LEAVING TOWN IN THE 70’S, A MICRO MEMOIR

When you say you’re leaving town for good it doesn’t start with a packed bag.

You need to let the landlord know, the boss know, your friends.

The best town I ever left was the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

See ya, suckers.

I liked the people I met, the people on the job, but there was something off about the place and the way it was organized.

Like laundry service and food delivery; it didn’t start with Covid.

The choices were a laundry room in your building where you wash your clothes in your neighbor’s filth, the laundromat three blocks away where you wash your clothes in humanity’s filth, or pay a laundry service where you drop a sack off and pick up a package of undies and socks and t-shirts.

I’ve got nothing against any of it, I was a laundromat guy who went to the grocery store with a backpack.

I embraced the college dorm feel to normal life. I didn’t hate the dorms of Southern Oregon College in the mid-70’s.

On top of that I’d already spent a year and a half living in Philadelphia’s Center City which was the name given go the area in the city’s center, which made sense to a guy from a town named for the northern bend of Coos Bay.

I like to say I knew my way around just fine. Brooklyn, if you want to know, was my choice of a landing spots; the other choice was going back home after a period too painful to remember.

Okay, I got dumped and I wasn’t running home with that hanging around my neck.

I chose Brooklyn because I had a cousin in law school with an extra room.

After passing security screening and skill tests I got a Wall Street office job. (Hey Miss Spradling)

The third floor cafeteria in One Battery Park Plaza faced Hudson Bay and the Statue of Liberty and for everyone but me it was the usual landscape.

I took the subway to work every day and never got over it feeling like a county fair ride.

 

Third Floor Cafeteria

If this sounds simple, it’s supposed to: Everyone in NYC is either born there, or migrated there, and that’s where the problems start.

The migrants want to fit in so they start talking and acting like the natives with their ‘Bwookwin’ accents.

It’s not a speech defect, it’s big city style linguistic evolution.

‘Wha ah youlookin’ at?’

‘You talkin’ a me?’

Suddenly everyone’s a swinging D where there’s not enough room for them all to swing at once.

That’s my observation from field notes.

No one wants to get pushed out of town, but it happens. It all started in the third floor cafeteria.

 

My work buddies were all locals and we got lunch together, not every day but most days.

After a few months it felt like I’d been there ten years. Some of the old guys had been on the street their entire work lives.

That was one path, and it ran through the cafeteria.

One day a group of new young women in their earliest twenties gathered around a table at lunch time. It was a huge cafeteria.

They were all speaking Italian and looking like fashion models in their sleek dresses. No one else looked like them.

A couple of my buddies grew up speaking English and Italian and joined their table, not every day but most days.

After a couple of weeks one of the girls started sitting with me, not every day but most days.

I’m not saying she looked like a young Sophia Loren, just the closest I’ve seen.

We talked about where we live and where our families were and she was just the nicest girl in a red carpet ready outfit.

I was twenty-four and she had the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen and didn’t mind my staring.

 

Me And My Girl

Me: I’m with the After-Settlement Day team on seven. Where are you?

Girl: We’re data entry. I’m the fastest.

Me: Fastest?

Girl: I tested out at one hundred words a minute with two percent error. Boom.

Me: I made thirty.

Girl: You couldn’t do my job.

Me: The best part of mine in talking to account executives asking to change numbers to cover their asses so they call the old pro here. Today is my graduation from the six month probation period. I’m official.

Girl: You don’t talk like the guys I know. Different.

Me: Different how?

Girl: Every guy our age in the five boroughs here would have asked for my number, taken me out to lunch, impressed me with their masculinity moves. What’s with you? You’re not . . .

Me: Treating you like a work buddy? Come on. You want to give me your number, I’ve got a pen and paper. Go out to lunch? How about tomorrow? Here we are spending time together like normal people. I like that. I think you do too.

Girl: I do, except . . .

Me: One day after work we can take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, maybe take a Circle Cruise on the weekend.

Girl: I didn’t ask you to marry me.

Me: I think you did. Where I come from we’re practically engaged just for sitting so close to each other. Are you crowding me on purpose?

Girl: If we were closer I’d elbow you in the ribs like our new guy Michael Ray Richardson.

Me: I’d spin around you like Earl Monroe. Woosh.

 

Leaving Town And The Fashion Closet

After that day things opened up.

 

Girl: We’ve been hanging out here for what, a month, and how many times have you asked about my wardrobe? I think you’re blind.

Me: You and your friends look so great it’s hard saying anything.

Girl: Don’t worry, they can’t hear us from across the room.

Me: You look formal and gorgeous.

Girl: Gorgeous? Did you say gorgeous? My Grandpa says gorgeous.

Me: I said formal, too.

Girl: Well, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

Me: Formal, like my Grandma on a night out with Grandpa.

Girl: You think you’re so funny.

 

She was one of the first people I told about leaving town.

 

Girl: Leaving? Come on. I can tell you’re a lifer here. You’ve got this figured out. We’re just getting started.

Me: I met someone.

Girl: Met someone? It’s taken you forever to notice me like I want you to, and you’re leaving town after ‘meeting’ someone. That’s not right.

Me: I came here at a hard time and you’ve made a huge difference.

Girl: That’s what I’ve been, a huge difference?

Me: More than that. You see that guy at your friend’s table? He can’t stop talking about you.

Girl: John? He’s why I started coming over here. He’s like every guy I grew up with. I know him, yeah.

Me: Maybe you’ve had hard times like I have. If you have then you know it throws you off balance, like you need to change your game.

Girl: My game is finding the best man in the world and spending the rest of my life with him.

Me: That’s a good plan and I hope I’ve helped. You don’t need guys making runs at you because you’re the most beautiful girl in the cafeteria. You need a guy you want to make a run at.

Girl: How’s that working out for me so far?

Me: I’m not leaving town because of you.

Girl: I get it, but you’re not staying because of me either.

 

Next serial installment of Leaving Town: THE CHRISTMAS PARTY AT THE WALL STREET CLUB