Back at the major fruit stand. I need to hide my disappointment, my disenchantment with being here. I arrived early before anyone, Yancey included. I sat and had a bagel and enjoyed my coffee and solitude.
Going back to my desk yesterday, after I had gotten onto the PATH train and crossed a state border- was a good idea. It turned out that I truly needed the notes which came in handy this morning.
And speaking of Handy, his beloved Wade arrived and they have plans to go to the Statue of Liberty this afternoon.
Meanwhile at the fruit stand where I am at, not much is happening. Violet more than likely could have handled the day on her own but it seemed my presence was required. At my American standard fruit stand, people are hovering around my desk needing passwords and what not to get things done. None of this leaves me feeling good but that could very well be my general paranoia.
It is Violet and me. Not much communication. Her mother is in the hospital. I am sitting where Janis sits since Janis is in the process of moving again. Which might be the second time this year or at least, as long as I know her.
I could take a nap.
Yancy doesn’t realize that Violet and I are ahead of him we planned our lunch hours a little while ago and then we get a message from Yancey saying we had to adjust our lunch hours.
I am in a concrete park now between 29th and 30th Street or I usually go when I’m at the major fruit stand and I’m not eating lunch at least not at this moment.
Tim Curry just passed away at 80. He had a stroke a while ago and never fully recovered. So tonight I’m sure social media and regular media will be posting things about Tim Curry. I know I will
Once again this is being dictated to the phone so if words go wrong it’s the machine not the man. And I am the man. Who is now on the road heading to a gig and will not be back until Sunday. Mike is with his beloved Wade off to the Liberty State Park to get a ferry to the Statue of Liberty.
I really should make an effort to avoid reading bad news no matter what I am doing or where I am because it doesn’t help me at all. But most of the news is bad news so should I avoid news altogether?
The atmosphere at the fruit stand…the word that comes to mind is diabolical. But I know that’s not the proper word. Just a month ago is totally different now it’s different. My superiors are enthralled with the one they call Scott. Yancy has a meeting with Scott at 1:00 p.m.
I can envision Scott asking Yancy she had to get rid of someone who would you get rid of and Yancey would think me.
I can’t help it feel that today could be my last day at the fruit stand. I don’t know but there is this feeling that my time is up.
It wasn’t my last day.
A Google Gemini rewrite as a Truman Capote essay
Back at the major fruit stand, hiding behind a carefully arranged expression of pleasant neutrality to mask the sharp edge of my disenchantment. I had arrived early—long before the rest, Yancey included—and taken a quiet table alone. For a brief, shining hour, there was only the crisp morning, a warm bagel, and the sweet solitude of my own thoughts.
Crossing back over the state line on the PATH train yesterday to retrieve my forgotten notes had seemed a tedious chore, yet it proved an act of accidental brilliance. They saved me this morning, though saving the day at the fruit stand is a bit like polishing the brass on a sinking ship.
And speaking of ships: Handy’s beloved Wade drifted in today, radiant with the prospect of their afternoon pilgrimage to Liberty State Park, where the ferry waits to carry them out to the Lady in the harbor.
Meanwhile, back at my American standard fruit stand, the stillness is almost suffocating. Violet could easily have held the fort alone, but authority dictated my presence—if only to act as a human directory for stray souls hovering over my desk, begging for passwords and petty permissions. It leaves a sour taste, though perhaps that is merely my customary paranoia creeping in.
It is just Violet and myself, suspended in a brittle silence. Her mother lies ill in the hospital; I sit in the chair usually occupied by Janis, who is currently orchestrating yet another move—her second this year, or at least since our paths crossed.
I could simply close my eyes and drift off.
Yancey, naturally, remains blissfully unaware that Violet and I are three steps ahead of him. We had quietly mapped out our lunch hours long before his directive arrived demanding we adjust them. So now I find myself banished to this brutalist concrete park tucked between 29th and 30th Streets—my usual sanctuary when the fruit stand becomes too much to bear. I am not eating, merely existing.
The news breaks over the wire: Tim Curry has died at eighty, never quite recovering from the stroke that felled him years ago. By nightfall, the digital ether will be flooded with glowing, nostalgic elegies. I shall likely contribute my own tribute to the choir. (I dictate these stray observations into a unfeeling machine; should the words twist themselves, blame the device, not the author—and I am, after all, the author.)
Now, I am on the road, speeding toward a weekend gig, not to return until Sunday. Mike and his dear Wade are off on their romantic voyage to the Statue of Liberty.
I ought to make a civilized rule to avoid bad news altogether—it poisons the blood. Yet, when the world peddles little else, is total ignorance the only cure?
The atmosphere back at the stand is… *diabolical*. Perhaps not the precise word, but close enough to the truth. Only a month ago, the place possessed a different spirit entirely. Now, my superiors are utterly spellbound by the one they call Scott. Yancey has a one o’clock audience with him today, and I can already picture the scene: Scott leaning in to ask, *”If you had to sacrifice someone, who would it be?”* And Yancey, without a second thought, naming me.
All afternoon, a cold conviction settled into my bones that today would mark my final act at the fruit stand—that my time had finally run out.
It wasn’t my last day.