Grumpy? Of course I’m grumpy. Wouldn’t you be if you were me?
Last night,I was walking down a Soho sidewalk over the puddles of lamplight strewn across the rain-soaked concrete, with a wonderful woman huddled close to me, as if I might keep her as warm as the scent of her hair and feminine shirtwaist raincoat kept me. We spoke of favorite rehearsal spaces and upcoming staged readings, as I pointed out various historical details about what used to take place here or there.
When suddenly, a bald man with a gray mustache stopped us under the scaffolding in front of just such a theater space to ask if I was still going to appear at their fundraiser on the 29th. I had to tell him I could not make it, because I landed a bigger gig the Living Room that was being live-streamed.
I felt bad about that. But not nearly as bad as I felt about the woman and the man freezing still, like a film just before the projector burns a hole in it, with an image of an airliner supper imposed over top of them.
And then the dream disintegrated and it was 25 years later and I was sucked into my sunny bedroom, alone in a pandemic with the sound of the airliner fading in the distance as it headed to a frosty LaGuardia landing, and I could tell it was 18 degrees outside and we still had no heat.
I hate that when that happens.