Up to heaven and Down to hell.
From lj:
Today I had lunch with an awfully wise man. We sat together with a wood table, a total of 6 boxes of Chinese food, and 64 years between us. He told me stories of working all day, staying out all night and riding the train from the Bronx to Brooklyn to take a beautiful girl out. He was a wealth of knowledge when it came to earning a buck in a pre-WWII New York City. He told me about ironing his best button-up shirt and standing in front of the House That Ruth Built and hustling the turnstiles, taking a silver dollar for each day of labor, along with getting to catch the yanks play for free, missing the first two innings of course. "This was back when a season was 154 games long, 77 home games and 77 away games; we had to go to school during the days so we averaged about 55 games a season! That money lasted us all through the winter." He told me about stumbling through alleys at one in the morning, one hand around the shoulder of his best friend, the other gripping a bottle of wine; 15 good friends all singing "Kiss me goodnight (out the window you must go)" at the top of their lungs, until someone called the cops. "One night, it was a Friday, we had nothing to do that Saturday, we decided to wait right there on that block in the middle of Harlem; we were going to jail that night." 15 minutes later, 5 patty wagons pull up, break out 16 pairs of cuffs and sure enough; we were booked and in a holding cell by 2 am." The story goes on with accounts of hanging on prison bars singing until the crooks and harden criminals banged cups and bowls on the steel bars." He notes "To this day, I still don't know if they were trying to get us to shut up, or helping us with the hullabaloo!" 16 boys stood in front of a judge at the DOC facilities in Harlem, New York City by 9 am. "We were so disobliging all night that by the time we saw the judge, the officers were pleading with him not to send us back into those cells. BOOM! Not guilty, we were out just in time to catch the lunch special at Rosie’s in lower east side."
Still needs some work but, I like it. I think if I ever actually do get that book printed, this will be in it. Pointless, experimental, works of short fiction have consumed me. I can’t stop noting the mundane. Well I guess this means I’m officially resurrecting this thing. After a facelift it will do me just fine. Reading old entries almost makes me feel foolish; it's funny how much we grow in such a short amount of time. Enough of the sentimentality, bike updates coming soon.
Today I had lunch with an awfully wise man. We sat together with a wood table, a total of 6 boxes of Chinese food, and 64 years between us. He told me stories of working all day, staying out all night and riding the train from the Bronx to Brooklyn to take a beautiful girl out. He was a wealth of knowledge when it came to earning a buck in a pre-WWII New York City. He told me about ironing his best button-up shirt and standing in front of the House That Ruth Built and hustling the turnstiles, taking a silver dollar for each day of labor, along with getting to catch the yanks play for free, missing the first two innings of course. "This was back when a season was 154 games long, 77 home games and 77 away games; we had to go to school during the days so we averaged about 55 games a season! That money lasted us all through the winter." He told me about stumbling through alleys at one in the morning, one hand around the shoulder of his best friend, the other gripping a bottle of wine; 15 good friends all singing "Kiss me goodnight (out the window you must go)" at the top of their lungs, until someone called the cops. "One night, it was a Friday, we had nothing to do that Saturday, we decided to wait right there on that block in the middle of Harlem; we were going to jail that night." 15 minutes later, 5 patty wagons pull up, break out 16 pairs of cuffs and sure enough; we were booked and in a holding cell by 2 am." The story goes on with accounts of hanging on prison bars singing until the crooks and harden criminals banged cups and bowls on the steel bars." He notes "To this day, I still don't know if they were trying to get us to shut up, or helping us with the hullabaloo!" 16 boys stood in front of a judge at the DOC facilities in Harlem, New York City by 9 am. "We were so disobliging all night that by the time we saw the judge, the officers were pleading with him not to send us back into those cells. BOOM! Not guilty, we were out just in time to catch the lunch special at Rosie’s in lower east side."
Still needs some work but, I like it. I think if I ever actually do get that book printed, this will be in it. Pointless, experimental, works of short fiction have consumed me. I can’t stop noting the mundane. Well I guess this means I’m officially resurrecting this thing. After a facelift it will do me just fine. Reading old entries almost makes me feel foolish; it's funny how much we grow in such a short amount of time. Enough of the sentimentality, bike updates coming soon.
posted by frankie5.0 at 11:10:00 AM
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