Drama in Toronto (part 2)

It happens with a good deal less frequency now (if at all, with film production house profit margins being significantly squeezed these days) but whenever a commercial production would finish, there was a time when there would be a “wrap” party for those involved. These were usually reserved for larger gigs where multiple commercials (or a single very elaborate one) had been filmed back to back and the time a crew had spend together was fairly significant.

“Significant” in the quickie world of thirty second commercial production is roughly anything over two weeks which includes pre-production, casting, location scouting and the film shoot itself. Post production and editorial don’t really factor in as they obviously come after the fact. Wrap parties are a celebration for the small platoon of professionals that pool their talent together for a brief time, laser-focused to create the most important element in live action film production: the footage itself.

It’s a unique feeling being a part of a production troupe no matter what your role is. You come together, many times as complete strangers (most likely self employed), bonded by reputation and skill-set. Working within a very compressed period of time, under some degree of pressure, which when combined with long hours, travel and adverse conditions (especially if you’re on location dealing with harsh weather) tends to bond people making them into task focused comrade-in-arms. Once the project is completed, everyone goes their own way, scattered to the four winds. So a wrap party is a way for people to celebrate a job well done, share a final beverage and to even do some last minute schmoozing in an attempt to shore up some possible future work.

I’ve been to a few of these “parties” in my time and they run the gamut. Many times it’s just a small gathering at a local pub as when filming comes to an end, some crews just want to hurry up and get on home the minute the Assistant Director hollers “It’s a wrap!”. This usually comes after the order has gone to “check the gate” which makes certain that no debris was in front of the camera lens during filming, thus ensuring that the final shot was a good one.

That final shot, by the way is called the Martini and the name fits like a glove. It tells everyone (actors, camera crew, props, make-up, wardrobe, electricians, carpenters, production assistants, producers, clients, etc.) that the filming is complete, that the last of the raw footage has been obtained and that the collective gathered sphincters can now relax (although for those involved with the still-to-come post production such muscular relief is only a temporary respite). It’s Miller Time (why that beer company stopped using that concept in their marketing just boggles the mind) and the mood is festive.

When this particular commercial shoot was done in Toronto, back in the spring of 1993, the wrap party was a bit more of an elaborate affair as it was not only an end-of-job steam release but it was also a raising of the glass to a member of the production crew who was getting set to marry that following weekend. Expecting a decent turnout, the production company picked Ouzeri, a really nice Mediterranean restaurant in the Greektown area of the city.

The restaurant (which I believe is still there) is a good size place with a very high ceiling. As you go towards the back, there is a loft dining area a flight up with seating for about 30 or so. The front of this dining loft, just off the stairs, had a waist high metal railing, affording anyone that sat near there a good view of the full restaurant below as well as seeing who was coming up. Arrangements had been made for our dinner party to take place there and everyone started arriving around 8 that evening.

Upon my own arrival and after greeting everyone that was already there at the private dining loft, I found myself sitting in the chair by the railing overlooking the rest of the restaurant. Next to me at my long table were the clients, three very nice people that time has robbed me of their names. Theirs as well as many others who were there that night for reasons that will become apparent as I continue. My sincere apologies to all of them should any ever read this and recognize themselves. For the sake of the narrative, I will have to resort to just calling my three clients Mary, Beth and Bob.

Mary, Beth and Bob were the senior members of the marketing department for a large commercial developer specializing in building outlet centers. The commercials we had just shot were essentially “come shop here” spots with a heavy emphasis on high fashion for low prices. Mary sat to my immediate right, with Beth to her right and Bob opposite Mary. Across from me was the commercial’s director, who I’ll just call Tom, and next to him Roger (the very same Roger who’d taken me to the oyster bar a few weeks prior (see Toronto Part 1). We were a part of about 20 or so that were present at Ouzeri’s loft that night. The six of us had bonded well during the production, so much so that I decided to do something I never do when I go on production and that was to let my hair down.

Now for the majority of my professional career, whenever I traveled on business I do my very best to adhere to one personal cardinal rule: in the company of business associates — particularly clients — never let your hair 100% down. It is my contention that you are ALWAYS on the clock and with that, one should maintain some level of guarded professional decorum at all times. Doesn’t mean you can’t still have an enjoyable evening with your client, it’s just that experience has shown me that after they’ve seen you, figuratively speaking, dance on a table with the proverbial lampshade on your head, things are NEVER the same — even if they were up there before you.

On this particular night in Toronto, I wound up breaking my own rule as I would succumb to the little voice in my head that said, “C’mon, you did a great job and the clients are happy. It’s time to relax and have another drink.” Probably for no other reason than it was the alignment of the moon and stars. All I know is that as the evening progressed I found myself having glass after glass from the wine bottles that were put in front of me.

After a few hours, there I sat with a belly full of delicious Greek cuisine and wine, fully sated and feeling no pain. Buzzed as I was, I was still mindful of the early morning wake up for myself as I had an early flight back to Washington DC in order to supervise a mid morning photo shoot for another client. I was about to push away from the table and call it a night when Tom asked me if I’d join him in having a glass of something called Ouzo.

“Ouzo?”, I don’t think I’ve ever had that. (I hadn’t. Anise-flavored liqueurs were never my thing and they still aren’t.) “It’s an excellent way to top off this meal and the night. Waiter, please bring us a bottle and a few glasses.”

Thus the die was cast. Instead of saying goodnight to one and all, coolly vacating the premises with my professional dignity intact, then heading off to my hotel room with nothing more than a nodding buzz to sleep off, I opted to sit back down and get essentially flat-out stupid drunk on something I don’t even like. Now, I know you’re not supposed to tell the ending of a story in the middle of its telling but you know I’m going there, who am I kidding? Especially if you know me at all and know that I’m not much of a drinker to begin with.

Let me state here and now that there are few edible things I find fouler of flavor than licorice. So, for me to drink… no, let me amend that… guzzle, significant quantities of Ouzo… this is, dear readers, by my own personal units of measurements regarding self behavior, is a true indication that I was über hammered. Please remember to retain that fact fairly close by while I describe the events that followed.

As I sat by the railing looking below me to the rest of the restaurant ( I believe the term is “in a stupor”), I recognized a late arriving member of the production crew coming up the flight of stairs to our dining loft. Feeling the need to give them a proper greeting, I stood up and leaned over the railing. When I did this, I immediately felt something impact fairly violently with my forehead, causing me no small amount of pain. With my left hand rubbling my throbbing forehead and my right one steadying me by the railing, I began looking for the culprit, and there before me, about forehead level, was a severely wobbling metal ceiling fan.

Normally, one wouldn’t think of a ceiling fan being level with one’s forehead, and truth be told, were I on the restaurant’s main floor with it’s 2-story ceiling above me, it would have been several feet out of reach. But the loft was a full level higher and although out of the reach of patrons dining there, my leaning over the railing placed my noggin and the whirling mechanical device on a collision course.

I sat back down in my chair and said nothing to anyone around me as no one had seen what I’d just done. I was goofy drunk when I’d stood up and leaned over the railing, now I’d been knocked even goofier by a spinning metal ceiling fan. I grabbed a half filled glass of ice water and pressed it against my forehead, hoping to cool the sting. When I pulled it away, it was covered in blood and condensation. As I sat there dazed and confused, my client, Mary (the one seated to my immediate right), who’d been completely engrossed in conversation with the other diners had turned towards me to ask my opinion about something.

Upon seeing my blood covered face, she opened her mouth wide and let loose a scream loud and startling enough to cause everyone within earshot to stop in their tracks and to shoot their gazes in our direction. This included not only those that were with me in the dining loft but also the entirety of the restaurant below. As I looked around, casting the vision of my now fully crimson features like a facial lighthouse, I was struck by a wave of clearly audible gasps that greeted me. Mixed in were a few “Ohmygods” and some “Holyshits” as well. Were I sober I might have had enough wits about me to have had a little fun with the moment, such as giggling like a crazed fiend or quoting a line from a movie like “I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!” Alas, there was more Quasimodo to me at that moment than anything witty and clever as I just sat there, slack jawed, stupid and oozing blood from a two inch gash on the center of my forehead.

A beat later, the area around me was a beehive of activity as I was surrounded by a variety of individuals all looking to see to my welfare. In addition to applying a clean linen napkin to my forehead to stem the bleeding, my fellow revelers and the restaurant staff were asking me what had happened and I answered them by pointing to the now fully recovered and properly spinning ceiling fan. I recall someone commenting that I was fortunate to have been hit in the forehead and not lower and this triggered a funny recollection of all the times my mother had told me as a child to be careful how I played or I’d “lose an eye one day”.

A waiter was pressing the napkin hard to my head while a couple of others helped me to my feet. Someone said, “There’s a First Aid kit downstairs by the kitchen, let’s get him down there” which I now understand was PC code for “Let’s get this drunken fool out of sight as quick as possible, he’s upset the other patrons enough”. With the assistance of about three members of the staff I found myself downstairs, not in the kitchen but rather in the men’s room. Cold water was applied not only to the wound but also to my full face, as much to cleanse the blood off as to sober me. It worked, I was a good bit more lucid — still drunk of course but certainly more coherent than I’d been a few moments earlier.

The restroom door opened and in walked a woman (management) holding a tube of antiseptic ointment and some bandage strips. She applied the ointment and put two strips across the cut. When I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror the strips formed a huge X in the middle of my forehead, clearly identifying me as the drunk fool that head-butted a two story high metal fan. I thanked everyone for their help and I apologized for the fuss I caused. I then exited the mens room and made my way to the dining loft. As I passed the other patrons I caught a few of them giving me the “Well! I never!”look and the good for all occasions “Asshole!” one as well… ah yes, the X was working like a charm.

Waiting for me at the bottom of the dining loft stairs were my three clients. Embarrassed, I apologized to them for my behavior and I bid them, Tom and the rest of the production crew good night and goodbye. I left the restaurant and hailed a cab back to my hotel.

It was after 1 in the morning when I made it to my room and knowing that I had to catch an early flight (7 A.M.) in a few hours, I was worried that I’d oversleep. So I took a cold shower, dressed and packed my things. I’ve always been blessed with a fairly rapid ability to heal so by the time I’d showered, the cut had already begun to scab over. There was a nice size lump under the cut, a result of the impact but it didn’t look as bad as I’d feared. I opted to use only one bandage (I’d been given a handful of extras by the restaurant) as I went down to the lobby and asked the hotel desk clerk to call me a cab which I had take me to the airport.

At the airport, I recall sitting in an empty terminal waiting for it to fully open. When it did, I went to my gate and waited for my flight. During this time and even just before I boarded the plane, I made several trips to the airport restroom to wash my face in cold water. By the time the flight took off I’d managed to sober up significantly. That said, my head was a hungover mess and as if that wasn’t bad enough, the combination lump-cut was still throbbing painfully.

Twenty minutes in, the plane started to pitch violently as we hit an early morning system of thunderstorms that covered most of the Northeast. It was a small prop plane with a flight ceiling somewhere around 12,000 feet. This meant that we weren’t going to be flying safely above the harsh weather we were now experiencing and that it was going to envelop the plane during the entire flight to Washington DC. Lucky me. What followed was an aerial roller coaster the likes of which I haven’t had before or since. I remember the pilot getting on the plane speaker system, explaining his inability to avoid the storm and advising us to “just hang in there”. I also remember wishing I had the ability to morph my buttocks into two large hands so as to grab my seat tighter. This wish came on the heels of the ones where I wished I hadn’t drunk as much the night before and that I’d missed this flight. How I hadn’t emptied my stomach several times onto the seats around me, I’ll never know but I was grateful for the small miracle.

Eventually the nightmare ended as the plane landed safe and sound at Dulles International Airport. Once I’d cleared customs, retrieved my luggage and my parked car I headed to the photo session in the city. Upon entering his photography studio, Claude (who’d I’d worked with on a few prior occasions and had an excellent relationship with) commented that I looked like I’d just been put through a ringer. I nodded in affirmation and said little more than that. I would go on to do my job without incident as the rest of the day had me downing coffee, water and Tylenols. Claude would eventually take a picture of me in my unhappy state, lump-cut and all. I had the print framed and hanging in my office for several years, a reminder to me that I am not the boozing type.

Looking back, I know I was extremely fortunate. My relationship with my clients didn’t suffer any professional damage (at least none that I was ever made aware of) and the lump-cut healed without scarring (at least none that I was ever made aware of). I haven’t been back to Toronto since that night, Vancouver having usurped it as the Canadian city of choice for film shoots but I still have great affection for the city. I hope to one day return and when I do I plan on going back to a certain Greek restaurant for a delicious alcohol-free meal.


Peace

Hot Drama in Toronto (part 1)

There was a period in the early 90s where I was traveling to Toronto at a good clip for business. At the time, the US dollar was doing quite well compared to the Canadian one and there was plenty of TV commercial production that was being done north of the border. In my then capacity as an ad agency art director, I’d be a part of a team that would conceptualize and then oversee the production of commercials for our clients. If it’s a decently funded project, one of the perks of the job is that you get to do a fair amount of travel, dine at the finer restaurants and stay at the better hotels all as part of the process of “getting it done”. If it’s a poorly funded production (happens more often than you think), plan on plenty of Motel 6s and in-room fast food. It still beats working in a sweatshop book factory in the South Bronx, something I did in my mid-teens, but that’s a story for another day.

I have been to a lot of different countries as a part of what I do for a living but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Canada and Canadians. On this one particular trip to Toronto back in the spring of 1993, that fondness was put to the test as some interesting things happened to me on two separate nights that would have profound affects on me. I’ll tell these stories in the way they happened, in two parts.

Night One

“You like oysters?” Roger asked with a tilt of his head, a sly grin and a single raised eyebrow. You know that look that makes some people appear as though you’re seeing them through a heavily distorting wide angle lens, kind of like the way you look when you see yourself up close on a doorknob? Especially when there’s a head lean in included? Well, he was giving me THAT look.

Some people use it as part of their lusty leer, their “Sooo, did you get any last night?” face. In this case, it was a primal “me craving oysters!” thing. That look pretty much said that his question and my response to it were but a societal exercise, a minor courtesy dance — oysters were calling him that evening and he was answering, my “yes” or “no” really didn’t matter. Since I was traveling with him, it was bad form to deny a colleague one’s company for dinner, especially if they were picking up the tab.

Now, in an effort to maintain a proper level of full disclosure, I must say no, I am not overly fond of oysters at least not of the uncooked variety. Will I eat them that way if offered? Yes, very fresh and with a proper hot sauce on them, but will I go out of my way to do so? That’s a big “no”. It’s a texture thing and I’ll just leave it at that.

So here I was, on my way to what was described as “an excellent dining experience” by my associate, Roger. Roger, by the way, was a freelance creative director hired directly by our client to work with my ad agency on the execution of their advertising. An unusual arrangement as ad agencies are notoriously exclusionary when it comes to their clients but the powers that be agreed to it, so you play the cards dealt. I really didn’t have any issues frankly, my job was to come up with ads and whom I presented them to, as long as they were solid professionals, was pretty much moot. Roger was indeed a seasoned veteran who had very good creative and marketing sensibilities and on top of that was a nice guy. I had no qualms whatsoever as I enjoyed working with him.

So the two of us were in Toronto for the filming of a commercial. We’d flown in earlier that afternoon, checked into out hotel rooms and since we were scheduled to attend an early morning pre-production meeting the next day, it was going to be an early dinner before we called it a night. I recall standing in the lobby of the hotel, trying to figure out what I was in the mood for when the elevator doors discharged a hurrying Roger who walked up to me, paused long enough to drop his oyster question (with accompanying look) then resumed his march out the hotel’s revolving doors to hail a cab, taking for granted that I was right behind him, which I was.

A brief cab ride later we were at Oscars Oyster Bar. A fairly fancy establishment that was in the basement of a downtown office building. It made me think of pictures I’d seen of old Prohibition era speakeasies from the 20s. Only thing missing was an entry door with a sliding eye-slot and some goon asking for a password. Walls covered with dark wood paneling, linen and fine china on the tables and a wait staff in full tuxedos. The patrons were well dressed too and appeared to be of a class whom I rarely broke bread with (some may say primates being what I am more comfortable eating with and there’s some truth to that).

As is usually the case, I was a out of my element. As soon as I’d walked into the restaurant in my jeans, sneakers and casual sweater I began looking to and fro for the impending arrival of the “formal attire only” police. Better them than the “You? Want to eat HERE?” patrol who tend to look at you as though you fart from your facial pores. Whether he sensed my discomfort or just wanted to get within drooling range of his prey, Roger right away asked the maître d’ to sit us at the bar, directly in front of the guys that were shucking the oysters. The maître d’ was happy to oblige.

As we took our seats, the bartender smiled and asked us what we were having. Without missing a beat, Roger smiled broadly and said, “Beer and oysters, my friend” he then turned to me and I just gave them both a “when in Rome” nod and braced myself for an evening of hops and half shells.

There we sat, drinking beers and eating wave after wave of fresh oysters, all “flown in daily from all over the world” according to the restaurant’s management. True or not, the oysters were definitely fresh and tasty, especially when consumed with the expansive selection of sauces that lined the front of the bar. I’m one that prefers a bit of an edge to my condiments and as the evening progressed, I kept trying hotter and spicier sauces.

As I sat there eating away, I noticed a petite old woman would come from the kitchen (the entrance of which was at the rear wall of the bar) and just look around the restaurant. She did this a few times before her gaze met mine. I smiled at her and she returned a big one of her own. She was very small, easily under five feet in height and very thin. I doubt she weighed more than 90 pounds total if that. Her well weathered skin was dark chocolate in color and she wore a bandana over her grey hair. Her clothes and jewelry were bright and colorful, full-blown gypsy-chic and in a restaurant like this with such upper crust clientele and decor, she was completely out of place. I know, because I sure as hell was.

With Roger in deep conversation with another patron seated alongside him at the bar, the little old woman walked up to me, her head barely clearing the bar counter, big smile still in place and said in an incredibly thick Jamaican accent,
“ ‘L-lo big mon! ‘Ow arr uu dis ee’veneen?”
“I’m doing very well, thanks so much for asking. And how are you this evening?”
(yes, I speak “polite”, like a native I might add)
“Eyes bee fine, big mon! I sees yuu ly’ dee speye-cee sauces, ‘ey mon!”
“Yes, I do, and these are excellent.”
“Well big mon, if yuu arr fee’leen adven-chor-us, eye ‘ave somteen special for yuu.”
She turned her back to me and reached for something on a shelf behind the bar. When she turned back to me, her smile was even broader now and she placed a small tray in front of me. On the tray were 3 small bottles, all with homemade labels. My new friend then proceeded to tell me that these were her own “special” hot sauces and that I should give each of them a try. She then paused to give one particular bottle a few slow purposeful taps, “‘N bee very, very careful wit dis one, big mon! Eet bee my pride n joy!”. She then gave me a quick wink, and I heard her let out a small chuckle as she headed back to the kitchen.

Roger, at this point had noticed the old woman leaving me the hot sauce bottles and once she was out of earshot, leaned towards me to say “Hey, you might want to be careful with those Jamaican hot sauces, they can be nasty.” I shrugged and said “How bad can they be? Besides, I’ll just use a pinch at first just to be safe.”

Another round of fresh raw oysters were put in front of us along with some more brews. Roger stayed with his lemon wedges and sprinkles of Tabasco sauce. I turned my attention to the old Jamaican woman’s little bottles. One by one, I sampled the first two little concoctions (saving the “special” one for last), carefully applying them to the tops of the fleshy half-shells, lifted them to my lips then I titled my head back and gulped. By the way, there is no polite way to describe eating oysters beyond what I’ve just done. It was a brave and/or truly hunger-crazed caveman that looked upon a raw oyster and said “Now, that’s a tasty looking dish”.

Well, those first 2 bottles did indeed contain some potent hot sauces. “Hot” doesn’t do them justice as they were both intense that said I deemed them handleable. Now a good reason for that was my cautious approach of just sampling a small amount which saved me any severe reactions. I was able to enjoy a hint of the heat without ruining what had been, up to that point, “an excellent dining experience”. As I reached for the third and final bottle, I noticed the old woman had come out from the kitchen and was eyeballing me from the back of the bar. This time, she was making a similar fish-eye lens face to the one that Roger had used earlier in the evening when he was lusting for oysters. There she was, single raised eyebrow, grinning with only half her mouth and the pièce de résistance: the leaning forward tilt of the head. No, lusty leer here, this was an unspoken “go ah-head, suckah, pahtake o’de nektah, big mon”.

Having felt that I’d easily survived her other home mixtures, I was full of confidence, beer and bravado as I sprinkled some of bottle x onto a new oyster. I smiled at the old lady and also at Roger who’d been watching me between gulps of his own and then I lift the shell to my lips, tilted back and “let ‘er slide”. I braced myself and then... nothing. Nada. A slight twinge but other than that, I had no reaction other than to note a delayed sweetness. An overall incredibly tasty experience. I remember giving Roger a smile that was part satisfaction and part triumph and then I immediately reached for the small bottle and two more oysters. This time I liberally applied the contents of the third bottle to each oyster and in seconds I had devoured them. I turned to give the Jamaican woman a thumbs up when suddenly all hell broke loose in my mouth.

Before I get into the details of what happened next, I need to explain how there are people that walk amongst us that have mastered the ancient art of Tongue Fu. A secretive and very old underground society made up of spice shaman. These skilled practitioners can kill with but a hint of a well prepared spice cocktail. We’re talking peppers, spices and earth magic that are combined with ritual blood sacrifices to create what amounts to sun juice. Terms such as “hot” or “spicy” are as relevant when discussing their art as a gnat’s whispers are to Shakespeare. To mess with them, is to flirt with catastrophic oral devastation. The builders of WMDS envy these molten maestros and their abilities, ever craving the hidden secrets within their tiny bottles. Woe, to us all, should this power ever be harnessed for evil. My hands (and bowels) tremble at the thought.

This, dear reader, is what happened next:

Unlike the conventionally pungent seeds of various hot peppers that assault the tongue and taste-buds or mustards that hit the sinuses, whatever was in that bottle, attacked my salivary glands — but not immediately. It had a delayed chemical reaction to the enzymes in my saliva, so that I didn’t realize that I had just put the equivalent of active lava chips into the back of my mouth until long after the fact. The delay, had me foolishly assuming that the reaction was a benign one, which then lead me to stupidly add even more butane to a smoldering fire.

It had taken about a minute to kick in but once the chemical reaction in my mouth had commenced, the physical one was instantaneous and demonstrative: I panicked. This was something so otherworldly painful that I was in full body distress. I’m not talking about “oh, this is hot!, someone please hand me some water!” duress, this was the silent screaming at the top of my lungs while I run around a fancy restaurant kind. First and foremost I recall my throat locking right up. The little guys manning the doors that control my swallowing were in full red alert. Inside my head I could hear cries of “No f*n-way is any of that coming down here!! SHUT THE GATES, NOW!!!”

I wasn’t breathing. According to witnesses, my face, which bears the color of my ancestors, the Taino natives of the small Caribbean island of Boriqua (Puerto Rico to you 21st century types), apparently turned a shade of purple. What was happening in my mouth was so painful that the intake of air made things dramatically worse. Inability to breathe, along with a mouth and throat that were aflame were bad enough, but I noticed my vision was starting to blur, significantly. If someone had told me that there was something so spicy it would make me temporarily blind, I would have surely asked if the health inspectors were aware of this vision impairing hot sauce and why were people allowed near it much less consume it?

To Roger and the other patrons, I was like a wildman in their midst. I had stood up, violently pushing myself away from the bar, knocking over my barstool. Having lost the ability to speak (or inhale for that matter) I couldn’t cry for help although I then proceeded to frantically search for it, all over the restaurant. A part of me kept mentally yelling at myself to calm down, to not give in to the urge to senselessly run to and fro. The rest of me was countering that noble argument with “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

I remember stumbling over the table of one well dressed couple who were in the midst of their dinner. If it was their anniversary meal, I take great solace in knowing I was able to provide some entertainment for them that evening. Here I was, running around blindly, figuratively and literally, in a frantic search for salvation from a killer condiment.

I need to add that Roger was chasing me the whole time along with one of the bartenders who was holding a large glass of water, the consumption of which would only have exacerbated my problem.

Then as quickly as it flared up, the pain subsided. The whole outburst probably took only about a minute and a half, but it had felt like an hour. Roger placed an arm around my shoulder and guided me back to the bar and my now upright stool. My blurred vision was improving and my breathing was returning to normal with every shallow breath. When the bartender tried to hand me the glass of water, Roger stopped him and handed me instead some bread that he had taken off a table when he was trying to corral me. As I calmed myself, I could feel that the eyes of everyone in that eatery at the back of my head. I envisioned someone telling their waiter “Whatever he had for dinner, I’m not having any.”

“Are you okay?” Roger asked with no small measure of genuine concern. His question was echoed by the bartender and the maître d’ who was now standing beside me.
With a mouthful of bread, I nodded in the affirmative.
Embarrassed, I just wanted to get the hell out of there and head back to my hotel room where I was hoping to find a cool cyanide tablet and wash it down with some ice cold water. As I sat there, chewing and catching my breath, I noticed someone else approaching me, my little Jamaican friend.

With a smile so big it was a wonder she didn’t swallow her ears, she looked right into my eyes and said “So, big mon, was dat ‘ot eenoff for yuu?”

She then proceeded to laugh heartily and so did everyone else in my vicinity. Not the least of which was myself who felt like I’d dodged a bullet that night. I got the distinct impression that this wasn’t the first time a patron had “lost” themselves after sampling the contents of those tiny little bottles. Maybe not with my dramatic flair, but reactions none the less. The little old woman definitely took great pride in her “craft”.

Since that evening, I have taken to being EXTREMELY cautious in my consumption of new, unfamiliar foods, labeled “hot and spicy”.

Wouldn’t you?


peace


part 2 coming soon.

The Dark Church

It was the fall of 1988, I was working at an ad agency in LA and my primary account was Mexicana Airlines. One of the perks of working on a foreign airline is plenty of free travel to the country of origin. Mexicana, at this time, was all about getting Americans to travel to the non-coastal areas of the country. Their business to the resort towns like Acapulco, Ixtapa and Cancun was pretty much set on autopilot: well booked flights, plenty of repeat business. The harder sell were the interior locations; the lesser-known parts of the country that were a little more intimidating for the casual traveler.

As part of a new initiative to begin heavily promoting these non-coastal interior destinations, my copywriter partner, Linda and myself, were sent on a "fam" trip to Mexico's southern most state, Chiapas. Fam being travel industry lingo for "familiarization trip" where one visits an area and assumes the role of a traveling tourist, pure and simple. You check out the sights, the accommodations, and the local food and in the case of a couple of ad agency types, determine the creative approach for an ad campaign.

As I mentioned, we were being sent to the State of Chiapas.
Here's a little of what Wikipedia says about that part of Mexico:

"Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west. To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean. In general Chiapas has a humid, tropical climate. In the north, in the area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa, rainfall can average more than 3,000 mm (120 in) per year. In the past, natural vegetation at this region was lowland, tall perennial rainforest, but this vegetation has been destroyed almost completely to give way to agriculture and ranching. Rainfall decreases moving towards the Pacific Ocean, but it is still abundant enough to allow the farming of bananas and many other tropical crops near Tapachula.

On the several parallel "sierras" or mountain ranges running along the center of Chiapas, climate can be quite temperate and foggy, allowing the development of cloud forests like those of the Reserva de la Biosfera el Triunfo, home to a handful of Resplendent Quetzals and Horned Guans. The state capital city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez; other cities and towns in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán, and Tapachula. Chiapas is home to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak, Chinkultic, and Toniná. As of the mid 1990s, most people in Chiapas were poor, rural small farmers. About one quarter of the population were of full or predominant Maya descent, and in rural areas many did not speak Spanish."

So we're talking rainforests, high elevations, Mayan descendants, poor farmers, ancient ruins, cats and dogs living together, the full works and it’s absolutely beautiful.

Utter coolness all around and here we are, all expenses paid two week trip to go play tourist. During the course of that trip, everyday was a bit of an adventure as we flew into Tuxtla Gutiérrez, zigzagged down to the Guatemalan border, visited Palenque, the mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas then headed back north to fly home from an airport in Tabasco, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Along the way, we did our best to play ersatz Indiana Joneses including exploring hidden caves, incredible waterfalls, pyramids and on this one particular day went somewhere, that to this day, felt like we went way off the sanity map entirely.

Before I get into the specific events of that day, I need to explain a little more about what the area's indigenous population is like. Chiapas is far more Mayan-centric than any other areas of Mexico. What this means is that there are villages and tribes, where the old pre-colonial languages and cultural rituals are still an everyday way of life. Not necessarily the sacrificial rituals (although I'm pretty sure that there are live stock that would beg to differ) but certainly other pagan aspects are. These people don't speak Spanish nor are they practicing Catholics. Quite the opposite as they pretty much ran to the hills and hid when the Spanish colonists and missionaries came to do their feats of genocidal merriment. When they would find the missionaries amongst them, they'd take what they found useful of their preachings and discard the rest, including the missionaries themselves. Think of these tribes as similar in some ways to the Amish where they shun modern technology and ways, keeping to themselves, still embracing some very (to we outsiders) superstitious ideas about how the world works.

Okay, back to our story.

Mexicana Airlines had arranged for us to travel with a local guide and on this day, Pedro the guide told us to prepare for a very special road trip. He told us to have a good breakfast and that we'd be leaving immediately afterwards for a lengthy car ride. Three hours later, we found ourselves slowing down as we approached an old graveyard on the outskirts of a small village. Pedro, who was our driver as well, pulled the old VW van over and suggested that we get out and stretch our legs before we went into town.

After a brief respite, Pedro called us over and said that he needed to tell us something before we went into town. He told us to listen very closely to his instructions and that it was of paramount importance that we obey them without question. Linda and I exchanged looks, both of us having taken note of the serious tone that the usually jocular Pedro was taking. We shrugged our shoulders and nodded compliance.

The first instruction was to remain absolutely silent once we arrived in the village and to not utter a single word until we were all back in the van and were passing this cemetery on our way home.

The second instruction was to hide any and all camera and recording devices. His voice took a particularly emphatic tone when he told us that we were to not even remove these things from our backpacks or from the van once we arrived in town.

His third directive was to not look any of the townsfolk in the eyes and to keep our heads respectfully bowed throughout our visit. Pedro finally said something about how this was a very special privilege we were being bestowed and that he had worked especially hard to get approval from the townsfolk for our visit.

He finished by asking for our patience and that all would be explained on the trip home. I distinctly remember feeling more than a bit uneasy as the van started up and the discomfort grew as we slowly drove into the town with its stark white small buildings. From a distance, this looked like dozens of other tiny pueblos we’d seen on our trip with modest Spanish colonial homes, white exteriors with faded clay tile roofs. As we drove in, we knew we were someplace very different.

The first thing that struck me was how the town appeared deserted. No adults, no children, no stray dogs... nada. I didn't even hear or see birds flying overhead. This changed once we pulled into the center of town and parked in front of an old white Spanish colonial church with aqua blue trim (the only building that had color other than white on its exterior). Across from the church was what appeared to be the town hall. Lining the outside of that building were the missing townspeople. Just standing there, looking at us, none of them was saying a word, not even to each other.

All the males, young and old, were dressed exactly the same. Linen pants, straw sandals, white long sleeve shirts and lamb skin vests with large black belts strapped around their waists and over those vests. On their heads were plain white hand woven straw hats. The women wore equally plain linen ankle length dresses with black shawls around their shoulders. In a country renowned for its love of a vibrant color palette, the absence of it was pretty stark and actually creepy.

Creepy is also a good way to describe the way the town inhabitants stood stone-faced and silent outside of their town hall as they watched our every move while we left the van and walked, with heads down and eyes averted, towards the church doors. I felt like a roadie working a Bob Dylan concert.

As we entered the obviously aged place of worship, I was expecting a display of traditional Catholicism to go along with its exterior. What we found inside was radically different. Instead of a warm, well-lit interior, what greeted us was the shell of an old church, pewless, with all the walls, windows and ceiling painted jet black. The dirt floor was covered with a good half inch of dried pine needles.

As I walked further in, I noticed that in the midst of the pine needles were small metal discs. Taking a closer look in the dim light, I noticed that the discs were really Pepsi Cola bottle caps. Remembering to stay silent and somewhat reverent, I put aside my questions and just kept taking in the bizarre environment I was in.

The only light within the "church" was coming from tall, thin sticks embedded in the dirt floor with small flames on their tops. To this day, I'm not sure if they were absurdly slender wax candles or miniature, emaciated wood torches. The only thing that wasn't in dispute was the eerie quality of light they cast against the interior walls and their smell. They gave off very little light in fact, but rather a distinctive soft glow from a steady flame that had practically no flicker, accompanied by a sweet, medicinal scent that made me think of burning Witch-hazel. Along the walls in this nearly vacant place I saw the outline of wooden figurines of about 3 feet in height. There were about 5 of them roughly a foot apart, and I recognized them to be roughly carved, hand painted representations of traditional Catholic saints. Four of the five we standing straight up, facing the interior of the church and covered in various degrees of crude, homemade trinkets and ornamentations. One, the Virgin Mary, had a necklace made of straw and flowers, the other, (Joseph?) a beaded and feathered headdress. The fifth statue was not adorned and was instead leaning on its forehead against the wall with its back to the rest of the church.

More fodder for the Pedro Inquisition on our way home.

I turned away from the "saints" and with my eyes having adjusted better to the light I noticed for the first time a small woman, kneeling in the center of the church floor. Dressed like her fellow townspeople outside, she was in mid prayer, her recitations barely audible whispers. On the ground before her was one of those thin candlesticks, hardly a foot high. As I watched her, I noticed that she would speak a few soft words pause and then bowing forward would raise something to her lips. In her hands I saw that it was a 10 oz glass bottle of Pepsi. She would pray, bow and then sip. Pray, bow and sip. She never looked towards us or acknowledged our presence. Her concentration was too intense, almost trance like.

I turned my attention to where normally one would find the pulpit and altar. There was no pulpit but sitting on the altar at the front of the church was a glass coffin. Within it was another 3 ft woodcarving, this time of someone that I assumed to be Jesus. He was encased and lying prone in the coffin, his body well adorned with flowers, more handmade trinkets and linen-like fabric. As with all of the other statues, the features were rough and hand painted with special emphasis and care given to the eyes, which were open. There was nothing comforting about any of the statue faces; they were devoid of any hint of kindness or mercy. On the contrary, they reminded me of the faces of the townsfolk waiting for us outside the town hall, suspicious and judgmental. These saints weren't there to provide comfort; they were there as stern judges and guardians. Of what or from whom, I hadn't a clue.

Just as we were taking in the saint in the glass coffin a man appeared from behind a column and approached us. With the exception of the absence of the lambskin vest and a hat he was dressed just like the other men outside. His age was impossible to tell in the light but I could see that his features were strongly Mayan and his skin was weathered and leathery. He walked directly to Pedro and they exchanged whispers. Whatever they were talking about, it seemed serious.

Although I could barely hear their voices, I knew they weren't speaking Spanish. I felt eyes on me and I turned to see Linda giving me a full “what the…?” face. I could only shrug. Suddenly the man turned his attention to Linda and myself and with an intense stare said in very broken Spanish "No cameras! Peligroso!" (Dangerous!)

He said it twice more, looking directly into our eyes each time, giving us both the impression that he felt confident in his ability to tell if we lying to him about not having cameras. After a long pause he stepped back, and it seemed to be a cue to Pedro that we had passed "our test". Pedro then nodded towards the door we had entered in and we followed him outside. I could feel the eyes of the dark man burning into our backs as we walked out of the church.

Boarding the van, I glanced towards the town hall and no one had moved. All eyes were still glued on us and the silence was even more deafening. I was anxious for Pedro to start the car and despite my silent pleas; he did not rev the engine and peel out in a cloud of dust. He drove the vehicle out of the town just as slowly and as deliberately as he had going into it.

As per Pedro's request, none of us spoke a word until we had passed the same cemetery we had paused at earlier that day. I estimated that we had spent no more than twenty minutes inside that dark church and yet it felt like we had been inside it for hours.

After a few miles had passed, Pedro began to laugh and asked us what we thought of our little excursion. Linda and I were both at a loss for words. Neither of us had ever felt so disoriented or unsettled. Pedro then went on to answer our litany of questions as best he could. He explained that the town was made up of a very superstitious tribal sect. They shunned outsiders normally but since Pedro knew a few of the Elders he was allowed to bring occasional "well behaved" visitors.

I asked about the dark church and what the deal was with the Pepsi prayers. He explained that Spanish missionaries had built the church over 200 years ago looking to covert the locals to Catholicism. The people eventually kicked the monks out and kept the church along with the wooden statues. Seemed that the concept of saints fit in nicely with their traditional pagan beliefs. They pray to the statues, with each person adopting one as their patron. The townsfolk take it as "okay Saint, I will adorn you with fine things and make offerings in your name, now you make sure that my crop comes in."

When things go well, they keep praying to and adorning the same statue. If things go badly and they don't get what they pray for, they feel betrayed by the saint. So they take the handmade ornaments off the statue and turn it towards the wall in mock shame, then they go and adopt another saint/statue as their new patron.

When it comes to the Pepsi, when it was first introduced into the area because of the fizz and the taste (totally new from anything they had ever experienced before), it was considered a powerful gift from the gods; strong medicine that helps when stomachs go sour and it's used to ward off evil spirits. They sip the Pepsi Cola to make their prayers stronger. Anyone that has seen the film ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy” where a discarded Coke bottle becomes the object of worship for a tribe of bushmen is probably smiling right now.

Linda and I hung on every word as Pedro answered our myriad of questions. I finally asked "Okay, so what's the deal with the cameras?" What Pedro said next, sent a chill down our backs. Apparently, the tribe's suspicion of technology extended to cameras and the belief that when one took a photograph of another person, that the subject's actual soul was being captured on that picture. Cameras were the tools of “evil ones” and this superstition had reached its ugly zenith 6 months prior to our visit when an ignorant tourist visited the village and the church with camera in hand only to be subsequently stoned to death by the locals. "Peligroso!" indeed.

The rest of the trip back to the hotel in San Cristobal de las Casas was pretty quiet. I remember looking at my camera and thinking about how many souls I’d captured so far on my trip. I wasn’t thinking it to be funny. I was genuinely disturbed that someone had lost their life due to their ignorance and someone else’s superstitious beliefs. Looking back at the events of the world since that autumn of 1988, I’m struck by how often such things happen around the globe. Where belief systems dictate that the ignorant and/or innocent must die in order to stamp out the perceived bad guys.

Years later the state of Chiapas would become the scene of rebel conflict between some of its inhabitants and the Mexican government, the uniquely beautiful places I had visited had become minor killing fields. Upon hearing the news, I felt a great and deep sadness, but at no time was I surprised.

There was something in the eyes of the people of that small town with the dark church that said pretty dramatically “mess with us at your peril”. I’m not saying that that particular tribe had anything to do with the rebel fighting, just referencing their obvious sense of deep conviction that said that they were not alone in their willingness to use violence to protect themselves from “evil ones”.

Cortez and his men were very lucky to not have had cameras with them.



peace

A Carload of Christmas Presents

I come from a big family. Not referring to the immediate family (I have 3 brothers), but rather the extended one with both of my parents and their families. My mother was one of 13 children and my father had 6 siblings. Each of these aunt and uncles had big families of their own. As a child, at family functions, I used to think the whole world was related to me, literally. I still believe that every Puerto Rican I meet is a not too distant blood cousin. The island’s not that big, so you never know.

I suppose one way to describe my family is to say that we are an island people. Not just because my parents and their siblings were born and raised in the Caribbean, but also because my dad’s family left PR and moved to the island of Manhattan and three of my mother’s 10 sisters came to reside on Long Island’s own Brooklyn. Although I spent most of my childhood living in the Bronx, for the first 3 years of my life, my own family lived in the Greenpoint district of Brooklyn so I’ve always had a special connection with that borough. For a variety of reasons that I will save for another day, my brothers and I grew up closer to my mom’s family. At least once a month we were either in Brooklyn visiting one of my three aunts or they were visiting us in the Bronx. Being heavily Roman Catholic, the two big holidays, Christmas and Easter (along with Thanksgiving) were exactly that, BIG holidays with each sister taking turns hosting huge family gatherings at their home.

These were Nuyorican feasts consisting of a hodgepodge of traditional island fare such as pernil (roasted pork shoulder), arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), tostones (fried green plantains) and pasteles (you’re on your own with this one, kids); along with lasagna, roast turkey and a veritable bevy of other delectable delights (my oldest friends will appreciate that line). The aromas wafting through the hallways of the various neighborhood apartment buildings during these times of year made your stomach growl loudly, and your chin moist with drool. There were rumors of whole digestive systems tearing themselves away from their bodies to go pounding on a strange door or two looking for a free meal.

It was Christmas Eve 1971 and we were celebrating it at my Titi (Spanish for aunt) Raphaella’s apartment in Brooklyn. I had just turned 13 a few weeks earlier and I was already starting to feel somewhat rebellious. So the idea of yet another family function holiday just wasn’t appealing to me at all. As always the food was amazing but beyond that I was bored silly.

A big part of the reason was because I was the middle born cousin — too young for the older ones to hang with and too old for all the younger ones. For me, there wasn’t much to do, other than eat, sit around and listen to everyone else having a good time. Going outside wasn’t an option as it was a truly bitter cold night and I hate the cold. My usual savior, the television, was off and the stereo was blasting the music of popular Puerto Rican performers of the day such as Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and an up and comer named Willie Colón. Music I would grow to love but at the time I was more into Motown and the Beatles and it would be indeed a frozen day in a bad place before my aunt would sanction the playing of “Strawberry Fields” or “Psychedelic Shake” in her home.

This was a crowded, noisy affair. Between cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbors we’re talking about three dozen people in a modest 3-bedroom housing project apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. These apartments are not exactly palatial, in fact with all of the people and the heat from the oven we’re talking a claustrophobic’s nightmare.

My Titi Fela (if your real name was Raphaella, you’d opt for being called Fela too) had the same design inclinations as my mother and all of her sisters in fact. Having been raised on an impoverished island during the height of the Great Depression, made them see prosperity through the prism of the period films of their youth that they’d get to see projected on the town walls for free (done on occasion back then by politicians to keep the starving masses entertained and civil). So the décor throughout her apartment was hardcore French provincial and the more ostentatious the better.

These were inexpensive replicas made mostly of particleboard and plywood but at first glance upon entering a room, it made a real impression and that was the point: make an impression. Show everyone that came inside your home that you’d come a long way from having no shoes, burlap dresses and living in squalor on a poor farm. To a person, the adults in my family at the time were all laborers, hard working factory folk who took great pride that they had jobs and nice places to live. To the world outside, these homes were in some of the worse neighborhoods in the country but the family philosophy was that a modest income was no excuse for living like a pig. Cleanliness was a matter of pride as was appearance. So every room looked fancier than the next with thick curtains and drapes made of the latest synthetics and “machine hand-carved”, “real wood veneer” accents on all the furniture. The stuff was all of poor quality, but in the eyes of 4 sisters from Agua Buena, P.R., it was beautiful and I guess that’s all that mattered.

And as was the case with my mother’s apartment, my aunt had plastic slipcovers everywhere especially on the sofas and the lampshades. It didn’t matter that it was like sitting on an air pillow the vinyl itself was a status symbol. It said that you had something worth protecting and that you could afford to do it. Poor man’s status perhaps, but status nonetheless. There may be holes in your pockets but at least you have pants. And how you wear them matters.

The thing about this style of furniture, especially with the living room pieces is that it takes up a lot of room. Think sofas with huge curved backs and faux wood carved trim. Lamps with plaster sculptures of cherub baby angels playing harps and glass globes with dangling “crystals”. All of which needed space around them, as did the glass topped spray-painted gold hunks of driftwood end tables they sat on. The radio/turntable/stereo/tv console took up a nice piece of apartment real estate as well. Added to this everyday opulent mix was a 6-foot aluminum fold out Christmas tree. The kind that looked all silver metallic and threatened to make you bleed out should you brush against it. Added up it made an overcrowded apartment even more so.

Every member of my immediate family was there that night, my parents and my 3 siblings, Eli (19), Robert (18) and Ernie (6 and a half). In the case of my brother, Robert, who’d started the day not feeling very well, the crowd, the lack of space, the loud noise etc. wasn’t doing him any favors. We had arrived sometime around 5 that afternoon and by 9 pm the party was in full swing. As was whatever it was that was ailing Robert (sorry, The Wizard of OZ is on TV as I type this). My brother was miserable. As was I actually, except my problem wasn’t physical, I was just sick and tired of being there. So when my mother approached to tell me that my father was taking Robert home to our apartment in the Bronx and wanted to know if I minded going with them to watch over him, I jumped on the chance. Knowing that I was probably going to be the recipient of yet another 3 pairs of pajamas, it didn’t seem to be all that compelling a reason to stick around for the usual midnight present exchange (I got pajamas from all of my aunts every year for 8 straight years — the exact same style and color, I’m still convinced it was an inside joke by the sisters).

Home! On Christmas Eve! That was a novelty in my house and I was thrilled at the idea of being there and snuggling up on our own vinyl-covered sofa to watch some late night TV. I had long out grown delusions of who Santa was and I figured I’d just stay up and wait for mom and dad to come home.

It was to be a quick drop off and return for my dad who seemed to be only slowing down the car just enough for Robert and I to tumble out. Our apartment was on the 14th floor of a Bronx housing project about 6 blocks from old Yankee Stadium. We had moved in about 2 and a half years earlier but it still had an element of the “new and different” for me so I loved being there. I also loved the fact that we were getting the deluxe treatment of a drive home. It was a bitterly cold night with blistering winds and there were many times when we would travel to and from visiting our relatives in Brooklyn by way of subway because my dad had to work. This was a subway that was a long freezing walk from our building as well as from all of my aunts’ apartments. A night like this one would have been just killer and I recall thanking my lucky stars that I was in a car.

My father’s car by the way was not up to my dad’s usual standards. He was a man of modest means, to say the least, but he still loved cars and the nicer the better. Living as he had to in the world of used vehicles, he went through old cars fairly frequently (he never did buy a new car in his entire life, could never afford it) and he always tried to upgrade when he could. Around this time however, the household finances had taken a bit of a hit and he had to go without a car for a while. Eventually he did manage to come across a “deal” a few weeks before, which was a 5 year old pale blue 2-door coupe, a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500. The car had obviously been through a lot with its prior ownership(s) and wasn’t in the best of shape. In fact, up until that afternoon it had spent the last few days in the hands of an auto mechanic. My father was counting his blessings (as were we all) that he was able to pick it up in time for the day’s activities.

One thing of note was a persistent smell that night on the drive home from Brooklyn of gasoline. When I mentioned it to my father he said that he had noticed it too but that with it being Christmas Eve it would have to wait a couple of days before he could take it back to the auto shop. He seemed concerned about it but on a night like this his options were limited. The drive to Brooklyn could be done in under half an hour (traffic permitting), the subway would have been easily twice that especially if you included the ice cold walks to and from carrying several bags of presents.

Once in our apartment, Robert staggered off to his room for the night (his problem would turn out to be a 24 hour cold bug) and I settled in for a night of old holiday movies on the TV. I remembered it being the night I’d discover Alastair Sim’s version of “A Christmas Carol” as well as one of my all time favorites, Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life.” As I sat there in the living room with the only lights on in the apartment being the Christmas tree and the blue glow from the TV, I’d steal an occasional glance at the wall clock.
Midnight.
One O’clock.
Two O’clock.
I wasn’t worried in the slightest. Were my dad not driving everyone home, and my mom and 2 brothers were traveling via NYC subway that would have been a different matter. I just figured they were having a great time and around 2:30 a.m. I shut off the TV and went to bed.

I am a notorious early riser on Christmas mornings and this was one was no different. Despite the fact that I’d gone to bed just a few hours prior, I was up and about around 6:30 a.m. When I left my room, I immediately checked the other bedrooms, stealthily opening closed doors to peek in and make sure everybody was accounted for. I actually knew as soon as I woke as I shared a bedroom with my younger brother, Ernie and I could see his hair poking out from under a mountain of blankets on the bunk bed beneath mine but I just wanted to double check.

No mystery as to why Ernie was so covered up, in fact everybody was. Fourteen stories high and the heat in the steam pipes dissipated mightily by the time it got to us on the way up from the basement furnace. It had been a particularly freezing night and there was a good inch of ice covering the inside of all the apartment windows. I had on flannel pajamas (one of last year’s presents — thanks Titi Fela), slippers and a robe and I could still feel a chill hitting me. With my little roll call all done, I headed for the living room to check under the Christmas tree to see if anything new had been added while I was asleep.

Our apartment was a railway style flat, which meant it was a series of rooms coming off an extended hallway. My bedroom and the living room were on opposite ends of the apartment and by the time I got there I’d noticed some peculiar things lining the hallway along the way. A metal toolbox. A full size spare tire. A crow bar and tire jack. All of it out of place in the apartment and all of it reeking of smoke. There in the living room were the same shopping bags of presents I’d seen under my aunt’s tree, at least the ones designated for my family. Looking at the haphazard way everything had been left I suddenly felt very uneasy. The intense smell of smoke that was everywhere only amplified my anxiety. I suddenly wanted to run in to my parent’s bedroom and ask them what had happened the night before. The only reason I didn’t was that I knew they’d only just gotten to bed themselves and that I should just calm down and wait for them to awaken in their own time.

Robert was the first to join me in the living room and the puzzled face as he saw (and smelled) the same things I did, let me know that he’d slept through their arrival as well. Eventually my parents, arose around noon with Eli and Ernie a good bit later than that. The story they told Robert and I shocked us both.

After dropping the two of us off in front of our South Bronx apartment building, my father headed back to Bushwick and my aunt’s holiday party. The festivities would continue well into the wee hours but around 12:30 AM my mother was ready to go home. My family bid everyone adieu and climbed into my dad’s car for the ride home. Dad was obviously driving; mom was in the front passenger seat with 5-year-old Ernie sitting between them. Eli was in the back seat with several shopping bags of boxed presents and gifts stacked all around him. As soon as they pulled out of the parking space, my mom commented on the strong gasoline smell inside the car. My brothers chimed in that they too could smell it s well. My dad, now anxious to just get going, said ‘I know, let’s just get home and I’ll take care of it once things open up after Christmas.” The way home was to be pretty routine: Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, then north on the FDR Drive, followed by the Willis Avenue Bridge into the South Bronx.

It was closing in on one in the morning on Christmas Day, and while I was watching George Bailey tell Mr. Potter that he was a warped, frustrated old man, my dad was approaching the Williamsburg Bridge. With a span of just over 1,600 feet the Williamsburg is a steel suspension bridge that at its highest point of clearance straddles over the East River at 135 feet. About a quarter of the way over, my dad noticed in his review mirror that the cars that were right behind him (this is New York City, there’s ALWAYS cars no matter the hour) at only a car length or two away were now slowing down and drifting back.

Most six year olds would’ve been off to Dreamland at this hour, but little Ernie was too excited (“it’s Christmas!”) to sleep. The car was having issues and our dad was getting increasingly concerned. So Ernie was wide awake when he noticed the intense heat at the bottom of his shoes. He was just about to mention it aloud when smoke and flames could be clearly seen shooting out from the Galaxie 500’s underbelly.

With my mother screaming, and the car interior filling with smoke my father steered the car over to the far right lane, (the bridge didn’t have a true shoulder) and came to an abrupt stop. As he opened his driver’s side door he started barking loudly for everyone to get out of the car. My mother was frozen in place in a blind panic and with the car being a 2-door coupe Eli was pinned to his seat unable to move until my mother vacated her seat. Once she was out he could then engage the release latch that would tilt her seatback forward, allowing him to exit the vehicle. Absorbing all of this in an instant, my father jumped out of the car and ran around to the front passenger door, yanked it open and forcefully pulled my mother out of the car, then reaching in and doing the same to Ernie. Handing Ernie off to my mother, he gave them both a shove and ordered them in Spanish to get away from the car. With her son’s hand firmly in her own, my mother and Ernie ran for about 30 yards to one of the bridge towers.

Although he stood only about 5 ft 9 inches tall a lifetime of hard, physical labor had transformed my father into a muscular man of some strength. Unfortunately, my father had recently begun the long cycle of illness that would haunt him for the next 12 years of his life until his passing in 1984. He’d spent several weeks the prior summer in a hospital bed and he was still far from fully recovered. Fro him there were two saving graces on this night; one was that the car was such a lemon that it couldn’t even do a fuel tank explosion properly (it would never happen). The other was his fourth passenger, his eldest son, Eli. Eli is an enigma of the highest order, prone to melodramatic, bellicose emotional outbursts whenever he’s trying to make a point in what begins as a quiet discussion but that most assuredly escalates to full blown vein-rupturing arguments. Yet in times of crisis and chaos, he’s always the calm in the eye of the storm, oozing Zen-like tranquility and cool.

Once my father had pulled my mother and Ernie out of their front seats, with the car black with smoke, Eli calmly engaged the seat latch and proceeded to pull himself out of the backseat. As he climbed out, in his hands he had a hold of some of the shopping bags of gifts that had been next to him. With his hands full, Eli ran over to where mom and Ernie were standing, transfixed and shivering, dropped the load at their feet and then much to the chagrin of them both, ran back to my father who had now opened the trunk and was emptying it. This back and forth rally race with my father and Eli trying to save inanimate objects proceeded against a soundtrack of howls: my mother’s, Ernie’s and the wind’s. All while flames kicked out higher and higher with greater frequency from the undercarriage of the car as well as from beneath the hood.

Having to stand idly by while your husband and eldest son risked their lives for things like tools, pajamas and a spare tire had my mother fit to be tied. Ernie on the other hand had turned his attention to the view below him. At this time, the Williamsburg Bridge did not have the fully paved road as it does now. In 1971, there were parts of it, especially by the cable towers where one stood on top of a metal floor grate that afforded a vertigo-inducing view of the river directly beneath your feet.

With his tiny hands having a firm grip on a heavily riveted steel girder, Ernie was hypnotized by the view. Hypnotized and terrified. As cold as it was on the streets of the city that night (the temperature was in the low 20s), being over 100 feet above a frozen river with wind gusts of at least 30 mph slicing into you from every angle was sheer torture. To be so high up while your family car was engulfed in flames and your brother and father had yet to obtain (and maintain) a safe distance deeply affected my little brother. Years later he still has anxiety issues relative to heights, driving over bridges, cold weather and separation.

I don’t know if they are still there or not but at this time there were large containers on the bridge by the towers that had a store of sand and a bucket for incidents of this sort. My father, feeling satisfied that he had saved what he could, had turned his attention to filling up the bucket with sand and running over to the car and throwing it on the fire. All to the chagrin of my still distressed mother.

Traffic was still active on the bridge with cars crawling by two lanes over, rubber necking the live entertainment. A large sedan came to a full stop and its driver called out to my parents asking them if he could be of help and give someone a lift. My father walked over, thanked the man and then asked if the man minded taking everyone with the exception of himself to the Manhattan side of the bridge so that my mother could use a payphone to get help. The Good Samaritan did exactly that, although there was a scene as the car pulled away and Ernie realized that my father was staying behind. Eli wanted to stay with my father as well but dad knew he would be of more use staying with my nerve-wracked mother and little Ernie.

“I’m just waiting for the firemen and the police, go ahead, I’ll be fine.”

The Samaritan dropped off his passengers near a pay phone right on Delancey Street in Manhattan. With hands trembling, both from the cold as well as the events on the bridge, my mother called her sister, Fela. The crowd noise and music in the background told her that she didn’t have to worry about waking anyone out of bed. About 45 minutes later, a sober (thank goodness) cousin-in-law pulled up in front of a closed storefront where my family had huddled together in an attempt to stay warm. From where they were, they had heard the fire engines and police sirens on the bridge a good half hour earlier and they knew that my father at least had company.

The cousin-in-law promptly drove everyone (except my still absent father) home to the Bronx, where they would collapse into their collective beds, exhausted and thawing. My mother, torn between anger at my father’s foolishness in putting his life at risk for junk and her genuine concern for his safe arrival could not resist the strains of the evening, exhausted both emotionally and physically she too succumbed to asleep within minutes of getting home.

At a time before today’s cell phone era, an auto fire of this sort took a while to get the attention of the local authorities. When the fire engine finally arrived, the bridge was officially closed. Without much fanfare the fire was put out and the bridge was reopened within a half hour. Once my father attended to the various questions the police and firemen had for him, one of the police officers that was coming to the end of his shift, and remembering what day it was, offered my father a lift home. He would have to make arrangements the next day to come in and fill out some additional official documents and to deal with the carcass of the still smoldering vehicle but for now, sleep beckoned.

The exact sequence of how the spare tire got up to our 14th story apartment is something that is lost to time, as my father never did like to talk about that night on the bridge. Perhaps the police officer was especially kindhearted and agreed to accommodate the contents of my dad’s now-perished trunk when he took my father home to the Bronx. All I know is that the tire was there in the hallway when I awoke that morning and it’s a minor mystery that will forever stay that way.

My father awoke right around the time that my mom did and left almost immediately to go take care of that unfinished business with the car. With it being Christmas and with most things being closed including a certain auto shop, he was back just a few hours later, and this was the first time that Ernie had seen him since the previous night. Their reunion was pretty intense and given Ernie’s concerns about leaving his father behind to the unknown, I can see why.

When I had heard each of them tell the story a half dozen times (at least) I remember feeling particularly reflective the rest of the day. In one fell swoop my whole life could have been turned upside down and we had all dodged an enormous bullet that night. I know we all felt shaken to the core and I remember a lot of long hugs in the days that followed. It took a while for the smell of smoke to get washed out of everybody’s clothes (including some new pajamas) and the particulars of how my dad dealt with the auto mechanic that almost killed us is another lost mystery. Years later, I think the reason there are so many unanswered questions is because none of us wanted to look too closely into the whys of that night. Perhaps afraid that somebody might notice that we got away when we shouldn’t have.

Over the years I have received many Christmas presents and although I am grateful for everyone’s kindness and generosity, no present will ever compare to the gifts received that fateful night: my family home safe and sound. Merry Christmas indeed.


peace

In Pursuit of History

“Who’s the bigger fool, the fool or the one that follows him?” — O.W. Kenobi

At the age of 13, I was very much into professional wrestling. In the old carnie speak of Kayfabe, I was a full blown “mark”, a non-too complimentary term for fans that believe the “story” in a wrestling match hook, line and sinker. I had lots of other passions during this time in my life (baseball, film and martial arts being among them), but every Saturday afternoon, I was glued to my TV cheering the heroic “faces” and heartily booing the bad guy “heels” and I absolutely loved it.

Although, I am no longer a mark, having long ago understood the finer points of staged athletic exhibitions, I still have a sentimental place for the hard work these performers put into their profession. There are easier ways to earn a buck than to smash yourself repeatedly into another 250 pounder; swallow pain-killers by the fistful in order to get some sleep, only to get up the next day to drive a couple of hundred miles just to do it all over again 200+ days a year. I always thought the life of a pro wrestler would make for a great film and Darren Aronofsky proved me right. Thank you, Mr. Aronofsky.

Like I said, I was just 13 at the time of this story and I was living, along with my family, on the 14th floor of a NYC housing project in the South Bronx. It was the middle of a steamy August day when there was a knock on the door and in came my best friend at the time, Angel. It is one of life’s funny jokes that guys named Angel are usually everything but and this was definitely the case with my curly headed friend. Angel was a book smart kid, about 9 months older than me and we were in grades 4 through 6 together. As good as he was with math and science, Angel struggled mightily with plain common sense.

Once, when were both in 5th grade at Bronx Public School #48, he asked for permission to go to the rest room and upon arrival there, came across a 4th grader who was busy in one of the stalls trying to yank a loose toilet seat from its perch on the porcelain bowl. Within seconds of inquiring the boy about why he was engaged in his task, Angel was accepting a challenge:

“Kid, what are you doing?”
“This toilet seat is loose. Hey, I beat you can’t rip it off its place!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Get out of the way and watch me!”

Burly for his age, it took just a few groans and grunts before the seat came off in Angel’s 10-year-old hands and with a triumphant laugh, he held up his trophy:
“See, I told you I could do it!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, I bet you don’t have the nerve to throw it out that open window!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Watch me!”

Together they marched over to the back of the Boys Room where there was a large window, about neck high for a ten year old and open only about 6 inches but apparently in the eyes of Angel and this other boy, perfect toilet seat tossing height. Envisioning himself at the Toilet Seat Tossing Championships of the World, Angel gave that wooden seat a heartfelt heave ho and out that baby flew, down three stories to the street below.

Neither boy was tall enough to see down to the sidewalk beneath them or to see the mother pushing the baby carriage that the potty projectile had come within inches of striking. Were this a film, this is where the screen would split and you would see two simultaneous events. The first would be the hysterical mother grabbing her baby and marching into the school’s offices to lodge a complaint about falling commode thrones. The other would be Angel leaving his newfound friend in the Boys Room and heading back to class as if poop chair throwing were the most normal of activities.

What possessed the unnamed 4th grader to stay in that bathroom will remain a riddle as timeless as that of the Sphinx, (rumor has it that he would years later obtain the status of U.S. congressman) but there he was still fiddling about among the stalls when the Dean of Boys, Mr. Deekins, would barge in and find him. There was no pretense at bravery here; he was caught at the scene of the crime by the urine-inducing former marine whose job it was to maintain civility among the male student population. A task this giant of a man performed with no small measure of relish and sadism, regardless of the fact that he was dealing with mere children.

“It… it… it wasn’t me, it was some fat kid from that classroom over there.”
I guess we can name the boy now, Stoolie B. Pigeon.

I was sitting at my desk in that full classroom when the door opened and in strolled Mr. Deekins. Stoolie walked in as well, having no choice as Deekins had a firm grip on his shoulder and was prompting him in (“dead man walking”). The two of them headed over to our teacher, Miss Klein and the three of them huddled together. From the back of the room, came the high pitch squeal of a chair being rapidly pushed away from a desk. This was followed immediately by the sound of a loud voice that had all eyes turned towards it. Angel, the now standing speaker, with eyes bulging and speech in full tilt tremble, declared to any who would be foolish enough to believe him, “I didn’t throw no toilet seat out no bathroom window!” This was one of those Vulcan Mind Meld moments where everyone within earshot had the exact same thought: “the fat kid doth protests too much, methinks.” Angel and Stoolie were suspended for two weeks and I had more fodder for my lifetime of real life silly tales.

Three years later, I would place my life into those toilet-tossing mitts.
Ah, friendship. Nothing mirrors us better than whom we deem worthy of that mantle.

So there he was, at my door with a scrapbook under his arm and a “wait until you see what I got’ glint in his eyes. Without any preamble, he stuck the scrapbook into my hands and nudged me to give it my full attention. It was about 12 inches square with cheap vinyl over cardboard covers and pulp heavy cream paper inside. As I opened it, I believe I expelled a fairly loud gasp when I saw the first page. The reaction was the same with each subsequent turned page. There, neatly glued in 2 rows of 5 to a page, were page after page of single column yellowed newspaper ads, each about 4 inches tall. The headline type was big and bold above small black and white headshots of men making tough guy faces. I stared in wonder at what was before me: actual pro wrestling newspaper ads from the 50s and 60s:

“THIS FRIDAY! MAIN EVENT! CHAMPION BRUNO SAMMARTINO VS CHALLENGER HANS SCHMIDT! LIVE AT SUNNYSIDE GARDEN”

“LIVE! WEDNESDAY NIGHT! ANTONIO ROCCA VS GORGEOUS GEORGE! BOBO BRAZIL VS THE SHEIK! FABULOUS KANGAROOS VS BIG MOOSE CHOLAK & THE MIGHTY ATLAS! AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN!”

“Holy cow! Where the heck did you get these?!”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? That’s my secret.”

After several minutes of profanity and threats of bodily injury, Angel relented and offered to take me to where he got the clippings. Out the door we went and before I knew it I was about 12 New York City blocks away standing in front of a condemned and boarded up 5-story tenement building.

“Are you kidding me? This is where you got those old newspaper ads?”
“Yup. Top floor.”
“Figures.”

Looking up at the structure before me, I took a deep breath and felt a shudder go through my body. The building was a devastated mess. This was back in the days when South Bronx landlords routinely set their apartment buildings ablaze as part of insurance scams and the fire that had hit this one had done extensive damage. Huge multi-level sides of the exterior brick wall were missing and had clearly fallen in revealing whole apartments within. Toilets, tubs and sinks hung seemingly in mid air suspended by their plumbing alone. The full length of the interior stairs were visible from outside of the building and it was obvious that there were no landings or steps, as huge chunks of the roof must have crashed through them on their way to the basement below. The acrid smell of smoke was intense from across the street and got truly noxious the closer you got. There was an obstacle course of knee high debris on the first floor and you had to traverse it beginning with the sidewalk outside. Industrial strength metal sheets covered the street level windows and doors and there were signs and spray-painted letters everywhere boldly declaring, “BEWARE! DANGER! BUILDING CONDEMDED! STAY OUT!”

Here was my best friend in the whole wide world telling me that I needed to follow him into a fire ravaged shell of an apartment building, somehow climb to the top floor past the flame and water damage, rodents and garbage in order to get to some hidden treasure trove of old wrestling event ads.

I never did ask him what compelled him to go in there in the first place but I remember shaking my head and cussing my luck that I didn’t have better friends, hobbies or brain matter.

“Let’s go.”

As bad as the structural damage was to the upper levels, the street level floor seemed pretty much intact. With the main entrance blocked by a thick metal sheet that had been nailed into place, I was curious as to how we were getting inside. It didn’t take long to find out as Angel headed over to the side of the building where someone had left an exterior fire escape ladder fully extended and dropped to the street. A clearly dangerous invitation for neighborhood children to come in and die, I was shocked as to how easy it was to enter this playground of horrors but that moment of cautious clarity passed quickly and up the rickety iron stairs I climbed.

We only got about one flight up when Angel ducked into an open apartment window and I dutifully followed. Past a smattering of soot covered furniture and a few doors, we were in the building’s interior hallway on the second floor. He headed over to the main stairwell and began climbing them sideways by holding onto the railing bars and slipping his feet between them. The reason was obvious as there were no steps. Looking up and seeing how far we had to go, I told myself that the prize upstairs was well worth the risk to life and limb and that as long as I didn’t look down I would be okay — so up I went.

Slow and deliberate, railing bar by railing bar — first one floor and then the next. I tried not to notice how much the railing bounced under our collective weight especially when Angel would jump off from one railing onto the one above it. When that happened, I would freeze in place and hold my breath until the railing settled then I’d resume my climb. Angel never paused or looked backwards to see how I was doing and I didn’t expect him to. I figured as long as he didn’t start tossing toilet seats down the stairwell we were both going to be fine.

I finally made it to the fifth and final floor and Angel was nowhere in sight. I looked around me and could easily see across the street from where I was standing and I wasn’t near a window. Any passerby who happened to gaze up would have seen me clear as day on that stairwell. From my vantage point at the top of the stairs, as I looked down and around me, I saw building carnage everywhere. Whole apartment walls were gone and rubble was stacked several feet high in spots.

These tenement buildings were large structures with multiple apartments on each floor and the fire had hit one side of the building, totaling it, while leaving the other side pretty much untouched. That struck me as strange and I started to wonder if the damage was indeed the result of a normal fire or if there had been some kind of explosion that had done the deed. With a shrug of the shoulder, I dropped the speculative mental exercise just as the germ of a notion questioning my being there at all came up and started to whisper in my ear. Just as quickly as it came up it was shot down by the dumb devil Fred who was by my other ear.

“Angel?! Hey, Angel! Where are you?”

From the side of the building floor that still had 3 intact apartments I heard a muffled response from behind one of the inside doors. Following it, I entered one of the apartments and could now clearly hear Angel’s voice from further within. There was a half open door leading into what was once intended to be a master bedroom but for whomever was this apartment’s last occupant, sleep was the last thing done in there. Standing at the entrance to the room, with only my head and shoulders fully inside, I saw something that took me by complete surprise.

In this shattered shell of a building was a room that was filled in spots to the ceiling with stacks and stacks of old newspapers. We’re talking newspapers literally by the thousands with hundreds of them spilling over into the adjacent rooms. The ceiling was about 9 feet high and there were spots where the stacks were kissing it. My first thought was to the who; who was this person that had felt so compelled to collect every newspaper they ever came across? Then my thoughts shifted to the why and that’s when I started to feel a bit uneasy. I was just a teenager, behavior this bizarre was out of my scope, although looking back I realize now that my own behavior of standing there in that dangerous place in some crazed quest for ancient pro wrestling ads was no less bizarre.

There they were all around me, The New York Post, The Daily News, The New York Times, The New York Daily Mirror, The New York Herald Tribune and others. Headlines about a battle outside a French village during World War Two; Kennedy’s shooting in Dallas; Roosevelt’s meeting in Malta; Monroe’s suicide; a Dillinger robbery; LaGuardia; Hoover; Truman — it was 50 to 60 years of American and New York City history in that room and the newspapers were all in pretty good shape. Yellow with age but for the most part they looked like they had never been read, like they had come right off the presses and then placed neatly onto stacks in that room. I was in awe.

“Hey! Fred! It’s getting dark, you better start looking for the ads or you won’t be able to see soon.”

Wow! I had come there looking for old pro wrestling event ads and thank goodness for Angel that he had reminded me of that fact. So off I went, grabbing papers by the stack, turning as quickly as possible to the sports section to try and find historic gold. The two of us spent a good hour in that room, ripping and tearing away, eventually satisfying ourselves with dozens of advertisements for local events featuring long retired wrestlers. Wrestling had had a golden age in the 50s and 60s when the coming of television had made it very popular and local live events were almost weekly so we were ecstatic with the sheer volume of ads we found.

With the sun starting to set, we knew that getting down was going to be tougher than coming up and neither of us wanted to chance doing so in the dark. Stuffing our pockets with the clippings we headed out. I hardly remember the far more perilous descent that late afternoon. I was in the midst of a collector’s high and I probably never really touched pavement that entire journey home.

When I did get home, having parted ways with Angel right after we got out of the building, I was quick to show off my bounty of goodies to my younger brother, Ernie. I am 7 years his senior, making him 6 to my 13 at the time. As I showed him my treasure I told him about how I had obtained them, the dangers I had faced and the stacks of old historic newspapers I had left behind. As he held the clippings in his hands and looked them over, I will never forget his face as he scrunched his nose quizzically and asked, “For this?”

I didn’t sleep very well that night.

The building was torn down a few days later and my friendship with Angel wouldn't survive past a couple more years. We had a falling out when we were both working at a local supermarket as checkout baggers and I had caught him in the stock room urinating into a bottle of Motts Apple Juice and then putting it back on the store shelf. I remember asking him why he did it and his only response was to laugh. I wanted to beat him with a toilet seat. I never spoke to him again after that and yes, I threw out the apple juice. He was fired a few days later after getting caught stealing several large pies and eating them in his crew locker. When asked what he was thinking when he stole the pies, he just laughed. It was the last time I ever saw him.

I never really looked at the scrapbook I created once I had pasted the ads into it. In fact I can't even recall when I threw it away but I do know that it wasn't around very long. Thirty-five years later I would see an Ebay listing for old pro wrestling event ads, pretty much from the same era that I had obtained in that newspaper room. I believe the winning bid was something like five bucks for 30 or so vintage ads. I remember my response well, "Five bucks? For that?"


peace

The Sociopath and the Baby Bottle

In the spring of 1986, I had my own young family and we were living in a one-bedroom garden apartment at 1333 North Sycamore in Los Angeles near the border of West Hollywood and Hollywood. This was a 4-plex built sometime in the early 20s about 300 yards from the front gates of Charlie Chaplin’s studio. As a lifelong Chaplin fan, I always got a huge kick out of the fact that I was living so close to where one of my idols created some of his greatest films but before I digress into an overlong tangent about my love for Chaplin, Chaney and Keaton, I’ll leave it there.

My family consists of my wife, Karol, my son Kris who was about 19 months at the time, my daughter Tara, who was then 4 months old and Brandywine, our golden retriever. When you have two small children and a dog, having a ground floor apartment with access to a good size backyard in the middle of a big city was a huge plus. The only real negative is that you have a ground floor apartment with a good size backyard in the middle of a big city.

Before I get into the whys of that statement, here’s some more relevant information about our then residence beginning with the windows, which were the kind you usually find in older homes in warmer climates: thin glass panes slatted together like Venetian blinds. To open and close, you merely turned the metal hand-crank, which was in the base corner of the window frame. With the exception of the bathroom‘s frosted ones, the entire apartment had clear glass panes giving both sides, in and out, a pretty clear view of what was going on.

As this was a ground floor apartment, curtains were a must and we had them in every room but the kitchen. Reason there weren’t any there was because of the kitchen’s location, which was in center of the floor plan. The living room was in the front, with windows facing the sidewalk, the bedroom was in the back with windows looking out to the backyard and in-between was the kitchen and eating area. The kitchen’s side-view windows faced a neighboring lot that had a recently emptied single-family house. The family that used to live there had sold their home to a developer who was tearing it down to erect a hi-rise apartment building.

The former residents were a B-movie actor and his family. If I told you his name 99.999% of you wouldn’t know who he was, but he had a face that always got a “hey, weren’t you in… uh… uh…” reaction pretty much everywhere he went. People recognized him for being vaguely memorable but that was about it. They knew they’d seen the face before but the name of the films they’d seen it in were never going to come to them so he’d always nod, half smile and move on before it got uncomfortable for everyone.

Since he was usually the lead or second lead in pretty much everything he did in those days, it must have been a real heartbreaker to be so famously non-famous. Being that close to stardom only to have it go home with the likes of one hit wonders, serial killers and guys who have their genitals severed by angry spouses must have drove him nuts. Seriously, Milli Vanilli, David Berkowitz and John Wayne Bobbitt are names that you probably know, but this guy, who was in a zillion films and has an “uh”-inducing face, probably won’t get a mention on Entertainment Tonite when his time comes. He should have been born 30 years later so that he could get his fame impregnating the daughter of a governor, releasing a “secretly filmed” bedroom home-video or ranting, crying and drooling nonsensically on a “fair and balanced” cable network.

Pardon the digression, my curmudgeon is showing.

Anyway, it had been a few months since the B-movie actor and his family had moved out and since there wasn’t any one living next door, coupled with the fact that the kitchen, being on the shaded side of our 2-story building, got virtually no sun making that part of the apartment pretty dark and wanting to get as much natural light in there as possible, that room went without curtains. Insert foreboding music here.

One night, around 3 a.m., I was awakened by the cries of our new born, Tara. Since it was my turn to get up and attend to her, I arose to the task before me pretty much on automatic pilot. Still groggy and half-asleep I changed her diaper and then staggered into the jet-black kitchen to get her bottle. Karol always kept a ready-made bottle in the fridge for these mid-evening/early morning feedings. I just needed to take the chill out of the bottle by placing it in the microwave for a few seconds.

Leaning against a kitchen wall waiting for the familiar microwave “ding”, I heard something that would snap me fully awake.

From behind me, a strange male voice:

“I oughta put your fucking head in that microwave.”

To fully appreciate the sound of this voice, imagine it having been said by someone that had just swallowed a broken glass and battery acid cocktail. From a sandpaper Dixie Cup.

In my oral telling of this story, when I get to this part I try my best to emulate this shredded tonsil speak and it just hurts too much. And as if the scary voice in the middle of the night weren’t knee-buckling enough, the amount of sheer malice that went along with it didn’t help. This would pale when compared to what was next.

The voice had come from the open, curtainless kitchen window. When I whirled around to see who had spoken, with only the harsh light from within the microwave to see with, what I saw made me want to scream, long and loud.

And I proceeded to do so.

There in the window was a horribly disfigured face. Think of the demon that possessed the little girl in the movie “The Exorcist” doing the same evil ugly face thing to Popeye’s stubbly-faced dad, Poopdeck Pappy. Google him, it’s worth it.

Demon-possessed “Papeye” was standing right outside my kitchen window, his face about as close to it as was subhumanly possible. Face in full scowl, filled with anger and contempt, he was looking right at me and any thought I might have had that perhaps he was directing his ire at someone else in the room vanished as did any semblance of steely nerved cool on my part. With the microwave’s off “ding” serving as a starter’s gun, I bolted.

Let me pause for a moment to explain a few whos and whats. The bone chilling voice and face belonged to a homeless drunk who along with a couple of other buddies had (unknown to anyone at the time) become squatters in the abandoned house next door. Apparently the “boys” had spent that evening guzzling whatever booze they’d managed to get a hold of and with the house’s water having been long since shut off, one of them (Papeye) had decided to urinate in a bush right outside my kitchen window just as I was getting my daughter’s bottle. Papeye was a poster child ugly drunk: unshaven, unwashed with sleeping-in-the-alley-cause-I-love-to drink butane ravaged features. I doubt, however that a Gillette Fusion and a bar of Ivory would have done much to keep Papeye from triggering the gag reflex, this guy was naturally Morlock ugly, being a street wino didn’t help.

Whether or not he was in an alcohol fueled bad mood or suffered from some form of dementia, I couldn’t say (although the term “angry at the world drunk loon” makes me want to rapidly tap my nose). What I do know is that seeing a man prepare a baby bottle for a crying infant must have hit the “I want to see your head explode inside a microwave” selection button on his mental jukebox because he started ranting, loudly.

When I got to the bedroom, Karol was sitting up in bed, mouth agape, and eyes wide and filled with fear. To this day I don’t know what upset her more, the threat to my head and the voice that uttered it or my unmanly-like scream in response.

“What the hell is going on?!”

I’d like to say that I‘d gathered my composure sufficiently that I could now comfort the terrified mother of my children with a raised eyebrow, a light hand on the shoulder and a calm “There, there, my dear…” but that would be stretching it a bit. I was in full OS mode, (a trauma induced condition where upon the sufferer involuntarily repeats the same phrase, “Oh, shit!”) and there’s no sense in denying it. (An FYI for your next cocktail party: investigative studies of aviation incidents have shown that 100% of all black box recording devices have examples of OS on them, including cases where the pilots didn’t speak English. Astonishing but true.)

For the sake of the narrative, let’s just say that I managed to answer her with something like:

“Some fugly crazy drunk was watching me through the kitchen window while I was getting Tara’s bottle and started freaking out.”

Just as I was explaining to her what had happened in the kitchen, we began to hear more ruckus, this time from our upstairs neighbor, Hal who was outside giving Papeye "what for". And that’s when we both really got scared.

In his 60s at the time, Hal was an old hellraiser from way back, having been on the security staff at Warner Brothers Studios back in its heyday and as current co-captain of The Neighborhood Watchdog Association (a fact which he readily shared usually accompanied by a puffed chest and a dramatic pause), he wasn’t one to back away from a brouhaha. Far from it, in fact more often than not, Hal, with his medium build, snow white hair and booming voice that caused dogs to bark and motion sensors to alarm, could be seen (and heard) actively looking for it. Hal was pretty fearless and a lot of his courage was in his pocket, because as a newly retired rent-a-cop, he was still licensed to carry a firearm and he let you know it, with an even bigger puffed chest and longer dramatic pause.

The man had the hearing of a jungle cat and would react just as quickly to any perceived violation of neighborhood sanctity. Hit the curb when you were parking and all hell would break loose; all over the block, birds would scatter and sphincters would lock as Hal would proceed to rip someone a new orifice from his second floor window about this or that. To his credit though, just as quickly as he was set off, Hal was just as fast to shut down, all it took was a swift and sincere acknowledgment of the offense and a promise to be careful the next time. As annoying as his shouting could get, most of the neighbors had the same attitude, “this is Hollywood and at least somebody’s watching out”. Cue The Neighborhood Watchdog Association theme music.

As you can imagine, hearing Hal going at it verbally with a drunk was far from news on that street, but this time I was worried about how it was going to escalate. In this corner, extremely angry drunkard with the face of a Doberman’s butt and in this corner, Hal, gun totting co-captain of the Neighborhood Watchdog Association and possessor of the vocal chords from hell. I didn’t know whether to run out to help Hal deal with the Peeping Demon or to tell the drunk to make a run for it, ‘cause a crazy old guy with a gun was coming and he was “bringing hell with him”.

From the safe confines of our bedroom, it was theatre of the mind. Lots of yelling and cussing (oh, the profanities! my street vocabulary soared mightily that night!) with Karol holding the babies tightly (both fast asleep by the way) and me in turn holding her just as tightly. “Don’t you dare go out there and leave me!” Who was I to argue? Even our retriever wanted no part of the chaos outside, finding solace under the bed.

Because of the proximity of our bedroom to the neighboring lot, all of this sounded as if it were happening in our apartment. Let me be clear here, what was happening was nothing but yelling, back and forth between Hal and now 3 winos (Papeye’s 2 buddy’s having joined their comrade outside) but the unique mixture of volume, venom and Papeye’s meat grinder vocal chords made it feel like a full blown riot.

“Get the hell off my block, you blankety blank drunken so and sos!!”

“Screw you!!!!”

That’s about as cleaned up as I can make it.

I could tell by the placement of the voices and the space between them that neither party was making any moves towards the other. A good fifty feet separated everyone involved. This was long distance vocal fisticuffs at its finest. If it weren’t 3 in the morning I know a lot of neighborhood people would have just pulled up chairs and popcorn, myself included. But the threat of Hal flat out losing his mind and letting fly with the bullets was making me nervous. Not because he was more apt to do so than the next guy, but since you never really know what will happen once they’ve been introduced into a volatile situation, guns just give me the willies (apologies to all Willies that may be reading). I’ve been shot at before (I’ll get to those stories soon enough) and I wasn’t in any rush to see it happen again so I made up my mind to call the “local authorities”. Just as I was dialing, I heard the sound of a police siren speeding up the block.

This is where the story gets somewhat predictable with the drunks getting arrested and Hal yelling “Hold me back!!” to no one in particular followed by an equally audience free “Lucky for you the cops showed up!!”. He finally settled down and went upstairs to his apartment once the police cars (by this time there were 2, must have been a slow night in Hollywood) drove off. Karol, the babies and I never left our bedroom once the police had arrived. We figured that they’d handle it and they did. The next few days the neighborhood was abuzz with what had happened outside my kitchen window.

To hear Hal tell it, he was up against a gang of teenage hellions with clubs and bats instead of 3 barely standing winos. I never volunteered the information that it was my baby bottle antics that had started it all. I figured it would trigger too many uncomfortable questions. Years later, the memory of Papeye’s bone-chilling voice and equally disturbing facial features still haunt me. I love horror movies and have seen a lot of them in the course of my life but none have had the pajama soiling intensity of that night in the kitchen. And no, I didn’t soil my pajamas that night but were it not for the release of that scream, there’s no telling what might have happened.

peace