Tag Archives: NJ Transit

I Confess #1

Leave a reply

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.





I Apologize

3 Replies

So tired. It’s been a long day. Almost an entire 10 hours on my feet. It started out slowly this morning no jobs to send out resumes to. Rainier Castillo at Office Team never responds to my emails. Nothing much happening with postings online.

Joe Padilla, a customer at the cigar shack told me in November that his company bought Robert Half which owns Office Team and that he could help me get a job through him. And also Rainier Castillo was fired.

It turns out Rainier Castillo was not fired and Joe Padilla fabricated his story for some reason. I should have known better. I heard that Joe Padilla was a former coke dealer and I suppose I should have known that coke dealers, whether active or retired really can’t be trusted.

I got myself together this morning after breakfast and coffee and a lack of job postings and headed out for the bus. No usual phone call to Bill, things are a bit frosty lately between us for the past 24 hours. He’s not home right now and I have no idea where he is. And I am fine not knowing.

I am enjoying this time alone after dealing with customers all day. Don’t really feel like talking anyhow. Writing of course is something I also don’t feel like doing, but here I am, doing just that. An uneventful bus ride on a bus with a bicycle rack in front of the bus.

I had seen them in San Francisco years ago and thought it was good and so far I’ve seen a few buses from NJ Transit with them. The other day when I had to take the Path train since the buses weren’t running I saw one of those buses at the Hoboken terminal.

Bill insisted that those buses are not permitted to drive into the Port Authority bus terminal with the bicycle racks in the front of the bus but here I was again, riding one of those buses into the bus terminal.

I made it to the cigar shop at the usual time, early and saw Calvin behind the counter. It was first his first day back from a few days off. Marcus was floating around somewhere as was Thomas the new guy they are hiring.

Marcus left as did Thomas, leaving me & Calvin to run the shop. I took a Xanax at noon. Just didn’t want to deal with any nerves or jitters and felt it would smooth out the day. I was told that my sales for February were outstanding, both Marcus and Calvin were impressed.

Also had to sign a memo with a warning in the details about my taking for granted that I would always be closing the store on weekends. Apparently it wasn’t the drunken mistake made when someone was drinking and putting assigned hours in the wrong cell on the Excel spreadsheet.

Once again I did not get much of a chance to have lunch. Interruptions and stuck inside the cigar shop for basically 10 hours kept me on the sales floor. Marcus returned to teach his sommelier class and Calvin left at his appointed hour.

No one came into the cigar shop for about 90 minutes, then my friend my friend Bruce showed up a few minutes before closing, as did someone else who was buying cigars for a golf outing. Bruce’s timing was off. I really didn’t have time to chat and wanted to get the hell out of there.

It’s my Friday since I actually have off 2 days in a row. I’m too tired to be excited about it. I hopped on a train to the bus terminal and made it to the gate when I looked over at the next gate and there was Hyman Gross.

I decided not to get on the bus that was loading and walked over to Hyman and waited for his bus with him. I wasn’t too communicative.

He was asking about Octavia, a bus driver friend of Hyman’s and Bill. She’s the one who mentioned that Hyman’s absence in December might have been the result of Hyman attempting to take his own life, saying that it wasn’t the first time he tried it.

I think Octavia thrives on drama, both her own and other people like Hyman. I got off at Hyman’s stop a few seconds after he got off, not wanting him to fall and to make sure he got to his building alright. I walked him to his building and ran up the stairs to get his mail.

Then after saying good night to Hyman walked home to Park Avenue, feeling quite light headed for some reason. And now I am home, and quite happy to be home alone.



I think I’ve exhausted the Frank Sinatra song list and now I am using songs done by Elvis Presley. I don’t anyone has noticed or will notice.