Needle Too (27 page)

Again, thanks for letting me read NEEDLE
.

Yours sincerely
,

THERON RAINES

So I got the dog I wanted and the literary agent I needed but I suppose it was really the other way around. Nonetheless, when a friend of a friend passed
Needle
along to Theron Raines and the world’s most accomplished literary agent offered to represent my work—it was clearly the shining moment of my writing career. To think that my name was on a short list of authors that included the likes of James Dickey, Winston Groom and Madeleine L’Engle—and that
Needle
could potentially follow in the footsteps of
Deliverance
,
Forrest Gump
and
A Wrinkle in Time
—made my head spin and become so INFLATED that I almost floated away. And of course, the fact that so many of the esteemed agent’s projects were eventually adapted for successful screenplays wasn’t lost on me either as
Nothing Lasts Forever
—another Raines project—ultimately became
Die Hard
in a franchise with seemingly no death in sight.

To suggest Raines’ interest in
Needle
was met with complete elation would be an understatement difficult to describe the depth of, and in March when I handed Emily a copy of the agent’s missive she actually cried. We’d been through so much during the past year and now there was finally something positive to embrace and look forward to. However, beyond that things remained bleak as jobs were scarcer than ever, and it was becoming nearly impossible to meet my obligations as a father. As a result, it wasn’t long before we decided to leave Florida for greener employment pastures until the local economy recovered some.

But where would those pastures be?

Both of us were mesmerized by San Francisco and for a while we toyed with the idea of heading out west. Ultimately, however, given the precariousness of our situation we thought it best to go where at least one of us was familiar with the territory:

New York.

Certainly, deciding to return to the belly of the beast may once again seem like flawed decision-making to some—but I knew better. I was older now, and after so many years had passed it was clear that I’d left my fascination and obsession with heroin in the prior decade and it had since withered away because as I’ve already mentioned,
distance lends perspective
. Of course, had it been five years earlier I’m not sure such a move would have been prudent; however, by now the Romantic myth had long been dispelled while my addictive inclinations—like my musical aspirations—had completely disappeared. Besides, in New York I thought I might be able to parlay my agent’s reputation and my experience as a copywriter into some sort of a position in, perhaps, the marketing department of a publishing company. Regardless, we settled upon June 28
^th
as the big departure date but for the next few months continued to work six-nights-a-week in Sanibel, while I also began editing
Needle
in accordance with the wishes of my famous agent.

As the day of the big move was fast approaching we made final preparations which included selling one of our cars. Certainly, throughout most of the city a car is a nonessential item, and as a result we decided to sell Emily’s Nissan and take the roomier Accord which was a little larger but not nearly large enough to accommodate all of our belongings on a single trip. We also decided to temporarily leave Leo behind with Momma Marcott until the following month when we were settled in, at which point we would return to Florida to retrieve the Pomeranian and whatever else was left behind.

By the time June 28
^th
finally rolled around in Cape Coral it seemed as though everybody but the owls was packing up and getting the fuck out. And though we too would be gone by noon that very day, Momma Marcott was relieved to know that at least
Leo
would be there when she returned home from work; however, once the car was packed to capacity with only a small space remaining for a small television that had yet to be loaded, Leo realized exactly what was going on and couldn’t be extracted from that same small space.

So momma got the television instead.

43

May 26
^th
, 2010
Brooklyn, New York: 9:28 a.m
.

It’s almost 9:30 and I’m on that train. You know—the one that appears just after the main thrust of rush hour recedes but is still full of standing commuters hanging on to handrails, a large portion of who seem to be running a little late. Of course—most of us are seated, and appear to work beyond the 9 to 5 scope of things in places like gift shops, department stores and restaurants in positions dealing directly with the public—perhaps even with some of those who are standing up and a little behind schedule. Fortunately—
though due to unfortunate circumstances
—I am indeed among the seated, and for the past several minutes have born witness to an amazing transformation under very adverse conditions.

“That’s a gift,” I say to a woman standing up and ignoring me on a train that continues to pull in and out of stations as it accelerates and then slows to a sudden stop, and in the midst of a breathtaking balancing act she applies mascara with one hand while holding a compact mirror with the other—paying
zero
heed to her safety or the handrails and stripper polls strategically located around the subway car to help keep the upright
upright
. I am at once amazed by her impenetrable equilibrium…
not to mention the length of her lashes
. But I’m still not giving her my fucking seat.

“If you can do that on a skateboard I think we can make some money,” I try again as she momentarily looks away from her mirror and peers at me from the corner of an eye—but then immediately resumes ignoring me because I think she’s a little pissed about the seat. But
I’m
gonna be standing all day…
so fuck her
.

I’d been back in New York for two years, and though I’d successfully avoided relapse, little else had turned out the way I expected. I had been sure that while my written words were being shopped around to powerful publishers by my powerful agent, I could somehow use our professional relationship as leverage to secure copywriting work within the industry, while simultaneously
field the many lucrative offers his representation was sure to generate. But the recession seemed to have followed us up to New York and as a result, neither was the case and I was foolish to assume otherwise. Consequently I had no choice but to once again resume the restaurant career until something materialized.

“Gobledee goobledee gobledee goobledee gobledee goobledeegoo!” a female conductor’s voice with a thick Indian accent is suddenly trumpeted through the train’s typically discernable P.A. system as I’m rudely ripped from my reflections and I’m like
What the fuck did she just say?
to these two Mexican guys and they’re like
What the fuck did he just say?
to each other.

Indeed, with overwhelmingly overcrowded and deplorably filthy subway conditions, a megalomaniac mayor and now amazingly—a never-ending parade of expensive but subpar pizza in Manhattan, New York is a very different place than it was when I left and though it’s always had a proud and storied tradition of welcoming newcomers from faraway places, it seems as though things are finally becoming a bit…
confused
.

As far as the book was concerned, my famous agent continued to cite the recession as his primary obstacle to getting
Needle
published because times were
still
difficult in 2010, especially for an unknown writer, but he seemed confident that as the economic crisis eventually receded it would be replaced by a wave of good tidings in the not too distant future. Besides, the editing process wasn’t even completed until the prior summer and even during prosperous times, unpublished writers could supposedly expect to wait
at least
a year regardless of whether they were being represented by Theron Raines or not. Nonetheless, after arriving in Brooklyn and trying to find copywriting work in a corporate climate that was competitive beyond anything I’d ever known, I realized I was just too old to compete with the horde of twenty-somethings from around the country with degrees from private
universities and money from mommy and daddy to help feed the city’s new and improved greed machine. Consequently, from almost the moment I returned to New York I found myself an overgrown starving artist once again looking for restaurant work; however, I was now a reluctant relic from the past, a ghost from long ago and an obsolete period piece from a period that ended the moment Bloomberg began and launched his campaign to attract cheap foreign labor for unscrupulous business owners interested in exploiting the city’s most abundant international resource:

“Can you speaka zee Spanish?” asked the French proprietor of a dingy-looking French bistro just south of SoHo that I happened upon while job hunting during my third week back in the city.

“Huh?”

Actually, in retrospect, this shouldn’t have come as a
complete
surprise as I’d already stepped into over 200 restaurants by this point and been confronted almost exclusively by foreign employees working in
all
capacities.

“Spanish! You has to speaka zee Spanish!” snapped the agitated bistro owner as he butchered English with a French accent and the reality of the situation became clear. I not only realized I probably wasn’t getting the job, but that my inability to speak Spanish was now a barrier to getting one as if besides my advancing age and bad attitude I needed another obstacle to overcome. So, of course, a little exasperated, I had to ask the obvious:

“Why in the world would I have to speak
Spanish
to work in a shitty French restaurant two blocks from fucking Chinatown?”

“Because you has to communicate wit zee kitchen!!” he said angrily and in a tone that gave me the impression I
definitely
wasn’t getting the job.

Indeed, a cherished New York City institution had largely become
extinct when at some point a drastic shift in staffing occurred in restaurants throughout the city as so many aspiring artists, struggling actors and fucked-up musicians were culled from their positions as waiters, waitresses and bartenders to accommodate cheap, undocumented, labor hailing mostly from Mexico and Latin America. But the dramatic shift in staffing amongst the industry’s least expensive employees was really just a measure intended to help facilitate a dramatic shift in staffing amongst the industry’s
most
expensive employees, and as a result kitchen pay rates at virtually every restaurant in the city were effectively slashed to levels not seen since the 1990’s.

Alas, one of New York’s most endearing and enduring traditions was thrown away in the interest of profit and a more cost-effective kitchen; however, it came at the expense of not only creative endeavor, but the quality of life as corrupt landlords also expanded
their
bottom lines by renting-out dilapidated apartments, ignoring occupancy limitations and illegally partitioning their properties to accommodate greater numbers of low-wage workers. Obviously, it goes without saying that the melting-pot workforce that traditionally existed throughout the city’s restaurant industry was dismantled, and the ethnic mosaic composed of newcomers and old-timers alike—in virtually every creed, color and aspiration—was no more. However, the undocumented replacements were hardly limited to restaurants, as tip cups suddenly began appearing on countertops well beyond that of the baristas’ and in waiter-less establishments like pizza shops, delis and bagel stores as greedy business owners around the city decided that besides charging customers top dollar for their offerings, they also expected them to pad their below minimum-wage payrolls.

Although Emily had been able to find a bartending job at the Bloody Bass in Hell’s Kitchen within weeks of us landing in Brooklyn, my quest for work would require a Herculean effort that continued on through the end of 2008 with a resume comprised of piecemeal restaurant experience mostly in Florida, as my New York experience was not only ancient history—but tainted by the fallout from my addiction. Nonetheless, each day I pounded the
pavement like a chicken scaloppini while looking for a job in Manhattan. I roamed the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Chelsea and Murray Hill and when I made it to the East Village I was touched in a terrible way as I noticed a few older buildings, which at one time housed some of my musician friends, were transformed into luxury rentals and condominiums. Hence, modest Manhattan rental units that a decade ago cost only 30 to 50% more than similar spaces in the outer boroughs—were at some point replaced by revamped properties now fetching roughly 200 to 300% more than their bridge and tunnel counterparts as the tiny island became less a hub of civilization, innovation and inspiration and more an amusement park for rich bankers and spoiled celebrities.

Finally, in January of 2009 I’d received a call from Trattoria Trecolori on 47
^th
Street in the Theater District, where I’d dropped off a resume several months prior. Trattoria Trecolori was an Italian restaurant owned and operated by Marco, Phil and Victor—three brothers—all of whom looked and sounded like ginzos from Long Island but were really of Spanish descent, which of course was convenient as it enabled them to communicate with the undocumented staff. Although Marco—the oldest—ran the show, the three siblings inherited the restaurant and the small building it did business in from their deceased father, and with a fairly robust pre-theater rush it seemed to do pretty well. But pretty well wasn’t pretty enough, and Marco was a maverick when it came to cutting payroll corners and getting around that pesky $3.85 an hour that the city so generously afforded its tipped employees: