Chapter

 31

As we gingerly made our way into the first wave of departures, I wondered just how deep Max’s experiences had taken him so far... how deep he and his father had traveled into wherever they were.

I didn’t have long to wonder.

The telephone booth just outside the docking area allowed me to make a quick check of my messages. In spite of the hand piece that looked and sounded like it had been used in numerous battles with the telephone box...and lost… I managed to get through to the hotel. While I waited for the operator to check my room number, my head tilted and turned to take in as much of the graffiti on the plexiglass siding as possible...not much different from the West Coast messages…a mostly undecipherable language all its own. I found myself speaking an occasional word I’d never heard of before. I spoke them like a foreigner uttering the sounds of a new country for the first time.

“agro”

“nitro”

“Modeiant”

“Touron…touron?”

The operator cam back.  “No messages, Mr. Randall.  I also checked, as you requested, for Mr Stevens.  Sorry.  No messages.

 “Thank you,” I said and stood there a moment, thinking about the need continuing to rush around inside me to hear from Sobel. Why was I bothered by her silence? It troubled me for some reason. Was it because I had her labeled as a businesswoman and had some kind of fixation buried in my head that she wasn’t supposed to have feelings? Or was it because I—the unknown, undefined, unprepared person entombed deep inside this body—did in fact have sensitivities toward her...feelings I didn’t understand because they weren’t attached to a personality I desperately wanted to retain...the Charles personality.

Was it Charlie...? I didn’t want to think about him.

I pulled the focus from within, took a deep breath and willed myself back to the reality of the wall in front of me. A piece of graffiti I could read... “DON’T JOAN ME BOUT MY JUNKS. JUST KICKIN’ IT. JUST KICKIN’ IT.”

Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

I looked up and Max was peering through one of the very few unobstructed openings in the glass walls of my sidewalk exhibition. He was brandishing a roguish little grin. “I know a much better gallery downtown...and it’s air conditioned,” he yelled through the glass.

I was embarrassed. I pushed open the door. “Hey, little man of the world. Clue in a would-be-Manhattan-scholar, will you. ‘JOAN ME...JUNKS...’ I pointed to the last phrase... ‘JUST KICKIN’ IT. JUST KICKIN’ IT.’???”

“Well, Mr. Charles, the ‘JOANIN’ means, kinda an insult word. They’re sayin’ don’t insult my shoes, that’s the ‘JUNKS’, expensive basketball shoes. And the ‘KICKIN’ IT’, that’s sayin’ I’m doing something, even if it’s just hanging out. You know?”

I shook my head and smiled, “Afraid I don’t.” I took one last glance at the walls, “Oh, ‘TOURON’?” I asked.

He reached in and pulled me out. “That means annoying tourist. Combo of tourist and moron.”

“I don’t want to ask that again, do I?”

“Not too loud, at least,” he said with that grin of his.

We turned and started walking back to the bus bench where Julian was sitting. “How old are you, Max?”

“Ten, most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully.  “Most of the time.”  He turned toward Julian.  “Hey, Dad, bus is runnin’ late isn’t it?”

Julian turned his cheek ever so subtly toward the sun.  “About eight of nine minutes, son.  Be here soon.  Everything alright, Charles?”

I looked at this man who had his world together and I nodded. “Yeah Julian. It’s coming together.”

This was my first ride on the Manhattan bus line. Although I’d seen and met some interesting people on the ride from the airport into the city, it was nothing compared to the cross-town 42^nd Street bus. Max had been giving me a rundown of the theaters between 9^th and 10^th Ave, the plays that had lasted during the past year, and the ones that had flopped. As we came up on a red light, he stopped talking and cast a longing glance toward one of the marquees.

“Special, Max?” I said.

“Yeah.  Dad and me did…”

“Dad and I” Julian corrected.

 “Dad and I did a show there last year. One of the flops, but we had a good time, didn’t we Dad?”

“Lousy time, Max. What are you talking about? None of them fancy chorus kids could keep up with you and that drummer was worse than a wind-up toy. You into music, Charles?”

“No. I mean I don’t play. Good listener, though. That’s a horn case, isn’t it?” I said, referring to his odd shaped black case.

“Actually, it was a sax case once. Now it carries Max’s shoes and a couple of harmonicas.”

“That means you two play together?”

“Dad’s the musician.  I tap.”

 “So what’s playing there now, Max?” Julian asked.

“Just more of the same,” said Max.  “Another comedy. ‘T and A in

in a Can’.”

“That’s still running?” Julian sighed.

“Can I tell him about our show, Dad?”

The bus was now moving toward the strip between 8^th and Broadway. “Plenty of time for that later,” said Julian. “I can hear old Benny on the corner. Better fill our guest in on the sights.”

I looked out the window and saw “Messenger Benny” as his sandwich board identified him, waving his Bible at the spectators and working the 8^th Ave. corner with the deftness of a master politician. An assortment of down and outers, tourists and two of New York’s finest looked on with a mixture of skepticism and deference to the man whose swinging arm and fear-conditioning voice made the street corner a profitable tourist trap.

“And the Lord ain’t gonna sit back and watch you people wallow in it. He gonna just sweep his big ol’ hand and you all be gone, unless...” His voice faded into the exhaust as the bus pulled away from the corner.

“Dad calls him a funny name, ‘God’s hyperbole of hyperbole.’ Been on that corner for how many years, Dad?”

“Eight, Julian replied. “Charles, that’s the loudest, longest winded, craziest attraction in town now. That’s his corner and he’s even got two...who’s there today, Max?”

“Looks like Earl and Floyd twirlin’ their batons.”

“Imagine, Charles. Benny’s a major oddity for the tourists, especially those coming out of the bus station ‘round the corner, so the city’s got a couple of cops there to protect everybody when he gets them riled up. And on top of that, he’s gettin’ a kickback from the Orange Julius stand in back of him.”

“You still believe that Dad?”

“Of course I do. Known Sonny too long. He’s the happiest graft man in town.”

“Sonny, I presume, is the Orange Julius owner?” I said.

“Since it opened,” said Julian.

“Sound like you know the corner pretty well,” I said.

“Should. Used to be mine and Max’s.”

“Got our agent right there on that corner,” said Max.

“You’re digressing, Max. You’re missing the sights Charles here is payin’ us for.”

I didn’t know all there was to know about my newfound friends, but they had made me feel relaxed and comfortable, something that I hadn’t experienced for days. It could have been their simple ways. Might have just been the sense of family that was so refreshing, but whatever the reason, my mind became less obsessed with my own problems and allowed me to observe other people’s lives. I was getting a sense of right again, the sense of right I had before the Sobel meeting. I felt like I was finding Charles again.