My dumb vacation

Click here to read Part Two | Click here to read Part Three

Part One: Brooklyn- and Manhattan- and Staten Island-bound

I leaned over to the cabbie in front of me. We were flying down 49th Street, and while the streets were hustling and crowded, it looked suspiciously bereft of hookers. And bookstores with cheap and alternative titles readily available. But mostly hookers.

"Where can you get a little action here?" I asked innocently. "I mean, I'm just wondering. Say a guy wanted, I don't know, a light spanking in cooking oil while a Rachel Ray impersonator cooked broccoli pasta in front of him. How would that happen?"

The cabbie turned a little to glare at me. "Linguini broccoli pasta?" he barked.

"Well, duh. Is there any other kind?"

"You want Otasman's place," he said, turning his attention back to driving.

Well, I should have seen that coming. I paid him, got out, and immediately jumped into another cab. "Where to, pal?" came floating from the front seat. Ah, New York cabbies. Such a wonderful versatility with the spoken language.

"I'm looking for a place where the missile can go into the silo, if you know what I mean," I said cheerily.

Silence.

"You know, I'm looking to plant my flag. Preferably in virgin soil. Right?"

"...."

"Um, I want a taco to put some beef into? A kaiser roll for my big salami? Taking the beef bus to tuna town? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Are you Otas's friend, by any chance?"

Damnation.

Three cabs later, still no luck. This time I got a Hindu with a heavy accent. Cultural references to tacos, burgers, hot dogs and hoagies were lost on him, so I immediately demonstrated, with a handy Barbi doll I keep for just this sort of situation, what exactly I was after.

He asked me a short question, with a rising lilt to the voice. It sounded like a request for confirmation, so I nodded in the affirmative. He nodded back, produced a Ken doll from an inside pocket, and pulled over. "For this one, I just made varsity," he explained, "and we're both going away to college in the fall."

Well, I thought, any port in a storm...

.....

Ah, New York. Like an adulterous relationship with a tempestuous mistress, I return to her city streets guiltily and furtively, remembering work to be done back home, a house that needs work, a girlfriend that requires listening-to, bills that need paying. But all too late to think of duty. I walk these streets confidently, assertively. I am no tourist. I might as well be a native, I thought to myself. I wear the same Hawaiian shirt, the same cutoffs, the same I Heart NY t-shirt and the same city map and tour guide. I fucking blend, people. Now, where does Winona Ryder shop, again?

Today, though, there's no time for asinine rubbernecking. I'm on my way to Staten Island, to check out McKee Vocational High School, where the legendary Frank McCourt taught for eight years almost half a decade ago. After reading his memoirs, I know the route like my own name: subway to the Staten Island ferry, ferry over to the island, up the hill three or four blocks to the school. I want to retrace these steps, see the city and its duties the way he saw it. I want to see the window he stared out of while wishing he could write a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, become a household name, and then write subsequent memoirs extolling and condemning the perils and pitfalls of public school teaching, which is why, I'm told, he now has a glass of wine every first day of school in the morning, instead of schlepping off to preach to the masses about the values of literature, dodging spitballs all the while.

Not that I'm looking for a similar roadmap to success, mind you.

Staten Island is a virtual cultural mecca, completely overlooked by those snotty Manhattanites. Neighborhood bars with $2 PBR, corner groceries that sell beer By! The! Bottle! A lovely industrial section, with railroad tracks going every which way, and a refreshing breeze bringing in industrial smog and city carbon dioxide from across the bay.

I tromped around a bit through the neighborhood, snapped pictures of the school (anyone who gives a damn can see the rest of them on Facebook, I suppose) and walked into the loading dock. A maintenance worker glared at me as I explained to him (with just a pinch of falsehood) that I was a former student who wanted to know if I could get a look in the building itself. "I'm not from out of town," I assured him. "I hate it when out-of-towners come here to gape at where McCourt taught, don't you? Not like us natives. Those damn tourists are a pain in the ass, yo."

My feet touched the floor a couple of times as I was escorted out, but not before I saw a hallway. Mammoth. Absolutely mammoth. The damn school is built like a prison. Classrooms with what looked like iron doors. Gates keeping them from escaping. I made a mental note to talk to my principal about a new building plan.

Back to the city then. Matt and I ate and drank our way from mid-town to Brooklyn, and the next couple of days were more or less a haze. To be fair, he was more or less productive in the mornings: a leather suit, glitter on his chest, and he was off to the "office" to "earn a buck." I asked no questions. Safer that way. But the evenings, those were spent seeing the occasional friend (Wiggo, one memorable evening, where I learned of his evolving social/romantic/professional life), Mary another. The last night there, I of course forget my jacket at a bar. My flight leaves in an hour, and I'm suddenly frantic.

"I don't think you have time to get it and make the flight," Matt commented, glancing at his watch for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes. He'd been making such concerned remarks over the past few days: "You're sure you're leaving Thursday, right?" and "If you want, I'll kick in for an earlier flight." Such compassion.

"But it's my lucky jacket," I whined. "It totally works with the ladies."

"What ladies would those be?"

"Waitresses, hostesses, strippers. People who are generally paid to make me happy. But besides that, it's all the jacket. Plus, it's got my Ribfest sticker on it."

A brisk ten-block walk to the South Street Seaport (another cultural mecca, by the way, and it's so not a tourist trap, which is why I go there all the time to drink ten-dollar Amstel Lights), a hurried exchange with the manager, and my jacket is back in my hands. But the flight leaves just ahead of me, so I weather another night in Brooklyn ("There are flights tomorrow morning, right? There are. Well, what about a red-eye? You could go see Nova Scotia!") and then back to LaGuardia, where, it turns out, the nine a.m. is sold out. And the ten. And the eleven. And...oh dear, the standby list is over a hundred, and the ticket agent is handing out lottery tickets for a Fight to the Death for the next available flight. I don't kid myself that I'd make it past the first contestant: a forty-two-year-old mother of three headed for her brother's wedding.

I call Matt. Get his machine: "I've moved. Don't call here any more. And I want my glitter back."

I call Wiggo: "Oh yeah, 'evolving' social life, is that what it is? Go screw yourself."

I call Mary: "What? Who is this? Listen pal, I think if I'd spent a wonderful evening with you, I'd remember."

Out of immediate options. No other flights, no buses, trains, no car pools. And the Michigan Shakespeare festival starts in a matter of hours. Time for plan B:

"Hello, Avis Rent-a-car? Do you have anything available for today?...You do?...Great, that's great. I'll be right there. Oh, by the way, have you ever heard the expression, 'burping the worm in the mole hole'? ...You have?...Great, I'll need directions and a couple of alligator clips. The safe word is going to be 'Puck.'"

Next: Part Two! Cross-country driving! The majesty of the eastern states! A triumphant return to my roots! And I pull over to use the restroom and eat a candy bar!