June 9, 2005 – Upstate New York Early ‘80s

June 9, 2005 – Upstate New York Early ‘80s

When I described LA, the man who rescued me from my ill-fitting gray flannel suit—he hired me from a PR firm I had been lured into by more money than I could have imagined—I neglected to mention that I felt a kinship toward him. He made the world a cool place to be no matter where we were. I suspect he had that same affect on others, especially women, who he delighted in charming. There were a lot of women to charm in the business we were in. Most media buyers at ad agencies were and probably still are women. It’s hard to describe in words his charm, but it was certainly there. Whenever he would ask me over to his place in the village, I always felt like I had entered a world I had always been excluded from. I suspect this resulted from my first journey to New York as a seven-year old child.

My father was being transferred to Puerto Rico and we traveled to New York in our fateful 1952 four-dour Oldsmobile. It was 1956 so the car was relatively new. My father and mother, my three younger sisters and me had driven from El Paso, Texas, stopping for a few days in Brooklyn, Mississippi, all the way to New York City to catch a military transport ship out of Brooklyn Naval Shipyard. The Oldsmobile would not be accompanying us but would catch a freighter departing later for the island. We arrived in Manhattan a couple of days before the ship was to depart but my father could not get accommodations the day we arrived at the guest house the Army maintained at the Navy Base for military families in transit. He was given a list of hotels in Manhattan where we could spend the night until accommodations became available the next day. There were three hotels on the list and my father tried each of them before realizing all were too expensive for our tight budget.

I recalled the sense of being excluded back then, unworthy to spend the night in a Manhattan Hotel with its doorman and polished brass framed revolving doors. We spent the night in the car on Staten Island, my first and last experience being homeless and living out of a car. It was made even more unpleasant by the fact that I had a painful toothache that would not give me peace. I can still remember the feeling of despair I felt all that night waiting for the sun to rise and for us to be moving in the car going to a place where I could unburden the pain I felt and be allowed to sleep in peace. As we drove about Manhattan, looking first for the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard then later trying to find the hotels the Army had recommended, I recalled seeing kids playing in school playgrounds and I wanted to join them, to be part of New York, the last place in the U.S. before our exile to Puerto Rico—for three years no less.

When I visited LA at his place, I felt a part of the city, not like the visitor who spends his time in hotels, though as a grown up with an expense account I could afford to spend nights in those hotels my family couldn’t have when I was a kid. When LA ran the publication, I would fly back three to four times a year and I would stay over a weekend either coming in or going out. With LA in charge, I was also able to live in Manhattan—I stayed at the St. Moritz on the Park, at the corner of Central Park South and 6th Avenue (Avenue of the Americas). It was then owned by the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley. I would find a parking place on the street somewhere close to the hotel rather than valet park the car. The commute was perfect. In the morning I would be driving to Jersey when the traffic was coming into the city and at night I’d be driving into Manhattan when everyone else was leaving. LA would occasionally invite me over to spend the day with him on Sunday. I recall him cooking a goose for dinner one time and I was quite surprised at how skillfully he prepared the meal—goose is a tough dish to prepare.

What I remember was the conversation, that seemed to go on, jumping from one topic to another—how Ed Koch was running the city, what was going on in Washington, what was happening in Europe, in Asia… And there was discussion of what was happening that day in Manhattan, new movies, new plays, new books,… It was intellectually stimulating to be hanging out with LA and his wife KA, who edited books freelance. I recall describing a book entitled. IN THE MODERN IDIOM, by Leo Hamalian and Arthur Zeiger both of the City College of the City University of New York, a collection of nonfiction, fiction, drama and poetry. I had found it in the “bargain books” section of Barnes and Noble, my favorite place in the bookstore. The book contained writings by the noted writers of the day, Germaine Greer, John Fowles, Donald Barthelme, Ted Hughes, Erica Jong, Gary Snyder… As I began to describe the book and its contents, KA smiled broadly and exclaimed that she had edited the book and found it one of the most rewarding assignments she had as an editor.

On another occasion, LA invited me to join him, KA and the kids at their farm in upstate New York. I had planned to meet some acquaintances from the UK who had just moved to Manhattan, but they stood me up and I accepted LA’s offer. It was the fall of which year I can’t remember. It took us a long while to complete the drive up to the farm and I recall wondering if we’d get there before midnight—we did. The place was cold and LA lit a fire in the huge fireplace and we had a bite to eat before turning in for the night. I recall falling right off to sleep and waking the next morning to the sound of LA making coffee in the kitchen. When the coffee was on, we drove down to the small market in the town nearby and shopped for breakfast and dinner that evening. We returned to the farm, which was now fully awake.
The farm had a barn in the back. Both were in need of a paint job as well as general repairs. The main house was close to the two-lane black top that ran to the small town, the name of which escapes me.

After breakfast, we took a drive to the top of a hill frequented by hang gliders and we watched as they leapt into the air and sailed to the valley below. The one piece of drama that afternoon was a young woman who could not seem to get off. Finally, one of the guys behind her called her by her first name and asked if she was okay. She turned to him and asked him to go ahead of her, which he did. Once he had gotten airborne, she took her position at the point where he had leapt and with only a moment’s hesitation took flight, to general applause from the spectators. We also spent some of the afternoon hiking about the hilltop. Everyone seemed to be unfazed by the exertion, something I remarked upon only to be reminded that in Manhattan people walk everywhere and at a fast pace least you be run over by those around you.

We returned to the farmhouse and had dinner. Afterwards the neighbors down the road came by for a visit. We were drinking wine and KA and LA were sharing a joint. I can’t recall if the neighbors partook of the joint but they did have some wine. KA did offer me a hit on the joint but I declined saying I was afraid that if I inhaled the smoke I would be tempted to start smoking again. I had given up a pack-a-day habit cold turkey over 12 years before, but I still had dreams of lighting up a cigarette and picking up the habit again. Each time I would awake with a great sense of guilt for having started again—I am nothing if not guilt-ridden.

The following day was a lazy Sunday reading the New York Times, which we purchased at the shop along with breakfast fixings. LA and I wandered about the farm talking. He had become introspective and began recounting his plans for retirement. He would move up to the farm to cut his living expenses and live modestly. Somehow, I couldn’t picture a man of excessive appetites settling for a modest living in upstate New York. LA was somewhere in his fifties back then and had a good decade before retirement age. I suspect the pressure of having to produce continually increasing revenue results was beginning to take its toll on him. I suspect, too, that the pressure was one of the reasons for his hedonist appetite, something to diffuse the continuously building pressure. I started the drive back to the city sometime in late afternoon. I wanted to be back at a reasonable hour. All in all it was a relaxing weekend, one in which I felt a part of LA’s private life.