Feeling Like Ratso Rizzo

I can't explain how things go wrong. They do.  I'm rolling snake eyes or boxcars on every throw.  Getting ready to come to NYC today, I had to go to the factory first.  Before I did, though, I needed to stop by the studio. As  I was carrying something inside and the door is heavy and swings closed, so I sat my parcel down, unlocked the door, and left the key in the lock.  When I picked up my load, I pushed my butt into the door to keep it open.  But walking in, I caught the key on my butt.  "Man," I thought, "that might have bent the key.

It had. And when I went to pull it out, it broke off in the lock.  I hadn't any time to take care of that at all.  It was a rushed and harried travel day as all travel days tend to be for me, so I had to leave the broken key in the lock and hurry onward.

The factory didn't care.  There were things to be done, papers to sign, orders to fill.  Run, run, run, as fast as you can. . . you can't catch the Gingerbread Man.  Then. . . I'd had enough and saw an opportunity to leap the wall. . . and I was gone.

New York again, I thought.  What am I going to do?  So many visits, things get to be a jumble now.  What?  When?  No one to meet now, nobody to see.  New York alone again.

I fell asleep in the airport seat waiting for my flight.  I could feel myself going, slipping down into that vortex, knowing not to.  When I woke, they had already begun boarding the plane.

La Guardia was a quick cab ride to midtown.  My hotel, the Pod.  It is cheap for where it is, but it is spartan like one of those cute Ikea rooms you see at the store and think it a wonder.  But it is only a picture of a room you walk through and wonder.  Try living in it.  I had booked a Queen room but had forgotten how terribly small they are, bumping shins every time I turn around.  Baggage down, I was out the door.  It was eight.  Dinner.

I walked around the area, E. 51st between 1st and 3rd.  It is almost Upper East Side.  Is, perhaps.  Men in suits and ties, women dressed in heels, everyone young and pretty.  I was not dressed well.  Rather, I was not comfortable.  I wore the wrong clothes today.  I don't know why or what I was thinking.  I remembered being poorer and younger and going to the laundromat to do laundry, always wearing something hideous so the good things would all be clean, but of course I would always run into the prettiest girl of my dreams somehow, me standing there in high-tider pants and my worst shirt.  It had been humid and I had been nervous all day and had sweated and now I felt. . . incurable.

I chose a tiny underground sushi restaurant.  Two beautiful waitresses and the fellow making sushi.  Both of the waitresses were heartbreaking and barely spoke English.  I had trouble meeting their eyes.  When the sake came, the waitress sat a clear tumbler into a square wooden box.  Then she took a big bottle and poured into the tumbler and let the sake flow over the top, spilling over into the wooden box until it was full, too.  And there I sat, a hillbilly cousin come to the city wondering what the hell I was to do.  I'd seen movies where they drank from the boxes, I thought.  Sure.  "Lost in Translation."  But was that the right thing to do or was it a joke on American tourists?  I hadn't any idea.  So I asked.

"Excuse me.  What do I do?"

"Wah meeba dranko you."

Her eyes looked as confused as mine.  Then the fellow making sushi helped.

"Japanese style," he said.  I nodded sagely.  What the fuck did that mean?

I decided to drink from the tumbler.  There were only the two most beautiful waitresses, the sushi chef, me, and a table full of Japanese businessmen in the place.  They could all laugh at the Yankee.  Besides, I had a 50/50 chance.

Back on the street, it wasn't quite nine.  I walked not feeling part of anything yet.  I walked up 51st to 5th and turned downtown.  At 42nd, I turned over to Times Square.  Why not?  And there it was, like being home.  Every yahoo in town was there, cameras clicking pictures of the giant screens and the Wax Museum.  Why not, I asked myself again?  Why be a prick?  So I walked along the boulevard of Olive Gardens and Ruby Tuesdays and Pizza Huts taking pictures with my iPhone.  This was the America of Katie Couric and sports fans.  This was the heartland's dream of The American City.

But a little of that goes a long way and before I realized it, I was back at the hotel.  I walked around the corner and picked a bar I'd been to before.  Two whiskeys at $15 each, then home.

Getting ready for bed, I found that I had not packed my toothbrush.  Ohhhhh. . . a perfect ending to the day.