i lost my head. i wasn't myself. i just threw the handful of coins sue had given me at her as she descended the stairs.
i was so angry because after i had made love to her wonderfully that morning i had sheepishly begged for subway fare and a little change for coffee or whatever.
"what am i a gigolo?" i was thinking, and the thought infuriated me. "i may be a tramp and a lunatic but i don't use my body for money."
sue had taken me in because i had lost my job and was broke. and we got along fine for a little while. we had been good friends since woodstock vermont when she was just a wisp of a girl posing in the window bay with the stage replica lugar.
we laughed merrily recounting that day when she scared the shit out of a whole crowd of diners in the "corner cupboard" across the street. she was aiming diabolically at them as they sat in the windows. when someone looked up and saw her it caused a serious reaction and a few minutes later, durphy kicked down my studio door and stood on it both hands on his gun crouched like a fat tiger.
"am i a gigolo?" i wondered later on the subway.
luckily i landed a job on lower broadway as a salesman for a shrink wrap company. shrink wrapping was rather new at the time and i was rather amazed at the variety of sizes we offered.
it was an easy job. every now and then the boss would have me demonstrate one of the contraptions. a bag of plastic is wrapped loosely around an object. then it goes through a kind of oven tunnel and comes out on the other side with the plastic tightened skin tight.
anyway, sue was fed up with me and we parted company after the money throwing incident.
i got a place on park avenue, around 97th street, just six blocks from julie on 103 rd and park. i began to baby sit on a regular basis. when it was bedtime i would tell stories and sometimes sing. sometimes i would cheat and read a story.
"no. tell us one from your head." demanded demian. and i would make up a long drawn out epic adventure with a hero and of course, a princess and lots of jewels or gold. and the hero would save the princess by persuading his pony to fly and with his snickersnack blade swipe off the dragons head with one stroke.
but i also told all the aesop and la fontaine fables i could remember. and of course "the three little pigs were a hit." and "billy goat gruff" had been a favorite of mine that my father had read to me. turned out that i had a lot of stories "in my head".
i was never going to beg for car fare or be evicted again. so when i lost the shrink job, i quickly got another.
i found myself making manniken bodies at the "new style studio". the owner was an old man and a slave driver.
the humid shop was like a cave… hot and dirty with the pungent smell of glue and the clothe mache'. i would spend the whole day driving my fists into plaster casts; wet layers
of slimey strips smashed into curves over and over again until the form was thick enough. i could only make about four bodies a day at first. but within the week i was pounding out six or seven a day. (the old man kept telling me about the turkish guy who could make twelve a day.) i believed him but working as hard as i possibly could, i couldn't see making twice as many as i did.
one day when he got behind on an order, i was put to work painting the faces on the heads. that was the end of the 'cave' and i really kind of enjoyed doing the heads. and of course my style became the new style.
Your varied careers and jobs and lifestyle never cease to amaze me, Scott. And yet, you still, like John Lennon, seem to have retained a certain naivete that also amazes me.Interesting story. I'm curious to know how many different jobs you have had in your lifetime. Do you even know?
I really like the style in these 'memoirs'. I also had many different jobs. The last two jobs I had was as waiter in a gourmet restaurant and taking care of the ponies at a country manor – actually I had to work both places in the transistion period. That was kind of difficult, expecially if I had to wait on tables on a Friday night after having dealt with a horse with Cushing's syndrome (causing a terrible diarréha) the same afternoon…
well, linda, i am remembering them as i go along. i had forgotten about the shrink wrap place until i got to this point chronologically. i like what you said about the naivete. i'll admit that. :cool:thanks martin. occupational hazards come in many guises don't they. sounds a little funny but i'll bet it wasn't at the time.also, i was such a bad waiter at martells on the east side in manhattan, that they had to make me maitre d' after a week. that was a few years after these jobs. i remember so well how many times a customer had to ask me to bring him some ketchup. but i had no trouble being in charge of everything. 😆
I sucked in the story like it was one sentence meli :heart: it seems somehow that the events pile up inside you and by knowing s, I expect an eruption coming up soon…aesop stories to the kids? :heart: you were raising them faster than their time meli :heart: Where was Julie when you babysat? are you back together at that time again?How old are the boys ,at this point?thanks for sharing! :up:
Still here following you… 😉 waiting for more..
Originally posted by ellinidata:
glad you could come meli :heart:demian was three and jonathan was two. no we were not back together at all. though i would have had it that way, i remember, if she would have me again. but she didn't.more lea? more… o yes more is coming soon to a blog near you. 😎 i just have to make time and then squeeze out another memory. just keep coming back. this is going to take years. :heart: :happy:
" landed a job on lower broadway as a salesman for a shrink wrap company."Well Scott I at least hope that you never became involved in the whole plastic wrap around CDs madness.
For almost two years I assembled french press coffee makers for a living. Sometimes the old, once yellow telephone on the wall would ring, and I would know it was the foreman telling me to stop what I was doing and go down to the gate area to help shrink wrap the boxes of french press coffee makers. Most of the boxes had labels saying this or that in Chinese or Japanese, and men in fork lifts would roll them into trucks, and other men in caps and denim jackets would drive them away. I would stand at that table seven hours a day making sure the uniqely designed stainless steel frame and the equally ingeniously engineered safty lid was correctly attached to the 51oz thermo glass carafe. Nothing much, but even so a job. Better than standing on the street corner smoking cigarettes, I suppose. People need their coffee. Chinese and Japanese people as well.
Originally posted by edwardpiercy:
you mean the ones when even with a sharp knife of exacto blade it still goes on and on…. i had nothing to do with that. once again, blame on thieves. :happy:
Originally posted by Aqualion:
yes. and it kept me out of trouble to be working. i have one of those french presses. they make the best coffee.
😆
Hi Art, (i believed him but working as hard as i possibly could, i couldn't see making twice as many as i did.) lol, Tartan paint !
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
maybe it was for the best Scottie…where was Bobby at that time? I miss Bobby from the stories 😥
soon meli :heart: soon.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
are you implying that i am a two fisted drinker :lol:you know i don't drink meli :love:
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
I know honey ,that was for Bobby, in case he is visiting a Library and reads this! for you meli :heart: I have this :
that i can use. :happy:
Loved this entry Scott. The mannequin job would have been interesting to me….something I wouldn't have minded doing. I've had many different jobs in the last 12 years and painting the faces would have been a jewel of a job. Much better than running errands for lawyers and dishonest insurance men.
dishonest lawyers and insurance men… :lol:yes. i think you could do it. you have to be very strong. imagine your fist pushing as hard as you can and your whole body tensed. a very sweaty job with only the world series to cling to.