After eating lunch at S'nice in the west village,
(where I spotted the “verizon guy” eating lunch with a handsome man I went to college with -I hid behind my book- I'm reading Slaugherhouse Five)
I bike to Screen Actors Guild to pay my dues. On the ride there, I topple over on my bike in Times Square because when I lean over with my toes to steady myself (when I am compelled to stop) my weak leg gives way and I neatly drop over like I’ve been shot by an invisible bullet.
This often elicits sympathy from the nearby New York crowd. As I’m being pulled up, I cast my eyes down and feel like a wet cat, vulnerable and ashamed. But there is nothing to do it about it because I walk like a very old, old man because of my terrible disease.
At the Screen Actors Guild, I take an elevator to the twelfth floor with a young actor who I imagine just moved to the city because he is so cordial and nice to me, and the guy at the front desk, and later to the SAG receptionist. He had that (new in town) manner that is polite and respectful to everyone because you never know who might help you on your way up!
I respect this, but having lived in New York for 22 years, it's a hard to keep up.
I pay my dues to a bald black man who sits behind a glass partician (is it bulletproof?) and began my sad tale.
I look sour and tired, and my attitude is ... well here goes nothing.
“Hey um, I know this is odd, but uh, as it turns out I may be disabled. So, um, is there anything SAG can do for me?"
The bald black man has heard it all, so he is all business and points to a hallway where there is a door marked COMMITTEES.
I thank him and he GIVES me a quick once over and adds, “good luck man.”
This makes me think, ah shit! this is really happening to me.
There is a curt woman at committees, she is also black. She’s on the phone, (with a friend I imagine) She has zero time for me. My question about the disabled committee doesn't even induce eye contact. She hands me some xeroxed papers.
I notice they are forms to fill out if I have an interest in working for a committee.
Then I bike to my coffee shop in Hells Kitchen. It is packed with artsy types. They all look like actors on a TV show about New York. I stare.
And as I stare, I understand (for the first time) the energy and focus it requires to talk effusively with a friend.
I watch.
Hands out, heads nodding, eyes connecting, half smiles, thwarted interruptions, confirming, identifying, so many calories being used! It's just beautiful to watch, like a slick Hollywood picture, like Benjamin Button! The music swells and Benjamin and Kate Blanchet talk and laugh and eat and fall in love over dinner in New Orleans or Paris.
But the viewer doesn’t hear what they say, the viewer sees their mouths making shapes, giving into lazy laughter, stealing romantic glimpses as the soundtrack plays out.
That’s what it was like for me at my coffee shop in Hell’s Kitchen. And as I stared, I began to stew and let the creases on my sad face deepen and give into a lost slightly opened mouthed look of amazement.
I was so tired. Tired because of this terrible disease (I think).
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