419: I walk the late afternoon streets. A cop enters a coffee shop to get something to-go, leaving his partner outside. The partner paces, lonely, wondering what’s taking so long. The faint moon is lonely in the blue sky, arms-length and 238,000 miles from a passing plane.
A woman in a pink dress walks a dog. The dog is lonely for other dogs and tugs whenever he sees one. This dog’s loneliness cannot be solved by the company of the woman in pink. The woman in pink is lonely. The companionship of the dog helps, but is not enough. A grocer stands behind his cash register, lonely for a customer who used to come in every day and now comes no more. A beggar posted at a subway exit gets lonely between trains. “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” wails from the window of a cheap hotel. The song makes the old man sitting on the steps feel even more lonely for his dead friends. A barber sits in one of his swivel chairs, lonely for the back of a head and a face in the mirror. The sun sets, and in rooms where lights do not go on, lonely people sit in the dark. The moon is covered by a single, lonely cloud; they will soon drift apart.
A couple walk, hand-in-hand; they smile, but underneath they are lonely for parents. I weave among them all, keeping my composure, not letting them know that I know. Not a damn thing I can do for any of us.
420: My watch died of complications.
421: Harry Greenberg and I loved Joe Franklin’s after-midnight talk show on Channel 9 in the 70s and 80s. You might get Tony Curtis, the New Kids on the Block (when they were kids), and a guy hypnotizing a chicken (we suspected it had something to do with his fingers around the chicken’s neck). We especially enjoyed how Joe lavished praise equally on the super-famous and the obscure; everybody was the best and they were all Joe's dear friends. The ultimate Joe-moment came after he mentioned never having met his next guest. When the best-ever-whoever emerged from the curtain, Joe extended his hand and said, “It’s been a long time.” After a beat, Joe recovered and added, “It’s been never.” Several decades later, Joe was fronting Joe Franklin's Comedy Club (nee Memory Lane) restaurant on 45th Street and Eighth Avenue. Erin and I decided it was the perfect place to take Harry Greenberg for his birthday. While we waited for Harry and his wife, Rose, to arrive, I spotted Joe Franklin making the rounds, while his kinescope image interviewed Fred Astaire on the flat screens above. I knew what I had to do—or regret it forever—and I made a bee-line to Joe. In the middle of dinner, Harry was disappointed at the lack of a Joe-sighting. During dessert, Harry looked up to see Joe approaching him with outstretched hand. Joe said, “It’s been a long time,” and barely a beat later Harry replied, “It’s been never.”
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