandered through my duties in a fog of song and melody, picking orders with a mind that was anywhere but upon the ledger.
“The negligence of the youth is the architect of the man; for having never learned the gravity of the counting-house, I have remained a creature of cheek and silliness from the year seventy-eight even unto this very day.”
The Fog of Memory
As the years advanced, a new cloud entered my life—the burning of the potent weed. By the time I was tasked with piloting a vessel between Saddle Brook and the great metropolis of Manhattan, I was perpetually adrift in a haze. My companion, Rand, informed me that my condition was no secret; all the world knew I was “high.” Even my Mother, though she chose the blissful shroud of denial, surely sensed the change.
It was a simpler epoch then. I dwelt beneath the paternal roof, my true nature still locked within the closet of secrecy. I recall driving one Jet Watley through the verdant paths of Central Park, the air within the carriage thick with the smoke of our burning “joints,” the George Washington Bridge looming ahead like a gateway to another life.
The Present Hour
Now, in the twilight of my years, I have learned a modicum of discipline. I defer my indulgences until the afternoon shadows lengthen, and thus, I find I accomplish more than I once did. I still stumble—oh, I stumble yet!—but perhaps not with the rhythmic consistency of forty-seven years ago.
Or so, at least, I should like to believe, as the clock ticks toward half-past two and the world waits for its delivery.