Wednesday, May 20. Midweek. Humpday. Yesterday was OK. Still with the air conditioning problems at work. Nothing insurmountable. I would do some work in the 104 fruit stand and then I would go to the 100 fruit stand and chill down for a few minutes. In fact yesterday , was a day where I did very little and it was understood because of the tremendous heat.
Sister Mary Octavian. Last night I told Mike the story of Sister Mary Octavian and how she used to beat me when I was in kindergarten, waiting for Mrs Burson to begin the afternoon sessions. Sister Mary Octavian would walk in and seeing me alone in the classroom, would chase me and when she caught me, would spank me and make me stand behind the television set until Mrs. Burson arrived.
Sister Mary Octavian might have had problems with my brother Brian, who was in her class, and perhaps would take her frustrations with him out on me.
Sister Mary Octavian eventually died and her wake was in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. MY parents were still somewhat involved in my schooling and the parish and so we attended. We walked up the long aisle to her pine coffin. There she was, in her nun’s habit wearing a crown of thorns.
I later learned that Sister Mary Octavian had built her own coffin. My mother had me add her to my nighttime prayers, including her after my family, Mommy, Daddy, Francis, Annemarie, Brian, John (Me), and Sister Mary Octavian. Praying that my tormentor was blessed. Stockholm syndrome by way of the Vatican.
At lunchtime, I like to sit outside my building and have a quick little cigar. The spot is usually empty of people, though yesterday there was some guy I took to be homeless. He was so bothered by my smoking that he gathered his stuff and moved about 20 feet away.
He was there today and as I was sitting down and I told him I was lighting up. He didn’t mind and started talking about cigars as well as all the items he retrieves from the trash of upper-class buildings in the area. His name is Von, and he just talked and talked. IT wasn’t so bad but the solace I sought was not to be found today.
Von lives with his wife in Staten Island and keeps his stuff in a storage facility on Varick Street. His stories were a bit outlandish but I wasn’t going to say anything but every now and then, an “Oh really?” and of course the good old standby, “Wow”.
I finished the little cigar and thanked him for his chat. We will probably cross paths again, now that he’s taking over my usual lunchtime spot.
Von probably pushed his shopping cart around, wherever the spoils of trash could be found.
The air conditioner is working fine. Subtle, not too cold. Tomorrow is the Thursday morning on camera meeting and I think I am prepared for it, though when showtime hits, who knows.
I put on The Running Man movie from last year on. I had recorded it. I hoped MIke would be into it, but it could not compete with his phone. It was good that he spent the night, but it is time for him to go back to his crib. His beloved is supposed to arrive tomorrow, staying until Monday so if that
is the case I won’t be hearing from Mike until next week.
Google Gemini rewrite as a Sarah Vowell essay
There is a specific, corporate brand of mid-May misery that involves a broken cooling system in a high-rise office building. It creates a migratory pattern among the staff. Yesterday, I found myself shuttling between the sweltering, dead-air purgatory of the 104 fruit stand and the blissful, arctic sanctuary of the 100 fruit stand, just trying to keep my core temperature below a light simmer. Management, in a rare display of meteorological empathy, tacitly understood that productivity is the first casualty of ninety-degree stagnant air. We all just sort of agreed to exist, sluggishly, until five o’clock.
The heat, or perhaps just the general absurdity of survival, reminded me of an old story I found myself recounting to Mike last night—the saga of Sister Mary Octavian.
If you did not grow up under the jurisdiction of the pre-Vatican II educational complex, it is difficult to convey the sheer, casual terror of the rogue nun. Sister Mary Octavian was a kindergarten-room vanguard. In the quiet, liminal minutes before afternoon sessions began, while I sat alone waiting for my actual teacher, Mrs. Burson, Sister Mary Octavian would materialize like a specter in a black habit. She would chase me. Upon catching me, she would spank me, and then banish me to the dusty, electromagnetic exile behind the classroom television set until proper authority arrived.
My crime? Existing, mostly. Or perhaps, more accurately, being related to my older brother, Brian, who was currently enrolled in her class and likely driving her to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I was merely the convenient, proxy scapegoat for whatever psychological warfare was happening down the hall.
When Sister Mary Octavian finally crossed the great divide, her wake was held at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. Because my parents were deeply, hopelessly enmeshed in parish life, attendance was mandatory. I remember walking up that long, intimidating cathedral aisle toward a stark, unpolished pine coffin. There she lay: hands crossed, draped in her full habit, wearing—with a level of dramatic commitment I can now almost admire—a literal crown of thorns.
I later learned she had built the coffin herself, a DIY project of grim, ascetic righteousness. But the kicker, the true masterstroke of Catholic psychological molding, came from my mother. She decreed that Sister Mary Octavian be added to my official nightly prayer roster. Every single night, I would dutifully rattle off: *Mommy, Daddy, Francis, Annemarie, Brian, John… and Sister Mary Octavian.* I was actively petitioning the Almighty for the spiritual welfare of the woman who had routinely shoved me behind a Zenith console. It was Stockholm syndrome, curated by the Vatican.
To escape the ghosts of kindergarten tyrants and the current hum of office life, I usually rely on my midday ritual: a brief, solitary cigar outside the building. It is a quest for twenty minutes of uninterrupted solace.
Yesterday, that solace was threatened by a man I assumed to be unhoused, who was so visibly offended by my second-hand smoke that he gathered his earthly possessions and relocated twenty feet away. Today, he was back. Attempting to be a conscientious citizen of the sidewalk, I sat down and gave him a polite heads-up that I was about to light up.
This turned out to be the conversational floodgates opening.
His name is Von. Far from being offended today, Von possessed an exhaustive, encyclopedic knowledge of cigars, which he paired with a breathless monologue about the high-end consumer goods he rescues from the trash rooms of wealthy residential buildings. Von lives on Staten Island with his wife, maintains a storage locker on Varick Street, and possesses a narrative style that leans heavily toward the cinematic and the highly improbable.
I am a polite man, so I deployed the standard, non-committal arsenal of the captive listener: the well-timed “Oh, really?” and the old, reliable, Swiss Army knife of social grace: “Wow.”
By the time the cigar burnt down, Von had thoroughly colonized my quiet spot. We parted as friends, and I have a sinking feeling he and his shopping cart will be a permanent fixture of my lunch hour from here on out.
Back inside, the air conditioning has returned, performing its duties with a subtle, non-aggressive chill. Tomorrow morning brings the dreaded “on-camera” meeting. I have prepared, I have reviewed the materials, but as anyone who has ever stared into the green light of a webcam knows, once showtime hits, you are entirely at the mercy of the digital gods.
To wind down, I put on a recording of *The Running Man*—the version from last year, a bit of dystopian nostalgia. I had fondly hoped Mike would find it engaging, but 1980s-inspired sci-fi subversion simply cannot compete with the dopamine loop of a modern smartphone screen.
It was good to have him stay over, truly, but as the credits rolled, I looked at him and thought: *It is time for you to go back to your own crib.* His beloved is arriving tomorrow for a long weekend, which means he will be effectively off the grid until next week. The silence will be welcome. Just me, the ghost of Sister Mary Octavian, and whatever treasures Von pulls out of the dumpster tomorrow.