Tag Archives: Bill

I Beg Your Pardon

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Here it is again, once again, the incredible, the rhyme animal. I know I got that wrong but my heart is in the right place, under the rib cage. At the cigar shack once again, day two of a four day stretch. How did I used to do a 5 day work week?

Well I was generally sitting down a lot, and when I walked it was usually on carpeted floors. Nowadays, it’s not like that anymore. No, it’s all about standing on concrete floors for 9 hours a day. At this time last year I was unemployed about to start working.

A bit of anxiety was setting in of course. After being out of work for 11 months how could it not? It seems so long ago. I was working with a different crew then and now they’re no longer here. The only carry over from those days is Calvin. And now he is number one and that makes me number two by default.

Things are certainly better with Bradley. He’s a moody chap by his own admission though I doubt if he would be one to use the word chap.

I am home now and quite happy to be here. Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight and driving again tomorrow night so if I don’t see him for a few fleeting minutes, I won’t see him until Sunday. It’s a drag but that’s how it is I suppose.

It’s so bloody warm here, heat rises and being on the top floor you can feel it. The windows are open and an occasional breeze floats through. I heard from Pedro today, he was in town and was hoping I would be free to hang out but of course he calls when I am at work, so not free at all.

I still would like a Monday through Friday job, with normal hours or at least something close to normal hours, or what passes for normal hours. No word from Joe Monaco but like I wrote previously I have extremely low expectations with him. Still hope remains, just not pounding the drums like hope sometimes does.

I closed the store tonight as Thomas was headed off to something, maybe an engagement party for him and his fiancé tomorrow. He’s quite a funny guy though by the end of the night it’s hard to keep up with his sense of humor. Being twice his age, makes me wonder how people older than me were able to deal with me and my wacky sense of humor.

But I should keep in mind that these friends and I were not standing on concrete floors for nine hours a day dealing with all sorts of people, so it probably wasn’t too hard to deal with me. So here we are, or rather, here I am, on the Friday of a holiday weekend. It wasn’t easy to see people so excited to get out of town for the weekend, four days off for them. Even the bibliothèque is closed this weekend.

I did luck out tonight, maybe it was karma, but when I got to the subway platform this evening, an express train pulled right in. And as I climbed the functioning escalator at the bus terminal, I saw a bus pulling out. Then the bus stopped.

The driver was a friend of Bill’s (no, not like Alcoholics Anonymous), Orlando. He was one of the bus driving friends of Hyman gross as well. So Orlando recognized me and said a few words about Hyman as we were pulling out.

It was a nice brief chat about Hyman and how Hyman is missed. I told him about the plan Bill and I have to visit the cemetery next year when Hyman’s headstone is placed. Orlando hopes to join us. We shall see. Check in next year, early May.

I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train

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Two days off from work, one day back and once again I cannot stand people. I can’t say I fear for the future since we’re already doomed. Luckily there is plenty of blame to go around, more than enough so I don’t have to write about it here. I don’t have to write about people that are so involved with whatever mechanisms are in their hand they don’t know how to respond to an ‘excuse me’ as you try to pass them on an escalator.

It was certainly a strange day today. Temperatures in the 80° range and it’s not even the unofficial start of summer yet. I was early enough to see Thomas walk right past me, all slick in a dark suit and wearing killer shades.

I walked into the cigar shack just a minute after he did. He asked if he could close tonight, which eventually means I will close tomorrow. No big deal. Six in one, a half dozen in the other if you ask me. Alvin was flitting about, seemingly stressed. He made a remark about how I had such a nice day off yesterday and he sounded resentful.

Some big wigs were expected to be in the shack today. One showed up about 30 minutes after I got in, a nice guy who made a bee line to Calvin. He also blessed Thomas and myself with some free cigars so that was nice. The afternoon progressed as expected, a few customers coming in and out.

Since today was Miles Davis birthday, Calvin insisted on playing nothing but Miles Davis today. Ho hum. The afternoon crawled quite a bit thanks to the jazz. Calvin had an appointment so that meant he was going to have to leave early, like around 4:00.

At about 3:55, more big wigs arrived, about 5 of them altogether, examining the computers. Not that they were in a hurry to replace the Soviet garage sale computers the cigar shack uses, from what someone told me, they were probably making sure that Marcus doesn’t steal files or customers from the cigar shack, moving them to a cigar hut a few blocks south.

The someone who told me, mentioned that Marcus probably did that already, a little each day. Whether or not that is true, I couldn’t tell you. The truth is Marcus will be gone from the cigar shack, come June 1. And Calvin is stepping up to the plate, already taking somethings over, and a little bit anxious and nervous as well. He’ll be fine I’m sure, some bad habits seem to have ended or at least put to the side by just about all concerned.

I heard from my cousin who said they’ll be in touch with me next week and I heard from Joe Monaco, a recruiter I met with about 2 years ago. I used to send Joe Monaco emails every Monday, letting him know I was still looking. Eventually that fell by the wayside and here he was calling me to tell me about a position that maybe just right for me. And it may be local too.

I don’t have any expectations with regards to Joe Monaco. Despite my excellent scoring on the tests back then, he has not done a thing for me. OK, offering me a job in Livingston NJ was something he did, but really, how the hell am I supposed to get out to Livingston?

In any event, I am home now, and quite happy to be here. Bill is here too, telling me he loves me and that I am wonderful. It is nice to hear, sometimes hard to believe, the latter, not the former.