The Writer's Life: The Writer's Life 10/18

Thursday, October 18, 2018

The Writer's Life 10/18 - The Return

With the temperature in the 40's and a strong wind blowing along Avenue Z, it would have been dumb to set up shop at my usual nook under the scaffold, in the shade that's so advantageous in warm weather. I needed to be standing in the sunshine, so I headed to Bay Parkway. I encountered a problem there. There is space for four to five cars in front of the Chase bank. The first 20 yards has mailboxes and a large trash barrel curbside, which makes setting up the display problematic. That leaves three to four spots. Today they were occupied by three large SUV's. I waited about a half hour. Since each vehicle had its driver side rear-view mirror folded in, I suspected the owners wouldn't show for a while. They must have fed the meter the maximum amount. The last spot across the way was open. I didn't want to make a U-Turn and back into it, so I decided to drive up to 86th Street, make a right, then another at 21st Avenue, and one more at 85th Street. I expected the spot to be taken by the time I got to it. Fortunately, it wasn't. And that later proved fortuitous when a dream customer bought seven sci-fi novels in Russian. Thank you, sir, and also to the gentleman who purchased a collection of classic poetry, and to the eagle-eyed young woman who doubled back for a paperback of Three Short Novels by Joseph Conrad. And the luck didn't end there. A huge white van parked about 20 yards into 85th Street. The driver waved. I assumed it was a Meals on Wheels employee I frequently encounter in Sheepshead Bay. To my surprise and joy, it was Occupy Jack, whom I hadn't seen in months. He recently returned from a 13-state swing of the midwest, where he set up shop weekends, selling his self-made posters and T-shirts. Although he had to pay a fee of $25 for each session, he did okay, enough for gas and food. He slept in the van. Other areas of the country are not like NYC, where guys like us can get away with hawking wares on the sidewalk as long as we stay away from commercial areas. He's back in town, he said, to keep an eye on the election, to see if any voting shenanigans occur. His home base these days is Florida, where he finds the conditions very tough for outdoor sales, as it is always hot. He is a one-of-kind-maverick, independent, without health insurance. Although he's a Socialist, he supports Donald Trump. I miss not seeing him regularly. He'd often gone on beer-fueled verbal jags that had me in stitches. I found two pictures online of him holding up a sign at a demonstration. Unfortunately, each was plastered with a copyright warning from Getty Images. To my chagrin, I don't recall the title of his website. Here's a pic of how the one cop who hassled me in the past ten years said a sidewalk display should be set up, tables, no boxes. I guess I'm just a hardcore criminal.