Now, I didn’t go off half-cocked either. I made several trips into the city from Boston’s North shore. I spoke with several employment agencies who promised me that with my experience age was “not the kiss of death in New York.” The latter would have been a good bit of news except I didn’t ask them that – they took a look at me and offered reassurance. An alarm should have gone off right there and then. Well, I was born and raised in Brooklyn; I thought I was going home. This was right after 9/11. Even having been a New York expatriate for over 40 years, a surge of chauvinism and sentimentality took over my logic. I looked for an apartment in all of the boroughs. After being enticed by living spaces the size of my Honda coupe, I took a flat in a two-family in Fort Lee NJ -- $350 more a month in rent than at home and 600 square feet less. I paid a full month’s rent to the realtor and three months rent to the landlady. My son watched me slightly abashed. “Do you have moving money?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Just. This was my face lift.” “Well, a home is more important than a face lift,” he offered. I didn’t respond. He was in his thirties and looked like a frigging movie star. What the hell did he know?
The move itself was a study in disaster. First of all, who moves in February in the north east? And the affordable mover recommended to me pulled out at the last minute, recommending a company I knew nothing about and who were going to charge me twice the price the other guy had quoted. But at that point I only had a day to vacate. Of course that day it snowed. Really snowed.
It took an absurdly long time to load four small rooms of furniture into the truck. It didn’t help that the lead guy had an injured hand and another guy kept getting the vapors. How many signs does the universe have to give me before I realize that this is NOT a good idea? The next morning, Sunday, I arrived at the apartment moments before the moving van. The leader of the pack came upstairs, slapped down a very pink paper which declared that the weight of my shmatahs exceeded expectations and would cost me another $1200. Pay up or they’re continuing to Florida. With my shmatahs. There was really nothing on that truck of mine worth $1200 except the old spinet. I tried to call their main office in Somerville Mass. Of course no one answered there. It didn’t occur to me to call the police – would that have helped? When my son and his partner arrived, I was in tears. It didn’t appear that I had a choice, so I drove to an ATM and emptied the rest of my savings. They unloaded the truck, having broken several pieces of furniture and gave me a claim form. (We won’t even go there.) We stood among the boxes wondering whether it was adventure or total stupidity that inspired an almost 63 year old grandmother of 5 to arrive broke and jobless on the island of Manhattan instead of someplace in the Caribbean where at least there’d be no cost for heat. I obviously appeared to be an easy mark. Well, duh! I was an easy mark.
We are theatre people. Does that mean that we’re resilient? That we can fake it? That we’re used to “shit happening?” For me it simply means “improvise.” So we created a semblance of order, went out for Chinese food, and did a quick scan of transportation into the city. We’ll ignore the fact that all but one of my 14 plants arrived dead; that my mobile phone wouldn’t work in my flat so I had to sit in my car to make calls; that 1/3 of my possessions wouldn’t fit anywhere in the apartment and turned the second bedroom into storage. What we can’t ignore is the fact that I was broke. The next day I took the bus to the city, located the subway, and found nine million more people inhabiting New York than when I left 40-something years before. They were not happy to see me. I suppose it was foolish to take it personally. But these folks were champions at Roller Derby and knew that I was the new girl. They were very angry, and I was obviously not in a “New York state of mind.”
I arrived at the employment agency a bit rattled; only to be told by the woman who’d been so welcoming the month before that “You’ve chosen a really bad time to move here.” She viewed me with such alarm, it became immediately clear that age was definitely the kiss of death in the job market. I experienced this response at each employment agency I visited during the next two weeks, and was considering being scared when my California son sent me a “house warming” cash gift. Several friends across the country did the same. Enough to get me through another month. Embarrassed and humbled, all I could do was persevere. When my New York son called with a Saturday job at a new museum looking for someone trustworthy to sell tickets on their busiest day – I said yes. They were so happy to see me and seemed actually glad to have a “woman of a certain age” greeting the public. However, I’d have preferred that my friends and family not be so amused.when I told them I was working at the Museum of Sex. I had no idea what would be exhibited in a museum of sex. Well, that’s not true – I had several ideas. However. Some on-line research introduced me to the Museum of Sex in Amsterdam. Much larger institution with a substantial collection of art and artifacts. The New York museum had three galleries at its opening. An interesting display of sex in Hollywood; another show traced sex through American history in photos, magazines, books, etc. My son walked me through these first two galleries. Then he left me on my own saying, “I’m not walking through gallery three with my mother!”
I wish he had, because I had a difficult time recognizing a good deal of what was on view. That’s how long it had been! But I’m glad to say, it was an interesting mélange of art, science, porno, humor. I’m equally glad to say I was okay with it.With renewed confidence I called one more temp agency, took their battery of tests and became a “Kelly girl.” I learned the city all over again going from office to office with my subway map and street map and an undercurrent of anxiety. Oddly, I was invisible. If that had been the case in Boston, I never noticed. But on Saturdays I was present; relaxed, glad to meet the public, and feeling the tiniest bit notorious at the museum. It was a feeling that I began to take home with me. Example: on the subway going to the museum one Saturday, two gals were attracting as much attention as possible discussing some guy. Something like: “Well, I don’t give a shit if he’s a school teacher. As long as he treats me like a princess. I deserve to be taken out to dinner and sent flowers and all that crap – I mean I want a guy to put me on a pedestal –“ I was at the doors waiting for my stop; I turned to see who these very loud people were and the wanna-be princess turned on me: “What are you looking at bubbie? Don’t you think I deserve to be treated like a princess? Don’t you think I deserve to be treated special – to be married – don’t you huh – well?”
And (oh m’god!) I heard myself say, “I think you’d be lucky to be f----ed on a regular basis.” The doors opened and I exited leaving a couple of rather startled girls in my wake. Ha! That took more chutzpah than I’d displayed in a very long time. It was probably rather rude, but I felt so strangely good about it, I decided I was in a city that played with a different set of rules. Now that might only be what New Yorkers want the world to think. On that particular Saturday it worked for me.
Opportunities directing or teaching theatre were not available to me because I didn’t have New York credits. But I’m a writer so I kept writing. I became a perennial tourist. And heck, there was always Saturday! I may actually have fallen into a category referred to as “dirty old lady,” but I became conscious of people’s sensuality. Not only at the museum, but as a daily, involuntary observation. It became evident to me that New York has a large, diverse population of flaming heterosexuals. In Boston male behavior is definitely dictated by neighborhood affiliation. No, really – in the financial district men pretend not to look at women. In Southy or Revere guys are still “standing on the corner watching all the girls go by.” I had stopped taking notice of such normal behavior. Well, I’d stopped being watched! And except at the movies, I’d pretty much stopped watching. Then came Saturday! making me aware of such behavior. Men began smiling at me, ancient men – but you can’t have everything. And oddly enough, I was becoming less and less conscious of my age. I was dressing out of my favorite vintage shop – my closet – but I began to improvise with affordable bits and pieces. The result was maybe quirky – nah! –edgy – with a kind of ageless chic that didn’t make me look ridiculous. All this must have worked, because I was offered a job at one of my temp assignments. A real job. Sort of entry level in pay scale, but it beat temping and removed the angst of being unemployed every other week.
And on Saturdays I sold tickets at the Museum of Sex where most people entered attempting to look cool, and left feeling rather warm , embarrassed, shocked or pissed off. During Fleet Week young sailors looking as though they didn’t shave yet would call me “Ma’am;” classes from science programs at local colleges were led by teachers who hoped the students would remain scientists as they toured the space. Teachers who were inevitably disappointed. And students who weren’t. And no, no one asked me out or hit on me or interacted with me in any inappropriate way. And, no, I was not moved to sign on to match.com. But who we are does not have to depend on external feedback. I was having a good time being alive. Four years passed as quickly as that proverbial ‘New York minute.’ In September, my California son called to ask me a question: “Where do you want to live when you can’t work any more?” The answer was obvious – “When I can’t work anymore, I won’t be living.” He poo-pooed that; so I said “How about Italy?” It turned out to be a trick question: I let him give me the answer. The north shore of Boston where my daughter and three grandchildren still lived seemed to be obvious to him. His plan was wonderfully generous. He’d buy a condo; I’d live in it and pay the expenses for as long as I could pay the expenses. The trick part was that it had to happen now. I had a real job – it wouldn’t be easy to do that again, and other concerns made me feel conflicted about moving “back home” at that juncture. I had, after all, more than survived life in the big city. I was feeling eternally young; his call reminded me that life was winding down. I was afraid to say no and terrified to say yes. Well, my Aries horoscope tells me always do that which is the most daunting. Now, that should have been choice number three: sell all those shmatahs and head for Italy. But there was nothing in the lot that would pay for the ticket.
Before I left the city, I went on one more search for the New York of my youth.
I ate at Katz’s, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge; drove to Brooklyn on a pilgrimage to the house on East 10th Street where I grew up and the schools I attended. I had hot dogs at Coney Island and cheese cake at Juniors, and I drove out to Rockaway so I could walk on Beach 82nd street where my dad had grown up and where I’d spent many a childhood summer. Beach 82nd street wasn’t there. A large apartment complex had been built from 81st street to 83rd street.
A better writer than me wrote “The homesickness of an exile…..what you missed was your own youth, not a place.” The truth of that became evident as I stood in Rockaway Beach looking for the missing street. Yet another epiphany: yesterday was a part of me, and my essential self wouldn’t change if I lived by the sea in New England rather than the rivers in New York. I was in the elevator with two young women who were arguing amicably. It seemed that it was the birthday of one of the gals. She was telling her companion that she didn’t want to grow old. Her friend told her she had only two choices – to grow old or to die young. The birthday girl – all of perhaps 20-something --said that was enough reason to be miserable. Once again I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. As I was about to exit the elevator I smiled at the girls and said, “Actually, I think you have three choices. To die young, to grow old, or to be like me.” I don’t think they got it. But I finally did. It had come to me in a New York minute.
The house on East 10th Street
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a message for Mickey: