The Last Honest Man

(Originally published 10/20/10)

Many moons ago, I worked alongside a man named Garrett. He was a soft-spoken, even-tempered, affable fellow, who did his job sans any fanfare, griping, or pointless workplace histrionics. Garrett was also a dead ringer for the bearded G.I. Joe that I recall playing with as a boy.

In the rough and tumble retail business environs, employees come and employees go with the reliability of the ocean tides. And often in this ebb and flow, human flotsam washes ashore.

The Garrett era, if you will, coincided with—from our very non-technological perspective—the primitive use of video camera surveillance in a mom-and-pop business setting. Our shop had a claustrophobic backroom that performed double duty as a cafeteria and office. And a safe, which more times than not had ample cash in it during the daylight hours, was nestled at its very far end, but nonetheless visible, and well-known, to one and all. Safes out in the open, with money in them, are just asking to be robbed.

As per the script, money did in fact go missing one day. But what the hapless perpetrators were blissfully unaware of was that they were captured in the act. Caught on film. The camera never blinks. It was an inside job, too. And, please, say it wasn't so! Serving as the lookout for the brains behind the theft—an arrogant malcontent and recent hirer named Tony—was Garrett, caught red-handed on the surveillance videotape. Tony had assumed the role of Jimmy Valentine, safe-cracker extraordinaire, but was hopelessly inept in his reconnoitering. Both Garrett and Tony were summarily dismissed from their jobs, and no criminal charges were filed against them after they fessed up to the crime and, of course, returned the dough.

Fast forward a few weeks and we receive a phone call. Garrett, it seemed, had applied for a new job and cited us as a reference—his only one, by the way. The fellow on the other end of the phone seemed a bit befuddled. He said, "Garrett answered the question, 'What was the reason for leaving your last job?' as 'Fired for stealing.' This can't be true? Why would he tell us the truth! And he wouldn't list you as a reference then, would he?" The last honest man would!

High Anxiety...in 1978

(Originally published 3/4/14)

The 2014 Academy Awards are yesterday’s news. I didn’t see a single movie that won an Oscar, or even one that was nominated and lost. I just haven’t seen any new releases in a while. And not for reasons of quality or any such thing. It’s just that movies and me nowadays are largely confined to Netflix, and even then, I don’t watch all that many of them. For both business and pleasure, I just finished viewing seasons one through nine of Seinfeld.

Recently, I stumbled upon various scrap-paper “journals” that I haphazardly kept in my teenage years. They mostly chronicled events in my life with occasional editorial commentary. One such "journal" listed the movies I saw in the summer of 1978 in places ranging far and wide—everywhere from my very own neighborhood to Fordham in the South Bronx to the isle of Manhattan. I patronized theaters in Lavallette, New Jersey and Mattituck, Long Island, too.

What was most memorable to me about this summer movie potpourri was not the Academy Award-winning caliber of them—quite the contrary—but the aftermath of seeing Hooper, starring Burt Reynolds, which I didn’t especially like. On our way home from Fordham’s UA Valentine theater, my two friends and I were accosted by knife- and belt-wielding street thugs. They were street and we weren't—and I'm kind of happy about that in the big picture. Where are they now? Although it was a humiliating decision on our parts, we opted to run for our lives and—with the exception of a few haphazard whacks from a belt—escaped lasting physical harm. The ride home on the BX20 bus felt pretty good, although the alpha-est male in our pack wished that—in theory at least—we had stood our grounds and defended ourselves with honor. However, one of the hoodlums had threatened to “slice up the fat one,” which was he—and he wasn’t all that fat. And since we weren't in a John Wayne movie—or even a Death Wish sequel—I still believe running away under those circumstances was a good idea.

Later that summer, I saw Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, and James Mason, in a Manhattan theater. This was on the heels of witnessing an armed robbery on the subway ride down there. The fifteen-year-old me made note of the irony—Heaven Can Wait—which no one else appreciated. It was the 1970s, after all, and such things happened more frequently than they do today—and the muggers back then weren’t after iPhones, either. Heaven Can Wait was actually nominated for an Academy Award but lost out to The Deer Hunter, which I didn’t see in 1978 if I am to believe my paper trail.

If I had to parcel out an Academy Award in 1978 to my movies, I’d have given it to the one released in 1977, High Anxiety, which I saw a couple of times. While on vacation in Lavallette, New Jersey, I recall coaxing my father to see it. He was hysterical when Mel Brooks got drenched in bird poop. Simpler times for sure.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Have a Good Day, Folks...

(Originally published 3/2/12)

Just yesterday, something completely unrelated prompted me to check out my high school’s alumni newspaper. I scanned a PDF file version of it online and was drawn—as I often am—to the most recent additions to the“In Memoriam” roster of those who were, once upon a time, part of the school’s diverse family. There were students like me on the list and former teachers, too. Among the latter was a man I remember both very well and very fondly. When I was a student, he taught physics and other science courses, and was chairman of the department. I never had him as a teacher, but I called on him one time to get his John Hancock, and official approval, for a chemistry course taught by one of his colleagues.

The man was quite affable and looked the part of science geek with his sweater vests, corduroy sports jackets, high-water pants, and hush puppies. But then this was the mid- and late-1970s I'm talking about, when I wore garish polyester sports jackets, gaudy ties, and earth shoes to high school. I see now the boys at my alma mater no longer have this sartorial freedom and are required to wear staid uniform jackets and slacks. So long as we wore a jacket, tie, and shoes (no sneakers), we could dress creatively and colorfully, if that is what we desired. It was a much freer time and, yes, somewhat stranger one as well.

Anyway, back to the man whose name was among the deceased. He was my homeroom teacher in senior year, 1979-1980, and had a catchphrase I always found warm and reassuring in a decidedly non-warm and non-reassuring environment. When the bell would sound to officially begin our school day, he would say without fail: “Have a good day, folks.” I had actually been witness to this good cheer in a prior year. During free periods, we had various options at our school, including calling upon a room dubbed “Quiet Study,” which was always moderated by a member of the faculty. My future homeroom teacher lorded over more than a few “Quiet Study” periods and—when the bell sounded for the next class—he would always exclaim, “Have a good day, folks.”

Okay, so it’s been thirty-two years since I graduated from high school. My classmates and I will turn fifty this year. But our teachers—wow—thirty-two plus thirty, forty, and fifty. Do the arithmetic. We’re talking about men and women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties or, of course, gone with the wind. I liked my senior year homeroom teacher a lot and will never forget his unfailingly upbeat wish to students one and all. He was new age in an old age. I thus leave you with this: "Have a good day, folks."



Two Professors and a Classmate

(Originally published 4/30/13)

Have I entered the Twilight Zone? I fear I’m starring in a modern-day, couch potato version of “The Purple Testament.” No, I’m not looking into men’s faces and seeing ethereal glows that portend their imminent deaths on the battlefield. Instead, I’m innocently searching people from my past’s names on the Internet and finding them all right—as the leading men in very recent obituaries.

What’s unsettling is that it has been three for three for me. And it all began so innocently when I was thumbing through some old folders of mine that were chock-full of college papers and blue-book exams. This stroll down Memory Lane, in fact, inspired me to write an essay that is being held in abeyance until tomorrow—May 1st—because of its timely subject matter. But this return to yesteryear also led me to search for a certain professor—the wind beneath the wings of that essay—who was alive and well the last time I checked. This go-around, however, I discovered he had sadly passed—and only last month. Yet another sliver of college ephemera prompted me to search for one more old professor of mine to find out what he’s been up to. And he, too, passed away last month.

Fast forward several days—to today, as a matter of fact—when I encountered a certain surname in a totally unrelated news story. It was a somewhat unusual one, and I recalled a classmate of mine in college with that same last name. He was a good guy—kind of bohemian—and I liked him. I distinctly recall him quietly saying, "Who's this dick?" when our seemingly nerdy microeconomics prof walked into the room on the first day of class. Anyway, I searched his surname coupled with his first name. There couldn’t be too many people with that name combo, I reasoned, and I was right. He passed away, again, last month.

Is it all a coincidence—everything in threes, maybe? Or am I really in the Twilight Zone? In fairness to all others from my collegiate years, I’ll not Google anyone’s name—for the time being at least, until I’m one hundred percent certain I’m not an angel of death, sitting in front of my computer, in the Twilight Zone.

Granted, in order for this “Purple Testament” theory of mine to hold water, the deceased folks mentioned passed away in anticipation of me Googling them down the road. A reverse “Purple Testament” sort of thing, I know. Nevertheless, I fear what searching my own name might unearth right now.

The Bluefish Flush Flashback

(Originally published on 8/7/16)

It was a pleasant summer’s day in the Bronx—on the warm side but with low humidity, which sharply contrasted with yesterday’s soupy feel. On this agreeable morning, I was mistaken for a man named Malcolm; twenty-four hours earlier it was a fellow named Joe. While scam artists are legion in this town, I believe the two distinct individuals who thought I was Malcolm and Joe, respectively, really do know—although not especially well—a Malcolm and a Joe who somewhat resemble me.

I frequently cross paths with the elderly man who thought I was Malcolm. He always looked me over, like he had something on his mind. Well, now I know what it was. Okay, if I’m a dead ringer for Malcolm, he’s Ben Bernanke twenty years from now. As for Joe and the previous case of mistaken identity, I watched a stranger make a beeline toward me from a Broadway sidewalk under the El. I was sitting on a bench—in “Van Cortlandt Park’s Tail,” the sign says—when he approached me.

“Joe?” he said.

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“Joe?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes, no.”

“Sorry. I thought you were somebody else.”

And off he went—two ships that passed in the night. As I watched him heading south down Broadway, I remembered being stopped—in the vicinity of where he was headed—a couple of years back. It was by a man who thought I was—yes—Joe. It must have been him. I sure hope he finds the real Joe because, really, time waits for no man. Then again, maybe the scam revolves around finding an actual Joe and then taking it from there.

Happily, I encountered one man today who wanted to speak with me because I’m me, not Malcolm or Joe. I’ve run into this fellow before. His modus operandi: a recurring request for seventy-five cents. Not a dollar or fifty cents, but seventy-five cents. But, this morning, he threw me a curve and phrased it a bit differently. “Can you spare just three quarters?” he asked. Previously, when he asked me for seventy-five cents, I declined his request. He once asked me twice in the same day—in different locations within an hour’s time—believing, perhaps, I was Malcolm and then Joe. If nothing else, the man is tireless. I gave him a buck this time around and off he went without so much as a thank you. He was reasonably well dressed with a fanny pack (for all those quarters, I guess) and took off like a bat out of hell. He had something very specific in mind to do with that dollar.

Finally, after the seventy-five cents guy departed, I witnessed a young rat frolicking in the grass and flowers. An area squirrel seemed stunned by it—the rat was on its patch after all—and initially moved toward it. After a start and a stop in every direction on the compass, the squirrel thought better of it. Even squirrels are leery of rats apparently—regardless of their size.

But my adventures weren’t yet over. I had approximately eight blocks to go when I realized that I had to go. Fortunately, I’ve never had an accident in my adult incarnation, but there were a few close calls. The last one being about fifteen years ago and the byproduct of my favorite diner’s dinner special: bluefish. It tasted good as I recall but came with a post-dinner kicker a couple of hours later. A friend of mine experienced the very same thing and it has forevermore been deemed the “Bluefish Flush,” a natural enema like no other. Like last time, I made it just in time this time.