Category Archives: Stories

56th Drive, 6:24am

This morning, while reaching the end of a run, I begin to see the telltale signs of a film shoot. First, orange cones, warding off potential parkers like sentinels. Then, a crane idling at the side of the road, ready to be called on for some grand swooping Touch of Evil shot, and a cop car up the block standing watch, with the cop inside tapping away at his phone. After that, an enormous tractor trailer full of lighting supplies. Little doors open at the truck’s base, peacocking its carefully arranged elbow joints and deconstructed scaffolding.

Laminated pink notices are posted to all the stop signs and street signs. None divulge the name of the production. There’s been more than a few film shoots in the neighborhood of late. Last spring, Girls filmed here, and Nurse Jackie was a frequent visitor for a while. There are many spots over here that look like what you think Queens looks like, whether you want Industry or you want Archie Bunker.

I get close enough to see that the filming is going on outside of a factory. Fake squad cars and fake ambulances spray the street with their fake red flashers. It’s still dark, but the street is lit up like Times Square. If you want to convey that it’s the middle of the night on film, you need a hell of a lot of lighting.

Years ago, I wrote a short story about a girl who comes home from a long day at work and discovers she can’t get to her apartment because a film crew has taken over the block. She is warded off by imperious location people who are deaf to her pleas that she just wants to go home and sit on her own couch. A PA gives the peace offering of making her an extra in the scene. They tell her to come out of a building, her building, walk down the steps, and cross the street. She will be far in the background, far away from the action of the scene. She has done this a million times. But when they start shooting, the director doesn’t like the composition. It doesn’t look right to him. The girl doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong. She’s told she’s not doing anything wrong, really, but she just doesn’t look like she should be there. She’s told she is not good enough to be in the background of her own street.

I sent this story everywhere. It would be easier to tell you where I did not send this story. Nobody wanted it. The rejection notices seemed especially pointed to me then, but then they always do. It withered on a hard drive and died when that computer did.

I hadn’t thought about that story in years. I’d completely forgotten the hope I once had for it. The story came back to me on 56th Drive, as I saw fake cops and fake EMTs scramble under lamps to make their movements look more night-like, and I wondered if one day I’d have the privilege of seeing my own home on a screen somewhere.

Living Rooms, 1986

I don’t have much. What I do have, all the other kids have too, and then some. They are awash in Transformers and Gobots and Thundercats and whatever line of cartoon-powered action figures came out last week, along with all the attendant play sets. They bring them to the playground, showing off the spoils of weekend trips to Paramus and Danbury and other mall-filled towns. I can not compete in these contests.

I do have a few things I know, for a fact, that my friends covet. One is an Anakin Skywalker figure, procured for a few cereal UPCs and six to eight weeks of anxious waiting. None of the other kids in the neighborhood were sufficiently quick or sharp-eyed to notice this offer as part of their nutritious breakfast. I was, somehow. The Anakin Skywalker figure does very little. It doesn’t come with a light saber, and the figure’s legs barely move. Still, it is rare and it is mine.

The only other things I have that other kids lack are three issues of the G.I. Joe comic book that serve as Snake Eyes’ origin story. Snakes Eyes is a ninja and doesn’t talk and therefore everyone wants to know what his deal is. Of all the kids I know, only I am privy to that knowledge.

The Snake Eyes story is full of ninjas and flashbacks and urban blight—Snake Eyes and Stormshadow do battle on a graffiti-covered el train. The comics even have a B-story give a tantalizing view of Cobra Commander and Destro out of their usual disguises (kind of; they just put on other disguises to go incognito, for reasons too dumb to relate here). I purchased these issues from a corner store on Lefferts Boulevard during trips to my grandparents’ place in The City, which makes them seem even cooler. To me, anyway. I look at them and hear an A train rumbling outside.

The IssueThese G.I. Joe issues form admission to a Saturday afternoon of comic book swapping at my friend John’s house. John and other kids in the neighborhood want to read my Snake Eyes comics, I want to read their everything else, and watch some cable while I’m at it. I want to partake in all the luxuries denied to me at home. Maybe if I’m lucky, HBO will be showing Beastmaster, or that creepy as hell Nostradamus documentary with Orson Welles. I pile my G.I. Joe‘s in a plastic ShopRite bag, along with some old Hulk’s and Mad Magazine Super Specials and a Power Pack. I’m fully aware that no one else likes The Hulk or Power Pack, and that I’m the only kid who finds the Spiro Agnew jokes in the old Mad Magazines marginally amusing. But I need something to round out my haul, make it seem like they’re not the only things of value I own.

Continue reading Living Rooms, 1986

Parking Lot, 1985

Dad has a Volkswagen Rabbit, and I hate it. I hate it because my grampa also has a Volkswagen Rabbit and dad’s compares unfavorably to his. Grampa’s Rabbit is green and has fuzzy, suede-like interior. Dad’s is brown and has sticky vinyl seats that burn you in the summer and sting you in the winter. Grampa’s has a hatchback with black rubber hinges attaching the door to the car, with a lid that conceals his golf clubs and spare tire, and this seems like to coolest thing in the world to me. Dad’s just has a dumb old trunk. Grampa’s still has the cute Rabbit logo on his hatchback. Dad’s has nothing but the outline of where the logo fell off years ago.

IMG_0690Grampa’s Rabbit has a backseat. So does Dad’s, technically, but it’s buried under a compost heap of old New York Times and crossword puzzle books and overdue library books and broken valises stuffed full of spent legal pads.

I hate Dad’s Rabbit because it’s a diesel. I don’t have strong feelings about fuel at age 8, but I do have strong feelings about every trip with Dad taking an extra 20 minutes because that’s how long it takes to get to the nearest gas station with diesel.

I hate Dad’s Rabbit because it’s a manual. I don’t have strong feelings about transmissions either, but the leathery turtleneck that surrounds the gear shift has these pockets that sag like a turkey’s wattle. All the ashes from Dad’s cigarettes collect in there and form a horrible tobacco-y slurry. It’s the most effective anti-smoking ad ever made.

I hate that Dad bought his Rabbit from this weird little German guy named Heinz, who has a Volkswagen farm on his lawn in a development near ours. Heinz buys late-70s VW’s that are on life support, then gets them running again in a state acceptable to guys like Dad, who don’t know anything about cars and are destined to run anything they drive into the ground.

But the biggest reason I hate Dad’s Rabbit is because he won’t let me honk the horn. Whenever I climb into Mom’s Chevy Caprice station wagon, she’ll let me give a quick toot on the horn before we pull out of the driveway. Dad will not allow this. He is vehement that none of us kids are to touch the horn under any circumstances. Even looking at the steering wheel for too long is pushing it.

Continue reading Parking Lot, 1985