Sixes and sevens and nines
So I work at the fruit stand, but not of the fruit stand. I am a deputy fire warden, but I will only tend to employees who work at the fruit stand but are not of the fruit stand. They can save themselves. It is a modest proposal.
Union Square partnership
The Rolling Stones Tumbling Dice plays in my head, and it’s a good sign to play in my head
It is Wednesday, November 19th, 1:29 p.m. I am heading out for a smoke of my little cigar. It was a long morning, with Yancey hanging around.
There was an email that was sent yesterday about how if you donate a Toys for Tots item, you were entered in a raffle, and today Yancey took it upon let me know, and I am not an employee and therefore not entitled to be in the raffle.
I will not be surprised that when it comes time to pick up this box of Toys for Tots, my two items will be the only ones in there, despite the fact that I’m not an employee of the fruit stand, I just work at the fruit stand.
I’m sitting at my spot, which is cold but not damp. My mother would tell me I would get a cold and in my tuchis if I sat on cold ground.
So there’s a gathering for employees and not employees from the fruit stand, and I was all set to go yesterday, and after conversing with the Yancey I was quite annoyed with that whole situation, even though I did not think about it until he brought it up.
I contacted the woman who is throwing the event. Tell her I wasn’t feeling too well, and she understood, but I think I am going to go regardless. It gives me a chance to leave around 3:45 to get up there at 4:00, and the event is from 4:00 until 5:30, but I think I’m just going to leave at 5:00 p.m., and Jimmy Chile is going as well, which should make it somewhat entertaining and perhaps not that uncomfortable
So the Mike situation… I tried calling him last night. A few times to know avail, no response. Left voicemail, no response. Don’t know what he’s doing, and I asked how he was, and I have no idea. He did reply to me this morning, but that’s as far as it got.
Bill is taking me to a play on Sunday afternoon which was written by a friend of his and I suggested we bring Mike and Bill was not too into that idea and after the non-communication with Mike I tend to agree that we will not bring him on Sunday. It will just be Bill and me in the city, which is probably how it should have been from the start.
One has to know how to approach Yancey and communicate with him. I admit I do push back. I told him I was on the outside looking and since I am not invited to these events that I see. He insisted that I was not on the outside, even though all evidence points to the contrary
I think he’s used to people just saying and deferring to whatever it is he has to say, and I should try to be that type of person more often, but my default is not that
Watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions a few weeks ago, I found myself more interested in what the hip hop artists had to say than the rap and rollers.
The Google Gemini Woody Allen essay rewrite:
## Sixes and Sevens and… Oh, What’s the Use?
Look, I know what you’re thinking. “Fruit stand? This is going to be some Chekhovian tragedy about plums, isn’t it?” And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, except instead of *The Cherry Orchard*, it’s *The Apple Cart of Despair*, and the only thing being preserved is my sense of creeping dread.
I’m there, at the fruit stand. But I am not *of* the fruit stand. You understand? It’s a metaphysical distinction, like the difference between being married to a genius and merely sharing a duplex with one. I am, for reasons I can no longer articulate—perhaps a youthful indiscretion involving a fire extinguisher and a misunderstood municipal code—a “deputy fire warden.” But only for the non-fruit-stand employees *at* the fruit stand. The ones *of* the fruit stand? Let them burn. It’s a modest proposal, really. Darwinian, but with a slight hint of borscht.
The whole thing is sponsored by the Union Square Partnership, a name that sounds vaguely ominous, like a cabal that decides which shade of beige is appropriate for public benches. And through it all, “Tumbling Dice” is playing in my skull. Mick Jagger, bless his ageless, leathery hide, is a good omen. I need a good omen, because it’s Wednesday, November 19th, 1:29 p.m., and I’m heading out for a little cigar, a small, tobacco-filled gesture against the void.
This morning was a marathon of existential unpleasantness, primarily thanks to Yancey. Yancey is the human equivalent of a passive-aggressive memo written in Comic Sans.
Yesterday, an email goes out. A *raffle*. You donate a Toys for Tots item—a wholesome, Norman Rockwellian gesture—and you get a shot at… what? A free kumquat? It doesn’t matter. This morning, Yancey, with the practiced cruelty of a man explaining a complicated tax form, informs me that since I am not an employee, I am **not entitled** to the raffle. Not entitled! As if entry were a human right enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
The irony, the crushing, Roth-esque irony, is that when they finally come to collect this Toys for Tots box, I will bet my last pastrami on rye that my two items will be the only things rattling around in there. Two donations, from the man who is *not of* the fruit stand. I am a martyr for the un-raffled. A regular St. Jude of the non-unionized.
I’m sitting on my spot now. It’s cold, but thank God, it’s not damp. My mother, who still believes that a draft is a sentient entity waiting to pounce, would be having a coronary. “You’ll get a cold, darling,” she’d shriek into the phone, “and right in the *tuchis*!” Honestly, what is it with mothers and the lower back?
Then there’s the gathering. An employee/non-employee mixer. Yesterday, I was ready. I was going to brave the small talk and the cheap canapés. But then Yancey and his anti-raffle crusade curdled my soul. It didn’t bother me until he brought it up, you see. That’s the true sign of a great annoyance: it’s one you didn’t know you had until someone hands it to you, gift-wrapped in resentment.
I called the woman throwing the event. Told her I felt “unwell.” A classic neurosis dodge. She understood, but now, naturally, I’m going anyway. I need the structure. I need the alibi. I can leave at 3:45, get there at 4:00, and stay until 5:00 p.m. Sharp. An hour is the perfect amount of time to ingest a few polite conversational gestures and absorb a healthy dose of social anxiety. And Jimmy Chile is going. Jimmy is wonderfully unreliable. He makes the whole thing feel slightly less like a forced march and more like a potentially amusing, albeit uncomfortable, mishap.
—
### The Mike Situation: A Study in Silence
The Mike situation. Oh, Mike. It’s a tragedy in three acts: missed calls, no replies, and a vague feeling of existential abandonment. Last night: I call. Nothing. I call again. Still nothing. Left a voicemail—a charming, casual voicemail, mind you—and the silence that followed was positively symphonic. Is he okay? Is he trapped in a metaphor? I have no idea. He pinged me this morning, a single, noncommittal electronic shrug, and that’s where the narrative stops.
Bill, this sweet man, is taking me to a play on Sunday, written by a friend of his. I, in my eternal optimism (which I keep heavily medicated, by the way), suggested we invite Mike. Bill, bless him, was hesitant. And after Mike’s non-communication masterpiece, I’m with Bill. It’ll just be Bill and me, navigating the city, talking about Beckett and the impossibility of ordering a decent bagel. Which, let’s be honest, is how it should have been from the start. Too many people always ruin the essential, two-person dialogue of life.
—
### Yancey’s Universe and Mine
One has to learn Yancey. He’s like a complicated lock, except the key is simple deference. I push back. It’s a nervous tic. When he went into his whole spiel, I told him I felt like I was on the **outside looking in**, a line worthy of an early Bergman film. All these events, all these little cliques, and I’m standing there, holding my small cigar, watching the party from the fire escape of my own life.
He insisted I was *not* on the outside. He lied. He knows I’m on the outside. Every piece of empirical evidence, from the raffle snub to the general atmosphere of benign neglect, screams “outsider.” But he’s used to people just saying, “Yes, Yancey. Right you are, Yancey. What a remarkably profound statement about the seasonality of persimmons, Yancey.”
I should be that person. I know I should. Life would be smoother, less punctuated by the need to argue about the social status of a fruit-stand adjunct. But my default, the factory setting of my personality, is not *acquiescence*. It’s *rebuttal*, followed by a sudden, frantic need for a hot bath and a good Salinger novel.
Speaking of things that make me think, I was watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions a few weeks ago. The old guard, the rockers, all leather and nostalgia. And then the hip-hop artists started talking. And I realized, with a small, shuddering shock, that I was more interested in what they had to say. The angst, the social commentary, the rhythm… they get it. They understand the essential alienation of modern existence. Maybe it’s not apples and oranges anymore. Maybe it’s just noise and a profound, shared sense of being utterly out of the loop.
*Would you like me to find a good bagel place near Union Square for your outing with Bill?*