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The Desperate Man
My dear friend Ms. Golden shared with me a game she played to pass the time with her colleagues at a work event. There may have been some alcohol imbibing and a handful of edibles in the mix. I’m sure it was fun. They asked each other various hypothetical questions, things like if you were…
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The Thinning Of The Veil
Happy Halloween, y’all. All Hallow’s Eve holds first place in the ranking of holidays for me. While I remain a hardened skeptic I must admit I have a deep love for all things supernatural and otherworldly. Predating Christianity and the Gregorian calendar, the festival of Samhain marked the season of allhallowtide, celebrated by the Celtic…
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Irish Confetti
A car had stopped in the intersection of Willets Point and 149th street but I hadn’t noticed it at first. My friends noticed. I was in front of the mediocre pizzeria, on a strip of stores, that we lazily just called, the stores. Park Seafood, the pizzeria, a liquor store, Mama’s, a little asian run…
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The Saw Is Family
“You have one choice, boy: sex or the saw. Sex is, well…nobody knows. But the saw…the saw is family.” – Drayton Sawyer, the Cook. In the early 2000s some friends and I started a band named The Saw Is Family. I handled the vocals, with JF on bass, Nicky Suds on guitar and Nick Tombs…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 27
“All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.” My namesake, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote that and it rang true to me. I admitted that I never had the highest opinion of people, for my parents, or myself. Nothing about my parents was ever poetic, it astonished me that they even knew Rilke existed…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 26
Fisicaro relieved me of my doorman duties for what was my final shift, the last time I would be employed by 534 E57th street. No longer part of the sentry. No more hours clocked in the vortex of the lobby where time split and stretched. An hour at the building felt like ten. I would be lying…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 24
When Gerry returned to the lobby he was in civilian clothes. Old blue jeans and a gray Mets hoodie. He appeared to have taken a shower. The lobby smelled like my father, Old Spice and whiskey. Gerry returned the spare key to the Abruzzi’s apartment to the lock box. He had an old baseball in his hand, a…
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All Guests Must Be Announced – Ch. 23
Gerry did not sneak around the halls or creep around in the shadows of 534. He made no attempt to conceal himself or to quietly land the service elevator, having missed the intended floor, then descended back down before lining up the elevator perfectly. Unfazed with no second thought he entered 8A through the front door into Pruitt…