Doorman Wanted by Glenn R. Miller

Author:Glenn R. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2024-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Recognizing that Wendy may not have fully appreciated my insouciant tone or was adequately grateful toward my unsolicited counsel, I leap into solution mode and attempt to replace her mislaid wanderers. Having discerned a measured degree of prioritization on her part, I head outside and walk down the block to see if Jimmy and his associates might not be able to lend a hand in this situation. After all, they had been quite helpful in untangling last week’s traffic snarl and food delivery, albeit with the inducement of free lobster and beer. Let’s see if they rise up to respond to bars of another type.

As I head toward our building’s street construction entrance, I notice there is a certain aura, a certain essence that seems to be missing from the milieu this morning. Cabs are racing, cars are honking, planes are zooming, people are rushing. All seems to be in order with the city, but something . . . something is absent. And then it occurs to me.

No clanging, no hammering, no buzz-sawing, no . . . Jimmy and Co. in the Fitzger’s space.

The sounds that I had grown accustomed to, to the point that it became only so much background noise, were missing.

The ways and schedules of the urban construction crew remain a mystery to me. For days on end, work will transpire at a dizzying, unabated, raucous pace, much to the annoyance of neighbors and pedestrians. And then, after days of nonstop noise, it mysteriously stops. The project is not completed; far from it—we are still clearly a work in progress. But the workers, as in this morning’s instance, have disappeared. No clue as to where they have gone, nor when—or if—they will return. And so, what had been a chance of presenting itself as, yet again, a brilliant solution turned into only so much marsh gas. Gone, dissipated; much, perhaps, like my suit of white, shining armor.

And so I head back to our front doors, a little less jaunt in my step, a little less hitch in my ride, a measurable drop in my giddyap.

“What’s got you down, man?”

“I’m sorry?” I say to a squirrel looking down upon me from a low-hanging branch on one of our street’s lindens.

“No, not him Scrape,” Tomata says, directly behind me. “But I understand your thinking it was him. I run into some talking squirrels on occasion in the park. The crows, though, they’re the chattiest.”

“Tomata!” I shout. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

“I don’t have that said to me too often in this neighborhood.”

“Yes, well, there you go,” I say. “By the way, first things first. I want to thank you for the tour the other day. Very edifying for both Wendy and me. Great fun, all around.”

“No worries, happy to do it. Terry and I get a ton of inspiration every time we go in there. Our art’s what keeps us going, keeps us moving forward.”

Now to the matter at hand.

“Tomata, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to do a favor for me, uh, actually, for Wendy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.