A recap of the story so far: A woman named Sandy has been invited to an art exhibit/memorial for a childhood friend. Once there she’s told by the woman’s son that, although the two women had drifted apart, there was something in each of his mother’s final and very disturbing paintings that she specifically wanted Sandy to see, a face from long ago. October of 1969 to be precise.
Out trespasser! Leave this body before you’re trapped! He’d landed with a thud in a strange body but perhaps there was still time.
“What the sam hill are you doing, Daniel? Quit standing in the rain and get out of here while youse still can.”
The man yelling at him stood silhouetted in the doorway of a squat brick building as darkness licked him from all sides. He looked tiny in that square of light, and that square of light looked tiny surrounded by the dark shells of once grand hotels, now melting the rain. He felt wet and cold. The heavy book in his hands was alien to him, although it was attached by a thick metal chain to the phone booth.
“Go home Daniel, for Christ’s sake, before it gets too dark!”
Aha! He remembered. The man was his boss. The man cared about him and that kindness had brought him back.
“A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure!” Now all facts pertaining to this life became clear to him. True, the forgetting had been a reprieve, albeit short. Praise God. But now he’d returned and on his horizon the shutdown of the gas station had begun. The lights, one after the one, going dark. The doors padlocked; the windows shuttered and soon the boss would fire up all four cylinders of his Galaxy and race to the relative safety of the Bronx.
A home. That’s what Daniel had been looking for in the heavy book. Well, not really a home home but a monk’s cell, cheap and anonymous, somewhere he could ponder the next move in his life of dedicated impermanence.
The rain fell in droplets smudging the ink and wilting the paper. There’s something sacred about a book, especially a book filled with the names of the living and the things that gave their life purpose, a home, a profession, something permanent. To let it be damaged by the elements was clearly immoral so he stepped into the phone booth and closed the folding door, triggering a faint bit of light from overhead. It was not enough to read by, especially through lenses coated with axle grease. He removed his glasses and tried to clean them with the inside of his tee shirt. This effort brought his world into clearer focus yet triggered another dilemma. Where in Manhattan would he find a monk’s cell other than at a priory? Perhaps the YMCA? And if so, would it be listed under YMCA or Young Men’s Christian Association? A quick investigation proved it was under neither. He moved on to the Yellow Pages. Would YMCA be under Lodgings or Gyms? Nope. Wrong again.
“I’ll just dial directory assistance,” he said aloud as he sorted through his linty pockets for a dime or quarter with which to call the operator. There was no time to figure out the complexities of the phone book. The ghost ships had already begun their nightly prowl, floating up from the Hudson and down the abandoned streets and alleyways of the Bowery looking for new crew members. The winos claimed the ships hid in the mist and only revealed themselves to those about to die.
He found a quarter —Praise God! — and was about to use it when he heard a desperate cry: “Hello? Anyone here?”
A shadow stood in the mist near the gas pumps. Spotting the lit phone booth, the shadow moved toward it like a moth to a flame. Some poor creature looking for shelter, he thought as he turned his back and dialed the operator.
“Directory Assistance.”
The shadow rapped gently against the glass door.
“Don’t worry. When I’m finished you can have this shelter for the night. I’ll not fight you for it,” he said loudly without turning.
“Directory Assistance?” The operator said again. “Have you –“
“I’m looking for the address of the Y-M-C-A closest to the East Village,” he said.
The Chinatown Y on Hudson, he was told. Did they rent rooms? She didn’t know but offered to patch him through. Brring, brring. He could feel the creature on the other side of the glass burning holes into the back of his head. Turn. See me!
“Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon. Honest.”
Ten rings and finally someone answered. Yes, they had rooms. “Praise the Lord,” he muttered as he hung up and turned to face whatever waited.
Next on StoryTime, Daniel’s Dilemma.
Saying nothing in particular 