A story of a WB, some stinky garbage, and a serendipitous moment

Well, really my day started last night when I came home to find an enormous water-bug (I shiver to even say it … and will from now on refer to it as a WB. Please comply with this rule) running about in my apartment.

An hour and a freakin’ half later, the thing was dead. But I had to kill it 4 times. Hardy bastard. By the end of the gladiatorial combat session in my studio apartment, I was drenched in sweat, and near tears. I also had existential moments of despair and aloneness.

But I killed it. Then I called my friend Jen up (It was 11:30 pm by this point) and had her stay on the phone with me while I disposed of the body.

A terrible evening. Terrible. Irredeemable. I’m not rational about bugs. I was an absolute mess.

Got up this morning. My apartment doesn’t feel the same. I feel jumpy there. Terrified. I hate those fucking WBs. It was like killing an ANIMAL not an insect.

The day was hot, hazy, and still. It had a malevolent air, although I’m sure that was just a hangover from my awful WB murder-frenzy. I came to work. Garbage is piled high on the sidewalks. It stinks to high heaven, because it’s so hot and still. The second I got off the bus, I walked by an absolutely raging fight between two semi-homeless people. It was getting out of control. He started beating her, pounding his fist into her head. This was at 9 am. They were surrounded by stinky garbage, nobody even really turned and looked at this fist fight, I was still haunted by the WB, and life seemed dirty and grim.

You go along in New York not noticing stuff like that, usually. But if you’re in a certain mood – there are times when you look around and all you see is dirt, and insane people, and people with no homes, and hands outstretched to you…

Today was one of those days.

Oh, and here’s another thing – which is the exposition for my later serendipitous moment: As I walked to the bus-stop, trying to shake off the horror of the WB, I thought randomly of my favorite ex-flame. My humor-boy, my crazy friend, my pool-playing wacko MAN … I haven’t heard from him since 2002. Which is fine, and proper, considering … but he popped into my mind this morning, as I trudged along, away from the memory of the WB, through the hot haze. He saw it as his job in life to keep me laughing. He would do anything to reach that goal. Drop his trousers in the middle of a crowded sidewalk? No problem. Do a pratfall off the curb … I always found him hilarious, I mean I would just look at his face and start laughing … but he was determined that I should be happy, and not just happy, but writhing about with laughter. I rarely think about him, but suddenly – I wanted to see him SO BADLY this morning. I just wanted to see him stalking along beside me, pretending to walk into lamp-posts, or putting his hand over my ass and strolling along, as though that were the normal way we went for walks together. (To be clear: he wouldn’t put his hand on my ass in a sexual or affectionate way. Er – of course, sometimes he would, but not in this context – In this context, he would do it as though he were being helpful – like: Here, let me help you with that … It looks like you need help carrying this – He was a goofball. Plain and simple.)

I wanted him there yesterday, to make me laugh!

Also, he would have killed the WB in 5 seconds, no big deal to him, and then we would be out playing pool.

But no. I was trapped in mortal kombat.

This was just a passing floating thought. “Damn. I could use his energy today.”

My day goes on.

I go to the dermatologist to get this weird thing on my back checked out – and he ends up deciding to cut it off and (scary words) “send it to the lab”. I now have stitches in my back. I struggled to keep back the tears as I made my next appointment. I’m sure it’s nothing, I’m sure it’s nothing … but I felt kind of alone.

I walked outside, and a big black cloud had descended over Manhattan – a Ghostbusters cloud – it was as though all light had been snuffed out of the air. Something big coming, a storm or something.

The numbness of the anesthetic had started to wear off, and I could feel the ache in my back, where the stitches are. Nothing huge, or anything, but … everything kind of felt huge today.

I walked past the stinky piles of garbage to the subway, I got onto what looked to be an empty subway car, only to realize WHY it was empty – it had to be 120 degrees in there. I was soaking wet with sweat by the time I got to my stop. Grrrrrrrrrr. New York was dragging me down.

I emerged into the hell of the garment district, and walked up towards Port Authority. With the cool-looking Ghostbusters cloud all around.

A guy was walking ahead of me on the jam-packed filthy sidewalks. He was young. He had headphones on, and he was wearing a backpack. On the side of the backpack are these little net pouches, so you can see what he kept in there. In the left-pouch was a small paperback, and I recognized it immediately. It’s a little book called Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation – and it’s by Charna Halpern and Del Close (2 improv gurus.) Del Close was THE improv guru, but Charna is one of his many proteges.

Anyway – suffice it to say: Truth in Comedy is chock-full of photos of an improv team, demonstrating some of the concepts in the book. My Crazy Funny Man was on that improv team, so his picture is on almost every page of that book. I own it, I’ve had it for years … mainly as a goof. But today – seeing it – it took on a deeper meaning.

I know it was a coincidence, but I had just thought about him this morning, this man I haven’t talked to in 2 years, my humor man, my crazy boy … and then, there was that random book in the backpack in front of me.

Suddenly, I felt his presence again. (Funny Man). I don’t need to be in actual physical contact with him to be in communication with him, if that makes sense. All I needed was the reminder. I had been aching for a reminder this morning … Granted, I mainly wanted him that morning because I knew he would kill a bug with no problem, so that we could go on with our lives … but there was something deeper in that yearning. I wanted his energy again. That disruptive knock-over-the-chess-pieces hilarity – that non-judgmental calm bemused energy … I could go wild with anxiety all around him, and he would remain perfectly (and irritatingly) calm.

So I felt better when I saw that little book.

I remembered that he IS still out there. I can call upon his energy any time I want to – It exists out in the world, it is still there, nothing is gone forever … Matter can’t be destroyed, and energy is matter, right??

Regardless. In the middle of the stinkpot of the garment district, with stitches on my back, and a part of my body going “off to the lab”, I suddenly knew that energy was actually matter. Because I could feel Funny Man with me, as clearly as if he were manifest.

Serendipity. That I saw that book at that time.