Waiting Something

I didn't think much about my birthday this year.  I woke at dawn and didn't even remember the day.  I had to go early to a conference to which the factory was sending me, and I was occupied by that, I guess until my mother called and began singing into the recorder, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. . . . "  I picked up the phone just as she was finishing.

"Jesus Christ, mom, that was hideous."

She was busy, too, she said.  She was playing cards with the girls and would not be able to see me.  We'd get together sometime, she offered.  "Have a nice day!"

The conference was hideous, but at least it wasn't the factory.  I am pretty much spectacular in my profession anywhere that is not the factory.  Even there, except with management.  So I showed off some and kept a crowd entertained and delighted as is my natural tendency.  I spoke with other foremen and forewomen from other factories and had it confirmed once again that I work in one of the most unenlightened, dictatorial factories in America.  Good to know, I guess.

After lunch, I went to another presentation, but it was awful and there were too many people and not enough chairs, and so after awhile, I decided I'd had enough and went to my car and drove home.  I wasn't paying attention and didn't take a turn I should have and I was in an unfamiliar part of town, so I just enjoyed being lost for awhile, enjoyed driving somewhere I'd never been.  It was mid-afternoon.  This is what I should be doing every day, I thought, just driving with a camera an shooting and thinking instead of sitting at a desk in an office in a factory.  I wanted to stay lost.

But slave to routine, I found my way back to a road I knew and headed for my house.  I would go to the gym and for once be done before dark.  And then I'd. . . but wait.  It was my birthday.

Yea, yea, yea.  I'm no kid, I thought.  What'd'ya want, a pony or something?

At home, I threw in a load of laundry and started the dishwasher.  Then, dreading it, I went to the gym.  It was not what I wanted to do, but I had nothing else that was pressing.  A workout would make me feel better, I told myself.  It is what keeps me young.  At least now.  There used to be other things, too, but not so much of late.

When I was finished at the gym and had shopped for some needed things, I thought about the evening ahead.  I thought about dinner and that I certainly did not want to cook a meal for one this night.  Then I thought--"The Artist."  I had not seen it yet and it was still playing at the little art theater in town, the famous one with the Film Festival that is supported by Sundance.  I would go.

I don't go there much any more.  It has gotten to be too popular.  For years, you could just walk in and get a good seat.  But the town has grown and now it is always packed.  Sometimes you can not get tickets and other times, if you do, your seats are simply terrible.  But I was one and I am not always shy, so when I went in, I walked up to a young couple sitting at a table for four and asked, "Would you mind if I join you?"  I've done this many times before, though I've never seen anyone else be that bold. I figure I have good karma in this for I always ask people looking for a place to sit if they would like to join me if I have empty seats at the table.  And for "The Artist," I had an excellent seat.

But seeing "The Artist" alone on my birthday may not have been the best decision I've made this year.  It wasn't the worst, but I felt too much like George Valentin.  Out with the old, in with the new.  Dujardin played it so well, you know, with so much tragic dignity and despair.  He was perfect, but he had Peppy Miller in the background as a hovering baby angel.  I watched and remembered that those were the stories I could not tell at Selavy, for they are not stories you can tell about yourself.  And so, sitting with a happy young couple alone in the dark, I faded like old film into silence.

At home, everything was as I left it.  No emails, no calls.  Just a pesky cat.  I checked the mail.  The only birthday card I received this year was from Bradley's Bar in Palm Beach.  A free drink awaited me.  I'd been getting this card every year since sometime in the 1970's when both Bradley's and I were something.  Now we both were something else.

But I had a text from Q.

"Happy Birthday, old man.  Don't kill yourself.  I know how you are."

That was not what it said, but it was what I thought it said at first.  "No, man, not tonight," I thought.  The night was not yet through.  I still might get something from Peppy.