Back at my fruit stand today. I am happy about that though I did leave an undershirt hanging in the closet at the major fruit stand and I’m trying to figure out how to get it from there to here. I have an idea don’t know if it’ll work but it is an idea.
The usual Thursday morning 8:30 meeting was canceled due to the fact that my boss’s boss’s boss is in town and my boss’s boss it’s a bit intimidated, perhaps afraid. A housekeeper I know told me that this is the third or fourth boss’s bosses boss that has crossed the threshold.
There are gray skies today. Which will more than likely affect my lunch break. So it changes by the minute things could be different around lunch time.
I just remembered Paul Galvin in 1976, buying Camel cigarettes thinking that since they were ‘Turkish Blend’ there would be hashish in them. Those were the days of smoking cigarettes illicitly on Essex Street, on the border of Lodi and Rochelle Park.
So on my lunch break I went to the big fruit stand from my fruit stand to pick up my undershirt which I left hanging in the closet. While I was there I spoke to Janis and asked her about what was going on with her and she told me quite a tale of woe.
Much too much to get into here but she did move to this place in November of last year and not even a year later she’s on her way out if not out already.
I heard from Mike and his beloved Wade. The trip to the Statue of Liberty yesterday went well. They did not climb up to the crown, they were at the pedestal at the base. I myself have never been there. I’ve been to Ellis Island but never the statue itself.
Last month I had to reschedule an appointment for Mike so he can get his real ID and today was the date so Mike and his beloved Wade were able to get an Uber from Jersey City to North Bergen and get the job done which despite a hiccup it was completed and Mike should receive his real ID in the mail within 20 days.
It was a bit rainy at lunch time but not as rainy as it is now. I know I did not have to go up to the big fruit stand today but I did nonetheless. I knew it would be raining a lot harder at the end of the day than it would in the middle of the day so I hopped on the PATH train and rode up to 33rd Street.
On the way back I walked and it was raining a bit but not too bad. Of course my beloved Bill calls while I’m walking down the street smoking a little cigar in one hand while holding the umbrella in the other as well as the phone.
I love Bill very much but I swear he has the worst timing and I’m fine with that. I’m used to it; after 26 years I ought to be.
This has been another dictated entry into the blagosphere or what have you
Google Gemini Truman Capote rewrite
Back at my customary post today—a modest, comfortable fruit stand, really—and I must admit to a quiet contentment, despite having left a cotton undershirt hanging rather forlornly in the closet back at the principal establishment. I am presently plotting its retrieval; whether the scheme bears fruit remains to be seen, but a design is a design.
Our standard Thursday morning assembly was summarily canceled. It seems the high potentate—my superior’s superior’s superior—has descended upon the city, striking a palpable dread into the local court. A perceptive housekeeper whispered to me that this marks the third or fourth such deity to cross the threshold in recent memory. Power, as ever, makes a fickle and terrifying guest.
Outside, the sky is draped in heavy, bruised slate. It threatens the tranquility of the midday hour, though in this town, the elements are as mercurial as the corporate hierarchy.
My mind wandered suddenly to 1976 and young Paul Galvin, buying a packet of Camels under the naive, delicious delusion that a “Turkish Blend” surely contained a pinch of illegal hashish. Oh, those sweet, foolish days of stolen smokes on Essex Street, right on that hazy borderland between Lodi and Rochelle Park.
During my lunch hour, I made the pilgrimage back to the main outpost to fetch my stray garment. There I encountered Janis, who proceeded to pour out a tale of woe so extravagant it would exhaust the page to detail it. Having only taken up her quarters last November, she finds herself, not even a year later, already packed off into exile.
Word arrived from dear Mike and his beloved Wade. Their excursion to the Statue of Liberty went off smoothly enough, though they contented themselves with the pedestal rather than ascending to the crown. I must confess, though I have trodden the halls of Ellis Island, I have never set foot upon Lady Liberty’s island myself.
Last month, I had played the part of the dutiful registrar, rescheduling Mike’s appointment for his high-security identification. Today was the appointed hour. He and Wade whisked themselves by motor car from Jersey City up to North Bergen, and despite a minor bureaucratic tremor, the deed was accomplished. The card, we are assured, shall arrive by post within twenty days.
The midday drizzle was a mere curtain-raiser for the torrent now falling. Knowing the evening would bring a proper tempest, I had slipped onto the PATH train and ridden up to 33rd Street early. The walk back was damp, but tolerable. Naturally, my beloved Bill rang my telephone precisely as I was navigating the pavement—juggling a glowing little cigar in one hand, a dripping umbrella in the other, and the receiver pinned somewhere in between.
I adore the man, truly, but his sense of timing is an art form of exquisite catastrophic inconvenience. After twenty-six years, however, one learns to embrace the rhythm of it.
And so concludes another spoken record, committed to the ether of the blagosphere, or whatever grand title we are giving it today.