A place for my stuff

So I found a new place and moved in on Tuesday. It’s a townhouse with a family (mother, father, 11-year old daughter[1]), and I get the top floor, consisting of a large bedroom, bathroom and smallish study. The building is part of an entire block of historic buildings, 18th century revivalist style, with lots of trees and ivy and charm. The neighbors all know each other, and it’s generally an oasis of small-town life in the middle of bustling Brooklyn.

On Friday my old roommate emailed me to say that my replacement bailed out on her.

I hadn’t signed a lease or anything at the new place, and it’s such a great place that I’m sure they’ll have no trouble finding a new tenant. So I moved back on Saturday.

Sheesh. Fortunately I don’t have a lot of stuff, but it’s still a pain in the ass making 12-odd trips up and down the steps to the 3rd floor. And the worst part: driving a rental truck through Brooklyn. The first move was a van, so that wasn’t so bad, but yesterday it was a big truck. The last time I drove one of those things, I scraped my neighbor’s front bumper, so I have a phobia about that sort of thing.

It had to be done. Back here in Red Hook, I’m saving $300 in rent every month, and the commute to my new job is about 20 minutes compared to 40 at the other place. Plus it’s “my neighborhood” and I was already starting to miss it[2]. I don’t have to change my address, nor do I have to stress out my already-stressed-out roommate.

It’s good to be home.

1.) She was cool. She’s an actress who had a small part in BAM’s MacBeth with Patrick Stewart.
2.) I’d miss my $10 Cuban haircuts.

OK I think it’s as official as it’s going to get…

It’s amazing how this town can change the path of your life in under 48 hours. But once again the puzzle pieces have fallen together and the course of my life has laid itself out for me.

Technically it all started three weeks ago in Arkansas when the recruiter who got me my first job called about an interview he wanted to send me on. I hadn’t heard from the guy in a few months, so I figured why not? I had originally intended to drive back to New York to pack up my stuff and move back, but for a potential job, I thought I should fly (which then led to flying out of Kansas City so mom and I could see Tina Turner, another fortuitous alignment of planets). I didn’t make it back in time to even go on the interview, as the position was filled before I arrived. Oh well.

Fast forward another week to last Thursday morning. It began like any other day; I made coffee and watched the previous night’s Daily Show. The phone rang. It was a different recruiter I’d tried over the summer. I thought I had deactivated my resume from their system, so this was another surprise. They had an interview they wanted to send me on, and when would I be available? I said any time, so they said how about 3pm at #3 World Financial Center[1]. AmericanExpress.com

I went to the interview and had a good time. The position sounds like it won’t be as intensive as my last one, it’s an internal team, a 35-40 hour work week, and only a bit less than I was previously making. And I’m mostly taking over some responsibilities from my supervisor, so she’ll always be around for questions and training. It’s a one-year contract, so I’ll have the option to leave at the end if I so desire.

All I’m waiting for are results of the drug test I took on Monday. They say I should start Wednesday of next week.

Life moves pretty fast.

Complicating things somewhat is my roommate’s replacement, who is already on her way from Seattle for a November 1st move-in. Since it’s far easier for me to look for a new place than for her, I’ve been hitting the bricks. I sent out an email to my NY friends and got a call back from Tom, offering a room at his house in New Jersey, so that’s my fallback plan. It would be super-cool to hang with him – he’s a keyboardist extraordinaire, Spiraling rehearses there, and there’s a big vintage piano in the living room. Sadly it’s in Piscataway, meaning I’d need to have my vehicle to get to the NJ train, and then take a monster commute every day to the World Trade Center. It sounds like it would be a lot of work, but might be worthwhile. In the mean time, I’m in search of a Brooklyn residence. I vented my weeklong frustration last night when I wrote this fake ad for Craig’s List.

1.) It’s the one with the pyramid on top.

I’m back safe in Brooklyn, after a long day spent waiting on mechanical problems in Kansas City and running through the airport in Cincinnati. I made my connection with 5 minutes to spare. To my utter amazement, my checked duffel bag made it from plane to plane in the 10 minutes it took me to run from concourse A to B in Cincinnati. They have a magic that I do not pretend to comprehend. I completely expected to wait for hours at JFK for my bag to come on a later flight, but no. Not only did it arrive safely with me, but I must have waited a grand total of 2 minutes to retrieve it from the baggage claim.

It was a long week. Fortunately I had a wide variety of activities to cheer me up:

• Friday I went to the new stadium at Harrison High School to see a football game with my sister.
• Saturday I was able to attend a reception for my friend Kevin and his new wife.
• Also Saturday I went to the Boone County Fair with my nephew Austin.
• Wednesday I went to see Tina Turner in Kansas City with my mom

That last experience was a pleasant surprise. Mom bought her tickets on a lark and was having doubts about being able to do a mid-week show with a 4-hour drive. So I offered to go with her and do some of the driving, and fly out from Kansas City. The show was tremendous. I had no idea that a 68 year old woman could deliver those songs, in all those costumes (yes, a Thunderdome re-enactment was staged with full dress), and in high heels. It may be the best arena rock show I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Nine Inch Nails and KISS.

So I was given plenty of distraction from the fact that an old friend is gone. Thanks to all who left comments and who emailed me. It was great to see all the folks I haven’t seen in many years.

I need to collect these here so that I don’t forget them all.

Kerri Long reminded me this morning of the time in 3rd or 4th grade when David got in trouble at lunch for pretending to snort powdered sugar off his piece of cake. I think he got a paddling, and had to write an essay on the dangers of drugs.

I think it was at Crawdad Days or some other festive occasion at the square, David, Laura Brightwell and I actually managed to win a firehose tug of war. There was a prize of some kind but we never got it. I only just now realized that my cohorts were both children of firemen. Perhaps our performance was not so meritorious after all.

Sleepovers at David’s meant sandwiches at Coursey’s next door. Free chips and sodas, too. Most of my early memories of David smell like smoked meats.

I heard License to Ill by the Beastie Boys for the first time at David’s house.

In 2004, I remember going out on David’s boat. The water on the river turned out to be really low, so David had to get out and push. Here’s a picture. And just to embarrass him more, another.

I think it’s fitting that Paul Newman has now passed away. David reminds me a lot of Newman in Cool Hand Luke: the most likely guy to eat fifty eggs for no other reason than fifty seemed like a nice round number.

It started with a text message from Emily Neal: “Please call me. I need to talk to you.” I was in lower Manhattan, a few blocks from Ground Zero. I found a quiet spot in a park to call her back. Then I heard the words, “David is dead.”

They’re still just words to me. They sit like a block of concrete poised above my head, suspended by apparently very strong dental floss that will, I’m sure, snap at any moment. Fortunately not before I endured the longest, most cramped ride on the F train I’ve yet experienced in my 9 months as a New Yorker. So I’ll continue to write in the strange clarity that imminent grief provides.

David was a magnificent jackass. He had a charm that I always appreciated, even if few others seemed to. There was a certain Corey Feldman-esque flavor to him[1]. My fondest recollections of him usually involve us getting into trouble in some form or fashion, like the time Mrs. Smith held us in from recess after we made too much noise playing a game in class. We kind of lost touch during junior high and high school, but we maintained that special bond that two people have when they’ve broken rules together. As Stephen King says in Stand By Me: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.”

We were reunited just a few years ago at our high school reunion when we discovered we’d both been living in Little Rock for some time. So I’d go out to his place in Maumelle to hang out every few months. He or Emily would cook dinner and we’d play dominoes (the man was a kung-fu domino player) or just visit. After their son Cooper was born, I looked forward to being another adopted uncle, and in the back of my mind pictured my future children hanging out with wacky uncle David. But that’s not the way it’s going to go down.

1.) Which then made me Corey Haim. Or more accurately, Sean Astin. We were the Goonies of Boone County.