JANET

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

She was in a class with me. We got to be friends.

She was in her mid sixties (I guess). With a collegiate voice, a knock out body, and zero signs of emotional baggage, you quickly forgot about her age.

I first spotted her while performing Richard the Third in an acting class in the Village. When Richard exalts "And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! ( and here I threw my head back with actorly confidence and exhaled,

Ha!

From the fourth row of the crowded classroom, she "Ha!-ed" back at me, like a kid being goosed by her favorite uncle. Even as I continued... "Hath she forgot already that brave prince", I thought, "wow I must be "on" because that girl with the Mia Farrow haircut and designer glasses is watching me like I just woke up the room, I'm VERY talented and (glasses girl) gets it. After class she made a beeline to my
hesitant exit.

"Hey, hi, hey, I really dig your work"

"Thanks, I guess I was into it. I guess I really relate to Richard... unfortunatly ha, ha, ha."

"yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

( I later learn that she is from San Francisco, this must be how people from San Francisclo make small talk... sprinkles of "yeah, yeah, yeahs."

We agree to do a scene from Sam Sheperd's "Curse of the Starving Class. I will be young son Wesley to her mother, Ella.

At rehearsal I learn she is divorced, enjoys a stiff drink and since she abhorted her career for three kids and a house in the LA suburbs she has no savings for retirement, a fear that hadn't entered my anxious brain but guessing her age, I realized she could be in a shit load of trouble since, (gee) she might want to be retiring pretty soon.

At Thanksgiving, we went to the Bob Dylan movie "I'm Not There" on Houston Street.
We walked home after the movie to midtown.
It was late and as we got to 45th street (her place), she suggested we go out for a drink.

"Women NEVER want to walk like that," I told my mother poolside in Florida.
"This woman knows how to stay young... and she never once stopped to re-adjust a strappy shoe or beg to cab the rest of the way. It was me who was too tired to stay out. It's like she's twenty-eight. 

I sometimes think she might be "interested" in me... "and she has three grown kids!"

Her youthfulness used to bug me. What's with all the sunny energy and ambitious outlook? Aren't you divorced? You're a legal secretary, right? Didn't you mention you had no savings? I mean, really.

But, I see now that we should have gone out for a drink at two in the morning. Life can be unfairly tricky. A month later, there would be no more opportunities for a drink at two in the morning.

Around Christmas we got together. We read poetry at the Cup Cake in midtown.
Whitman, e. e. cummings, stuff from the New Yorker, and talk about her obsession, Becket.
At the Cup Cake, something is off. She can't move her head.

"Did you sleep wrong?" I ask teetering in with my whipped americano.

"I went to my chiroapracter. When he corrected me I thought I'd throw up. I'll see my Doctor next week. Dr Leeds on 15th Street. Who I love, the whole family sees him. Great just great.

You gottta meet him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
I told her about my own doctor who ( I think) must of had some recent life changing event. The man was losing it.

Dr Johnson was an (eeny, meany miny, mo) through my health insurance plan, He was a tall handsome-ish, black man with a hair tigger laugh that made me snarl my lip and become instantly obdurate.
Turns out Dr Johnson specialized in AIDS medicine. This frightened me. I thought , if one is to believe in the ways of G-D of (forshadowing) this might be an unhappy coincidence.
I often felt that Dr. Johnson was fondling me when he checked me out. Do I have an out-sized ego? Maybe. But on my last office visit for cholesterol testing, I noticed the portrait of his wife and two kids were missing, replaced by a plain middle aged white guy.

In any case, her neck? Turns out it was a tumor. A tumor in her neck. She got a BAD case of cancer. Like colds, some are bad and some are tolerable, hers was terrible.
But it's okay because she has a ton of people who adored her and now I feel honored that
she wanted to get to know ME. My swanky low self esteem suggested that maybe she's a little off, a little light in the noggin if she's so interested in me. Turned out she had a pile of friends and a first rate attitude and singled meout as someone she needed to know and now I wish I had taken advantage of her solid sunniness and bald intelligence.

One of her last "good days" I escorted her to the BUMBLE & BUMBLE hair salon in the Meat Packing District. She neeeded help keeping steady. I'd never been to Bumble and Bumble. Wow.
I photographed the whole thing. I told her I was miserable at my 15 dollar an hour investor relations phone-office job. She said " I'm jealous."

Her daughters kept a blog. I read it every day.
It looked like she was going for good.
But she had her comebacks.


When I saw her I acted like it was no big deal, like it's a stubborn case of the flu.
"Relax", I said as if discussing an unfair charge from the phone company, "I know a lot of people who've had cancer... as a matter of fact MY lungs don't feel so great."
I always play that card, try to trick the person, (the body?) into thinking they're okay and that it's no big
deal.

The minute you say, did I ever tell you how cool you are... it's over.