Most Sundays I would get up early, grab the
Times magazine and a soft, black pen and sit down to the puzzle over coffee.
After years of doing this, the puzzle was less of a challenge than a ritual and
might take an hour or two to complete, after which I might go into the studio
for a few hours. If it was Spring or Summer and lovely out, I'd leave the
apartment at around eleven and walk through the Heights, across the Brooklyn
Bridge, shopping a bit for supper on Canal or north into Little Italy. Cut back
west on Grand and up West Broadway through SoHo for a look at the
Bridge-and-Tunnel crowd and Euro-trash. Through the mimes and shell-gamers at
Washington Square, east again on Bleeker or 4th street for a look at
St Mark's and Clown Alley before heading back down to settle in on my stool at
Fanelli's in the early afternoon. In sunlight softly filtered through the dusty
plate glass, the bartender and one or two of the waitresses might be working
together on the Times puzzle and, after my first Rolling Rock, I would ask how
they were doing; were they through with it, had they had enough, might I have a
crack? They'd slide it over, I'd take the pen from behind my ear and fill in
the grid in a few minutes, the answers still fresh in my mind. This feat never
failed to amaze the patrons and staff and I never came clean.
One wintery Sunday I took the train to the
plane and wound up in a formidably gated villa in the hills above Port of
Spain, Trinidad. The villa came with a few young men about our age who's job seemed
to be skimming the pool and generally tidying up. They could spend all day
doing this, moving at a languid, torpid pace, skimming, sweeping, arranging the
deck chairs and generally trying to look occupied. By mid afternoon of our
second day they had found us to be less demanding, perhaps, than the sort of
guests they'd grown accustomed to and it wasn't long before most of their
friends and relatives had more or less moved in and joined us loafing around
the pool. It was Carnival so we spent evenings with our new friends down in the
City, drinking warm rum, jumping up to raging Soka and steel drum Calypso in a
sweaty sea of writhing flesh packed so tightly into the narrow streets that
you'd literally be lifted up and swept away. Days were spent around the pool in
recovery, smoking, drinking Shandy, eating a bit of grilled king fish and
generally limin'. This was in the early 80's and Trinidad wasn't yet much of a
destination, even at Carnival. Our head-man, Psych, and his friends kept a
watchful, protective eye out for us at night in the City. I asked him how they
would ever find us in those crowds if we ever got separated. “ No problem,”
Psych said, “we just look for Whitey!”. It was that simple; David Byrne and
Paul Simon hadn't shown up yet.
I used to imagine that one day I'd have a
wife and she and I would lounge about the place in our bathrobes on Sunday
mornings, reading the paper, sipping the froth off our cappuccinos and idly
discussing where we should head for brunch or dim-sum. I think this image must
have come from an advertisement, probably from the Times Magazine. We were
never really able to achieve that, though, what with all the chores and
projects deferred during the week that just naturally overtake a young family.
Early on, during a brief period of real employment and salary, I tried, of a
leisurely Sunday mid-morning, laying about on the sun-dappled couch with my
Patrick O'Brien. It did not go well and I've not attempted that since.
Most weekends nowadays are spent catching up
with the plowing or shoveling or raking or mowing. We've put the house on the
market so there's always another corner to fluff or room to clean. We're
thinking that if we can sell this place and downsize to, say, a station wagon,
we can pack up the dogs and head out for some brunch. If our realtor ever comes
back from vacation.
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