Broken Headbone

A LITTLE SENTIMENTAL

I think it’s the train whistle that makes me want more. All my life growing up, the train would come through town at 4 am and blow its whistle. You got use to it. It was like the crickets in the summer, something you knew, something that just was. But, the train whistle told you there were places to go. Some people feel it with planes I’ve always felt it with that whistle. It’s haunting. It’s beautiful. My friends and I use to go down to the track and put pennies on it. We would always find them the next day, flattened out. Magical things of beauty to keep in treasure boxes, later to be forgotten because life has a way of taking the magic of childhood away when other things become important like boys and clothes and, well, boys.
But somewhere in my heart I kept that whistle with me. It took me to New York City. When I first went to see if I wanted to move there, my Dad took me and we stayed in the Hilton Hotel, 1335 Avenue of the Americas. I had met Harry at a friends wedding and he came that night to take me to his apartment on Ditmars in Queens to see if I wanted to live there. We walked out of the hotel towards the subway and there right on the sidewalk was a man playing classical piano on a real piano. Immediately I was smitten. I knew New York was my city. I moved in with Harry and he quickly became my best friend. We would ride the subway from Queens to Manhattan singing show tunes. It was New York, the unexpected was expected. I will always be in love with New York because of the magic there. Magic grows there out of the concrete, out of the sides of brownstones, out of the beat of the city. It’s a magic you think you lost when you stopped seeing your imaginary friend, or your blankie was no longer important.
I came to New York to be on Broadway. I started off singing in piano bars, and doing off off off Broadway Shows. One off Broadway show I did was with a friend of mine, Clinton. Clinton had magic and I loved being around him. Amazing things always happened around him. He wrote the most incredible stories. The kind you felt a part of, like it was happening to you. One afternoon Clinton asked me to go to a Broadway show with him. He had gotten two free tickets, and off we went to the matinee of “Fool Moon”. We sat fourth row on the end. I was happy, really happy. How many times can you say that in life? I felt electricity in the air, two of my favorite performers were in it, from Cirque du Solie. I was in heaven! At one point David Shiner came off stage looking at the audience on the other side. All of a sudden he crossed all the way over and grabbed me and took me on stage. He put me in a mimed car and started on a date with me. He stopped the car and Bill Irwin came out and grabbed me and started doing a tango with me. He put a rose in my mouth and dipped me to the floor. Then David Shiner came up and grabbed me and they started fighting over me. Finally they both kissed me and took me back to my seat. I grasped my rose completely elated and Clinton leaned over and said, “I knew they were coming for you!” Clinton gave me the gift of my Broadway debut. Years later I saw Clinton again at his show, Miss Coco Peru, after both of us had moved to L.A., and I cried. I cried because of his talent, his story telling, the gift he had given me years ago. I felt sad I had missed years with him. Afterwards, when I saw him I felt his magic again. It was if we never parted. It was right there, still with him and I realized some people just live with the gift of giving other people gifts. Harry and Clinton have both given me memories that help me move through any situation. A certain faith that I can make magic, that everyone can make magic. Like the train whistle at night filling you with joy because you know the next day a penny will be on the track magically changed by the train.