While the photo was taken on 2/12/06 this story is recycled from sometime in the mid 1980′s

I have waited for a day like today for so long.  Now it’s here.  A day with absolutely no obligations, nothing that I must do; just me, the two TV’s, DVR, two or three computers–one needs constant life support, books I went out and bought.  Only on the Upper West Side, would B&N be like Christmas Eve on a blizzard eve, a stereo, an Ipod, okay another stereo for surround sound on the bedroom TV.  I was yearning for a day like today to use all my toys or any that has nothing to do with a computer. 

Used to be so not material.  Not true, but how many TV’s or stereo’s could you have in a studio apartment?  And yes I have faced it; I am an Internet junkie.

I want to be at Lucia’s house (city word for apartment).  Once many years ago, before Lucia married Patrick’s lover, Patrick and I took a day off to play. 

We had breakfast at my house, on East 63rd.  Patrick’s idea of playing and my idea of playing are very different.  I like to play, as in have snow ball fights, verbally spar something Patrick did excel in, take long walks, talk and laugh.  Okay I have always excelled in doing nothing.

Patrick loved to shop. I have always hated clothes shopping; love furniture, book, CD and shoe stores.  Do okay in jewelry stores, but I hate malls and marts.  Patrick loved the jewelery mart on Second or First Avenues in the 50′s.  It consists of many stalls with bitchy men and women behind them.  Everybody haggles; I hate haggling.  Not a stereotypical New York Jew, I know, but I would much rather pay retail than bargain.

When I walk away, people immediately offer to lower the price.  Then I smile wistfully and walk.  The price is lowered again. Okay so I probably end up paying less than had I bargained.

The building felt closed in; not horrible get me out of here like the Diamond Mart on West 47th Street, but can we go in five minutes, please?  The women all had too long nails painted in red, too much jewelry naturally, shellacked hair and gruesome accents, New York and other countries.  They were just loud. 

Patrick was in his element.  These were his women; and they came to life when they would see him:

 ”Patrick, darling, over here.  I have something to show you.”

While Patrick was looking I would be getting ready to puke.

It had been a cold but sunny day.  A little snow was expected later in the afternoon.  We decided to go back to Patrick’s for lunch.  It began to snow on our way from Second Ave; by the time we arrived at Broadway it was blizzarding.  We almost couldn’t see the entrance to Patrick’s apartment building across from Harry’s Shoes.

His lover was getting ready to bicycle ride to La Folie where he was a waiter.  La Folie was two blocks from my apartment; somehow I didn’t think it would open that night.  He rode anyway.

Lucia called from work.  When she heard that I was over she just had to come.  First she stopped at her apartment on West 45th off Ninth Avenue for lingerie and toiletries.  Then she took a cab forty blocks uptown.  The cab hit a few ice patches, and almost got into three serious accidents, but Lucia made the driver keep going.

Because Lucia, Patrick and I were going to have a blizzard party. 

It was a little smaller than the ones we had in the late 70′s when I actually stayed at The Taft Hotel with some friends from work.  We got totally shit faced, because the bartender insisted on giving us free drinks for hours, and had a snow ball fight with the prostitutes on the corner.

Lucia and Patrick weren’t at the hotel, then but at a party at the Ralph’s in Forest Hills.  At our little blizzard party on the Upper West Side, I explained I hadn’t come that night because I had no desire to go to Queens, much loved borough of my childhood, and every desire to stay in a hotel with a group of other Summittes, people we worked with, and one guy in particular that i was having a hot, heavy and totally meaningless fling with.

Neither Patrick nor Lucia remembered that I hadn’t been in Forest Hills the night of the really big 78 blizzard.  But I wasn’t, no matter how often Lucia insists that I was there.  Guess I’m flattered.  People are always insisting that I was somewhere that I wasn’t. I have the anti-Frey problem:

 ”No, really that wasn’t me. Really.”

Patrick, Lucia and I stayed up all night, smoking pot, drinking and watching the blizzard.  All of the cars on the street were covered in deep snow.  Patrick’s lover made it to work but of course it was closed.  He couldn’t bike ride home or even leave.

After Patrick and his lover died, Lucia inherited the apartment.  She was Patrick’s lover’s legal wife.  And when she got married again and had Little Luce they lived in the apartment. During the divorce George tried getting it.

Lucia still lives there; it’s the only home Little Luce has ever known.  And every damn blizzard, Lucia and I talk about the night Lucia took a cab to be snowed in with me and Patrick.  We’re very predictable.  Sort of the old married couple that has been together too long, gets bored, but always find our way home, with Rafe to our platonic threesome.

Have to keep on telling myself that until I finish this very long and combursome dental work–next appointment three hours on Valentine Day, I will be emotionally drained and exhausted and shouldn’t think I’m pathetic for wtiing absolutely true stupid stories such as the one above. 

Be Sociable, Share!

•