Noel Walls worked with Andy Johnson, Mike Nathanson, Bruce Cipriani and Julie Diemer. Andy Johnson may have been my former classmate & friend Kevin Wagner’s cousin. Mike Nathanson was an impish busybody, Julie Diemer was a proto yuppie and Bruce Cipriani had a nice ass and his thinning hair added to his testosterone-fueled image. He was hot, and he knew it. Noel Walls smoked Merits I believe and was handsome in an off brand way.

They were the new managers that came in after John Vasicek was discovered to have been embezzling from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. He took down Paul LoPresti, Dave Manzo, Harold Wind, Larry IoliTony Grega and a few other malcontents.

There were a handful of employees that saw an opportunity to take advantage of the vacuum that was created. There was a guy named Cliff who had the job of driving from Saddle Brook to Manhattan twice a day.

Cliff maintained his employment but he was not going to be driving into Manhattan anymore. I had driven across the country with Perry Dedovitch the previous year and offered my services to replace Cliff.

My previous supervisor, Dave Manzo had been let go, he was Paul LoPresti’s pet. For some reason I went with Nick Lattanzio to visit Dave Manzo and see if he was holding up, not realizing that Dave Manzo did not like me at all. It didn’t matter, I was still employed and he was not.

My trips to Manhattan were exciting. I would get to East 47th Street before noon and park in a garage that was just for the van I was driving. I would distribute the mail in the offices and pick up mail to go back to Saddle Brook.
It was while in the mailroom I became friends with Jet Watley. I heard him playing King Crimson’s ‘The Sheltering Sky ‘on his rinky dink cassette player and we started talking about music.

Eventually we would get high at lunchtime. There was a cement park outside of the office building at 47th and Second Ave. It seemed to me that there were hundreds of professionals like Jet and me outside and getting high only we were not that professional.

I eventually found a weed dealer who would sell me decent half ounces for about $30. There were plenty of stems and seeds, but it was still pretty good weed.

Things are happening at the fruit stand. Whether or not they are for the better remains to be seen. I’m not happy about it, but it is not my life or career, though it will trigger my separation anxieties.

I write about work from over 40 years ago, and here I am still toiling all these years later. The work has changed and so have I. Jet has been gone for over 30 years, most of the people I worked with in that Harcourt Brace Jovanovich book warehouse have more than likely kicked the bucket. Or perhaps, circling the drain.

I was a goof ball then, I would like to think I am more a refined goof ball these days but is that really an apt description? And today what I didn’t want seems to be coming to reality. Jimmy Chile has his eye on the door. He won’t even be at this fruit stand going forward. Sadness abounds