MTA | johnozed

It’s all about Hurricane Irene today. Hoboken’s mayor, Dawn Zimmer recommended that if you can leave the city, then you should. Bill and I aren’t planning on doing that. We really don’t have anywhere to go anyhow.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has announced their plan to shut down the transit system at noon on Saturday, NJ Transit is doing the same, buses will stop at 6:00PM, trains & Path will be shut down at noon as well.

A few customers at the cigar shack felt that the whole hurricane thing was merely hype. I felt that ever since Katrina, almost 6 years to the week- big cities certainly don’t want to be caught short.

I got to the cigar shack, early again and about a half hour after that the New York Times reported the MTA plans. I explained to Calvin who seemed relatively nonplussed. After phoning the headquarters of cigar shack he announced that the shack would be closed for the weekend.

That was cleared with the landlord of course. The landlord of the cigar shack is a major player in the shady & expensive real estate game in Manhattan. After the phone call I went to lunch, enjoyed a nice cigar and read a poorly written book about the making of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy.

I can tell it’s poorly written from the first page which listed John Lennon’s birthday as October 8. Any Beatle fan will tell you that John was born on the 9th. Besides the glaring errors I was entertained somewhat. It’s a good beach read and works just as well on a bench near Central Park.

The week started with an earthquake and is ending with a hurricane. When I came back from lunch, it was Thomas’ turn to go to lunch. Everything seemed OK, but when Thomas came back from lunch Calvin started to nitpick on a few things. Looking at August 22 in the book, he noticed that I did not write the sales total.

It’s not that big a deal but to Calvin it was a slippery slope. Normally I would have corrected it the next day but Thomas closed the shop the next night and it was missing. It could easily be found with a simple check on the computer.

It was odd though since Calvin noticed those mistakes but it did not seem like Calvin paid any attention at all to Bradley’s constant fuck ups. Perhaps Calvin is appreciating the guy who’s face turned beet red when it was found out that Marcus was leaving and Calvin assuming the role of manager.

I didn’t see Bradley’s face when that was announced in May but Calvin sure did and talked to me about it afterwards. Red faces are easily forgotten in Calvin’s world and I listened to him as he slurred his words.

So Thomas and I were on the shit list for the night. I spoke to Calvin afterwards and asked him if he was alright and he just started going off on Thomas to me. I was about to text Thomas to look busy but there was no need. Thomas walked into Calvin’s line of sight and immediately put him to work doing menial tasks fora few minutes.

I myself was busy with customers at the time, racking up sale after sale, eventually surpassing both Thomas and Calvin’s numbers combined. I was happy with those numbers and was tempted to do a line with a regular customer who was discreetly sniffing powders in the man cave. I was invited to but decided against it since I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. Just another under performing day I guess.

Now I am home, happy to be here. Two days off, one day on and now two days off again. Bill’s play was scheduled to close on Sunday, but all weekend shows for the Fringe Festival have been canceled. Should be an interesting weekend for most people.

Thank goodness it’s Friday. I know it’s really Monday but I am off the next two days so for me it’s Friday. I can’t speak for the millions on their feet all day, not complaining, bless their hearts, but for me it’s a relief. And it was quite an interesting day at the cigar shack.

It started out interestingly enough last night actually. A little before 10:00 I started getting texts from Julio. He and Stine had a birthday party for Alexander at a park on the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge. It was cold and damp and they had a lot of food left over as well as birthday cake.

They figured I was just getting home, not realizing that I had gotten home a little before 8:00 since the shack closes earlier on Sundays. I was home, a little jazzy and not really wanting to go down to see them. But I figured I should.

I knew Alexander would be asleep by then so I threw on some track pants and went down for about a half hour. It was good to see them, both of them talking to me at the same time. Since I’ve known Julio for over 25 years we really understand each other very much, a word here, a gesture there, a cocked eyebrow and a lot is said.

I think that must frustrate Stine somewhat so I took extra care to pay extra attention to her. I came home with a large piece of homemade cake, festooned with Danish flags, some hot dogs, hamburgers and buns.

I came home and watched some TV with Bill before he went to bed and I eventually followed. Waking up wasn’t so easy and I mentally bargained with the alarm clock, which satisfied the both of us. The alarm clock now has off the next two days as well.

After showering and shaving and coffee and cereal I was out the door enjoying a slightly damaged Padron 1964 Anniversary cigar. As I waited at the bus stop I ran into Mr. Castro, an old friend from the past powdery days of yore.

He doesn’t do that anymore and neither do I. And neither of us miss it. In fact he can’t stand to be around the people from those days who are still sniffing here and there. We both rode the bus into the city, but did not sit together.

I made it to the shack early enough, Thomas and Bradley were there. I worked with Calvin yesterday and we talked about my problems with Bradley. Today I decided to take matters into my own hands and had a talk with Bradley who by the way has been taken off life support.

It was a nice chat, interrupted every now and then by commerce but we’re both glad we talked and it made for a smooth easy going day. I told Thomas about it since he was out of the shack at the time, and he jokingly said that he was going to try to put it back the way it was since he felt he benefited from the disconnect between Bradley and myself.

So for the first time in what seemed to be a long time, the three of us were able to work together and laugh throughout the day. Since I closed the other night with Thomas leaving early, which left it open for me to leave early and have Thomas close.

I made my way to the subway, this morning I had $2.80 left on my MetroCard and when I tried to use it this evening, the turnstile read to swipe again. I swiped again and once again got the same message. I swiped once more and got the message that there was insufficient fare left on my card.

The turnstile took $2.50 and left me unable to get through with $0.30 left. So I had to walk over and refill my MetroCard and when I finally was able to pass the turnstile, the train I wanted to board was leaving the station. I loathe the MTA.

Such a horrible corrupt organization, filled with the laziest teats alive (and possibly dead).