Is It One Copper Penny Or Three?
There are pennies all over the floor of the apartment. I said Bill Macy do it over the carpet there so that them down below don't suffer your failure. He didn't fail on the first try, with the ten pennies pointed towards the ceiling stacked on the forearm side of his elbow, followed by the downward swooping of his hand to catch them all in his palm. But on the second try, with 20 pennies, he did fail, and try as he might to collect them all he missed a few. Really, all I see this morning is the one shiny copper but I'm trying to christen a new writing spot and have to come up with something. And if one copper penny is all there is, one copper penny is all there is. And when in doubt just use Bill Macy. The amazing imaginary world of Macy.
I had walked across the street and through the doors of my hiding spot, at that middle dark table in a place that somehow will not co-exist in time with anything around it, and looking out through the glass front I watched all of the current world go by and felt cozy and secure and like I owned a secret, to be so near the present and far away at the same time. What happens in the hiding spot stays in the hiding spot but the real beauty is, nothing ever happens. It was so simple inside of there, until the day Bill Macy looked in and somehow--possibly the x-ray vision glasses he wore really worked--saw through the warp and nodding, walked right in.
What are you doing in here?
I told him I was having a taco and a daydream.
Let's go get a drink, he suggested. I don't know how you can daydream in this gloomy place.
You mean out there? I said.
Sure, what's wrong with it?
Nothing really.
Well then let's go.
I said I was waiting for Bernadette to call so we could go to the grocery store, but I should have said market, because Bill Macy retorted vehemently and wanted to know what grocery store I meant and all but said there are no such things as grocery stores in New York and why don't we just go to the moon while we're at it.
He said we had plenty of time for a drink as if he knew the exact time Bernadette would call. I said ok because this going for drinks was, clearly, central to city existence, and, not being particularly intolerant of drinking myself, although relatively speaking a tee-totaler, I could come up with no real substantive argument against us going somewhere for drinks. I did however find myself wondering just how long it would be before I just gave in completely and walked around with a flask in my pocket, or in my boot (though the boots I had would not do at all, I would need new boots if I meant to carry a flask.)
At that moment my phone rang. Instinctively I walked to the glass door, and then through it to the other side before answering. It was Bernadette. I told her about Bill Macy and drinks and she said that was fine, she would meet us there. I said ok and hung up. I hadn't said where we were going though and felt momentarily disoriented. Had we misunderstood each other? A group of teenagers just out of school brushed by me then and I stumbled and bumped into an elderly Chinese woman pushing a laundry cart up the sidewalk. She ignored my "excuse me" and hurried on by, head down. There was I realized a paper cup in my hand. A short stocky woman with meaty jowls dropped change into it and I said God bless you and she said God bless you right back. But no wait, I said, I think there's been some mistake. And then I yelled at the top of my lungs, Bern-ah-dehhttte!--and the sidewalk parted, all citizens moving at safe distance to my left and right, not a one of them actually looking at me. Goddammit, this isn't even original, I cried, this is some derivative piece of crap cobbled together from Dickens, or the Twilight Zone! You tell 'em pops said a girl dressed in black, heavily pierced along lip and eyebrow and ear cartilage. I am not who you think I am, I whimpered. Don't fight it pops, she said, we are all exactly who other people think we are. It comes down to that then? I said, and she just shook her head and walked away. There was, I noticed, a urine stain on the front of my pants. And on the sidewalk at my feet three pennies. I stooped down and picked them up carefully and placed them one at a time in my pocket.
Bill Macy was prone to using character voices and he was using one now, it clanged discordant like a rusty bell. It was the voice of the rabbi dressed in drag imitating a Jewish mother. What are you doing you? Get your fingers off those dirty pennies, those are for beggars and you are no beggar, are you? Well, are you? And then in his normal voice--come on man, seriously, you don't need those pennies, I'll buy you a drink.
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