"Here You Have Time To Think of Your Soul"

“Here You Have Time 

To Think of Your Soul”

NYC. 1987.

Unable to find work as an animator, I was working as a messenger for Empire Messenger Service, in the Fourteenth Street office.

During a spare moment, sitting on the hard bench waiting for my turn to make a delivery, I would read. I was as much an avid reader as ever. More so perhaps, because apart from the many other benefits of reading, books were cheap and plentiful in New York. 

Almost as easy to get as drugs. 

I recall reading some of the great Russian novelists during this time, which, with their impoverished, hungry, or insane characters (sometimes all three at once), closely matched my own situation during this time. 

I know for certain I was reading Solzhenitsyn, because I used to read excerpts from his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich out loud to the other guys waiting around on the hard benches with me. 

It had started as a joke.

“Hey, Flasher! What you reading today, man?”

Did I mention my nickname at the office was Flasher?

I hope so, because I’m sick of explaining it.

“I’m not a flasher,” I’d answer. “I’m a kiwi. From New Zealand, remember? Reading a Russian. It’s about a guy in prison in Siberia.”

“No shit? We seen you reading all the time and wondered what was wrong with you. New Zealand? Where’s that?”

I explained again as best I could. It was down by Australia at the bottom of the world. 

“Oh. Australia, huh? I’ve heard of that.”

“Good book?” asked another.

“Yeah,” I replied. “You really sympathize with the guy. Shukhov’s his name. He’s in prison in Siberia, freezing and starving. 

“Ugh!” I shuddered. “Makes me cold just reading it.” 

I laughed at myself and my vanity. I thought I was cold and hungry, which was true, being a struggling artist at times I was, but Ivan Denisovich was freezing and starving. 

There’s always someone worse off, isn’t there?

“What’s he in prison for?” they asked.

I told them, then I had an inspiration. “Want to hear some?” I said.

No one said no, so I began reading aloud. 

It was the part where Shukhov is waiting to be searched by the guards and is nervous about the piece of blade hidden in his mitten. It was a lucky choice to begin reading there, not just for the perfection of the writing and the tension drawing you in, but it was a good choice because most of my fellow workers had had run-ins with Authority in their lives and could empathize. Possibly they had even been searched themselves by unfriendly cops with big guns and nasty clubs. For a fact some had spent time in the jug, usually for non payment of child support or drug busts. At least, that’s what they confessed to. Certainly, like millions who’ve read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, they sympathized with Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.

“You should rejoice that you are in prison. 

Here you have time to think of your soul.” 

Ah, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, you magnificent bastard!

After that, anytime someone wanted to hear some of it, they would simply ask quietly or come and sit close by expectantly. Then I would begin reading aloud from whatever point in the book I was at. I enjoyed it immensely, the words seemed to come alive when spoken aloud and I could see the story afresh in my mind’s eye. Sometimes my audience numbered eight or ten, sometimes half that, but usually somebody was waiting around and wanted to hear it. I eventually read through One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich aloud more than three times during those winter weeks, sitting on the hard benches with my audience of fellow waiting messengers. 

Waiting for a delivery and the chance of a tip. 

Waiting for a call from a film company and the chance of a job.

 Some of my coworkers wondered at the wisdom of all this reading and suggested I join them at their various downtime occupations instead. Occupations that included buying, selling, smoking, shooting or snorting dope, gambling with dice or cards, sleeping it off in the “John” or finally just pitching the whole thing in, taking the day off and heading for a bar or strip joint way uptown. 

I went with them once. I figured I owed it to myself, as an artist, to gather human experience from every strata of the socioeconomic order. An artist must experience life! Besides, I wanted to see the strippers. It was quite a day, what I remember of it, involving about a dozen drunken, drugged up, disgruntled Empire messengers, five overworked strip club bouncers, eight cops in four cop cars, three terrified pre-op transvestite strippers and one worldweary police desk sergeant.

He let us all go after we promised never to return to his precinct.

You should have heard the strippers curse us as we left!   

“C’mon!” said my coworkers at least every other day. “Screw work! We’re off to the strip club again!”

“That’s okay, mates,” I’d reply, remembering the first time and the hateful look in the desk sergeant’s eyes. “Not today, much as I’d like to. I’ve got to work. I need the dough.”

It was a low paying job, why did I take it so seriously, they wondered? After all, the boss could go and take himself a giant flying leap! Life was short! 

“Man, where’d you say you were from? Australia? Well brother, here in New York you got to take it easy. Take it easy or you’ll wear yourself out! Sheee-it! You’ll end up with your freaking ass in a sling!”

“My what in a what?” I asked. I was still having trouble with the American accent from time to time. 

I had no understanding of an ass sling.

“Crazy Limey!” they laughed.

“I’m not a Limey,’” I protested. “I’m a kiwi."

“From New Zealand, remember?” 

Flasher Lands a Job

Flasher Lands a Job

New York. 1987.

Suzie and I had arrived from New Zealand six weeks before, to start our new life in America. We had no money. We had no job. We were sleeping on a mattress on the floor of Andrew’s apartment on Seventh Ave.

It had been a rather inauspicious start.

I had been borrowing money from Andrew for weeks and I knew it couldn’t go on forever. He didn’t mind, though, Andrew had plenty of confidence and figured he could always get more money. Easy come, easy go, that was Andrew, but I could tell it was starting to get on Terri’s nerves. Fair enough, I thought, she didn’t know me from the old days like Andrew did, maybe I was just a bum, and besides, it reduced her own standard of living to have her boyfriend giving away his money like that.

Of course I promised to pay it back. 

A promise that to this day I have every intention of keeping.

With no animation work in sight, and desperate for some money, I decided to apply to Empire Messenger Service for a job as a messenger. 

No experience needed, read the flyer taped to a lamppost.

That was good because that’s just what I had. 

The headquarters of Empire Messenger Service was in the Empire State Building, so it was easy to find. They had a special hiring office in the basement. It was very crowded and noisy down there. After filling out a poorly xeroxed, nearly illegible form, I sat on a wooden bench with many others and waited my turn for an interview.

As usual I had a book with me, so the time spent waiting was not time spent wasted. 

Not that I feel every second of one’s life must be put to good use.

Who could possibly do that? 

Just that I like to read whenever a spare moment presents itself.

That day I was reading The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata.*

“After he became the Master, 

the world believed that he could not lose, 

and he had to believe it himself. 

Therein was the tragedy.” 

Ah, Kawabata-san, you magnificent bastard!

“You! Next!”

That meant me, so I rose and walked through the door into the manager’s office, not forgetting to knock first as I’d seen others do. I stepped inside the tiny office and seeing no chair, stood where I was, facing an overweight, balding man sitting behind a messy desk.

“Where’d you get the suntan, buddy?” he said. He was suspicious from the start. 

“Suntan?” I answered. “What suntan, mate? I’ve been freezing my bloody ass off since I landed in this godforsaken city!”

That answer threw him. I didn’t mean to answer that way, it just popped out of my mouth! I really wanted a job. I needed a job. I should have simply explained how I got my suntan… that I was from a land on the other side of the world, a land down under where summer was winter and winter was summer.

I had been in New York for weeks now, hunting for animation work and getting nothing but rejection for my trouble. Oh sure, they liked my work, those that deemed to glance at it, but they couldn’t use me at present. Maybe in the future. Just leave your name with the girl at the front desk and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out! 

Hear me, struggling Artist! You had better love your art and be strong in your love of it, because sometimes it will seem that it is all you have.

“You’re not from around here, huh?” he said. “You speak English? That was English, wasn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” I answered, attempting to gather myself up mentally. “That was English.”

“It says here you’re an artist?”

“Yep. I’m an animator.” 

“Well,” he said magnanimously, “I think we can overlook that.”

“Healthy?” he asked. He looked me up and down, squinting to focus his good eye, presumably assessing my physical ability to do the work. 

“Yes,” I answered. Sure, I was healthy as an ox, unless you counted occasional weakness from hunger and these recurrent dizzy spells, also from hunger. I was feeling a little dizzy as I stood there.

“Criminal record?” he enquired.

“Not in this country, mate,” I joked. “I just got here last month! Haven’t had the time. Hahaha, er, ha?”

He didn’t appear to be getting the joke.

“What?” he said. He looked suspicious again.

My kiwi accent must be throwing him, I said to myself, refusing to accept the possibility that my jest had fallen flat.

Yes, although it shames men of my generation to confess it... I’m rather flat jested.

“So, you do have a record?” he persisted. “I thought so.” He leaned back in his chair, almost bumping his head against the wall behind him, the office was so small. “Felony or misdemeanor?” he enquired. “You don’t look too dangerous, and that’s what counts. The customers don’t like it when you look too scary. Let me see if I can guess.” 

Before I could protest, he held up his hand. “Don’t tell me!” he demanded. “Let me guess!” He looked at me and cocked his head, while his good eye gave me another critical look. 

“Arsonist?” he ventured. “Naw, you’re not an arsonist and you couldn’t be a murderer, either. You’re too goggle-eyed for that.”

“I’m what?” I said. “Goggle-eyed?”

He ignored me, continuing his critical appraisal, “Yeah, and you’re kinda skinny, too. Hustler? Dealer? Second story man? Wait a minute! Don’t tell me!” 

He closed his eyes and thought a moment, trying to match my image with a felonious past from the files in his head. 

I stood there, somewhat fascinated, and said nothing. He had probably encountered, in his daily working life hiring and firing messengers for Empire Messenger Service, an extremely broad range of humanity, mostly from the lower socioeconomic order. And not a few of these would have been fellows with a felonious past. His office was so small I could almost hear the wheels turning inside his head. After a minute, his eyes opened and he leaned forward across his cluttered desk. 

“I’ve got it!” he said in triumph. “Flasher! Yeah, that’s it! I’m never wrong! Flasher, right?”

Again I tried to protest, but he mistook this as a natural desire on my part to keep it quiet. “I never…” I began.

“You never flashed kids, did ya Flasher?”

And another nickname was born.

“Of course not!” I insisted hotly. “Please don’t call me Flasher.”

“Sure! I can see why you’d be sensitive about it. But don’t worry, we’ve got all kinds of perverts working here.”

“But I’ve been trying to tell you I’m not a …”

“Okay, Flasher. Okay. I don’t care what you do on your own time. Just keep it zipped while you’re working for the company, right?”

“Wait a minute!” I protested. 

“It shouldn’t be a problem if you can keep from dropping your pants and waving your ...”

“Hold on!” I said again to get his attention. “Sorry. No criminal record.”

“Oh?” He seemed disappointed. “You’re sure?” He gave me a minute to reconsider, maybe I could come up with something if I thought hard enough.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure. Sorry.”

He looked at me and considered.

For about twelve seconds.

“Okay,” he said. “See the girl out front. Ya start tomorrow.”

He handed me a slip of paper and I turned to go, pausing at the door.

“Thank you,” I said. “You won’t regret …”

“Sure pal,” he interrupted. “Good luck. And for god’s sake Flasher keep your dick in your pants! Okay?”

“Okay,” I laughed. “I’ll try.”

I stepped through the door.

“Next!” he yelled past me into the waiting-room.

Then it dawned on me… I had a job!

* Go is a board game for two players. It is said that it takes a few moments to learn, a lifetime to master... but isn't that true of many things?

Stubborn Artist

Stubborn Artist 

New York City. Winter, 1987. 

What I’ve come to call, with a laugh at fate, my starving artist period. 

Don’t worry, we weren’t actually starving, just pretty hungry for a few days now and then. We managed to survive on the staples of a New York artist’s diet; pizza, street food, and beer. 

So, with our bellies as full as they were going to get, there was time to pause and consider the finer things in life. Manhattan offered ample opportunities for cost effective options, as it has done for generations of out-of-work artists before and since. Exploring the city was a fun occupation in itself and not everything one does need cost money, especially the museums and parks. 

The parks allowed you the chance to remember what green was and to feel something softer than concrete beneath your feet. If it were the weekend and the weather was fair, the parks had a wonderful atmosphere as people rushed to enjoy themselves before the weather changed. 

Often I would take my sketchbook to the park. I'd draw dogs and children off the leash, both of which are good subjects, perhaps because they act so naturally. I also enjoyed drawing squirrels and chipmunks (critters which do not exist in New Zealand), and birds in trees or scratching for worms in the grass. The mounted police, with their beautiful, shiny horses, also made for the chance of a good drawing.

An artist must keep himself in continual practice. Look for stories and draw those! Observe everything! And remember to draw with love in your heart.

Because if you think it's shit... it is shit.

Anyway. We really were hungry and out of work, but it wasn’t so bad, if you kept the fears at bay. It helped to have a partner like Suzie, who could take it and not complain, sharing the bad times and the good, who even brought some sunshine and gaiety into our uncertain lives. Anything you did with Suzie was fun, for she had a way of laughing at the world that got you laughing, too.

So we kept pretty busy, in spite of our meager resources. 

If the weather permitted we bundled up (if Andrew weren’t going out, I could borrow his overcoat and gloves… Suzie had winter clothes of her own, not taken with the stolen suitcase) and headed out. To save money we’d walk downtown instead of using the subway, then catch the Staten Island Ferry. It was just twenty-five cents for the ferry trip and what a view of the bay, my god how do you describe it it's so breathtaking? The Statue of Liberty looked smaller than I expected she would, standing lonely and proud as dozens of boats circled and pestered her, tourists snapping photographs by the thousands. Being on a boat was like being in the park. It gave one a chance to escape the dark valleys of Manhattan’s skyscrapers for a while and enjoy the sun on your face. 

Some of the best museums and galleries on earth were all within walking distance of the apartment. Sometimes we bought a dime bag from one of the dealers in Washington Square, careful not to inadvertently purchase oregano like we once did, and enjoyed a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Standing on Fifth Avenue, Suzie would take a last toke and we would run up the wide, imposing steps to the entrance, laughing and breathless. 

Only a small donation was suggested, so we could easily afford it. We ambled along the spacious galleries, stoned, soaking up the cultural artifacts, paintings and masterpieces. I loved the African section with its collection of fetish sculptures and masks. It reminded me of when we’d lived in Africa. Suzie went quiet while we were there, and I figured she was thinking of her family, so far away. The quiet and dignified museum interior was a world away from the city outside, a great escape from the noise and bustle of Manhattan.

There was also the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. We loved it and returned there many times. I used to stand across Fifth Avenue against the wall under the leafless, winter trees that lined the park, stamping my feet to keep warm while Suzie bought a hot dog from the corner vender. 

"Over the top, please!" she'd order in her sing-song voice. 

Meaning with everything, or "All the Way" as New Yorkers called it, and we'd laugh. 

She always got it wrong.

I’d light a Marlborough and look across the street to admire the sweep and simplicity of the graceful Guggenheim building. I thought it extremely beautiful in the silver winter light. I enjoyed the elementary mathematical precision touched with whimsey of the design. Suzie would join me and finish my cigarette while I finished her hot dog and we’d cross the street to see what treasures waited within. 

Then there was the Museum of Modern Art.  

I love modern art. It speaks to me more directly than any of the other visual arts. And now to see them in person! Not just pictures in books. I could stand and admire Vincent Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Crows, and turn to view a sublime Joan Miró Constellation painting without moving from the spot! Dali, Klee, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Matisse and on and on and of course the greatest ever, Picasso. 

I couldn’t stay long in the midst of such greatness, it was overwhelming as a viewer and belittling as an artist.

Why should I even try to be an artist, I thought, when I’d never be as good as they?  

Luckily, I was too stubborn to listen to myself when I talked like that.

What if everybody thought that way? Nothing would be achieved and there would be no cultural progress for our civilization. 

Which is not to say that as an artist I achieved much or advanced civilization even by an inch. 

It is only to say that I can be quite stubborn, sometimes.

“If I Hear of Anything, I’ll Let You Know.”

NYC 1987

“If I Hear of Anything, I’ll Let You Know.” 

We’d flown in from New Zealand and were sleeping on the floor of Andrew’s apartment on Seventh Avenue.

From there to begin our new life in America! 

But our money was going fast.

Of course, being artists, we didn’t have much to begin with. 

It didn’t last long in the city. We spent it like fools, of course, seeing the sights and having fun. Andrew knew some interesting people so every night it was something new! 

After only twelve days, we had spent about half of what we could spare. Arithmetic was never my strong suit, being as I said an artist, but at this rate I figured we’d be broke by next Tuesday afternoon, any way you added it up. 

So, with reluctance because it had been a great holiday, I realized it was time for me to start looking for a job. 

In a bookstore on 64th Street that specialized in the theater I found a volume listing New York City theater arts producers, film and TV companies, advertising agencies, and the like. It was a massive tome, ridiculously expensive, exhaustive in its listings, covering every conceivable kind of show business enterprise. 

Even wig cleaners and piano tuners were listed.

I hadn’t realized how much talent it takes to light up old Broadway.

I started calling them, one by one. Not the piano cleaners or wig tuners, of course, not at first, but I called any company that sounded remotely as if they might be interested in animation or needing an animator. 

Each morning after breakfast at the apartment I would take a stack of quarters downstairs to the Greek diner, say hello to Nick, have a cup of strong coffee and start dialing at the pay phone in the corner, pencil poised over notebook to write down any leads I might be given. 

Of course, non were forthcoming. I exhausted the actual animation production companies on the first morning. Even in a city as large as New York, there were just a handful. 

Then it was on to theater companies, film studios, advertising agencies, etc.

Nobody was very interested. 

Most of them didn’t even want to see my demo reel. 

“Why can’t I get through?” I used to ask myself. 

It was frustrating. 

You’d think I was trying to make an appointment to come in and take a big, steaming crap in the middle of the conference room while their dear old mother was forced to watch, after I had first fornicated, very verbally and roughly, with the office copying machine, the way they were responding to me. 

It was always, “I’m sorry, we don’t do much animation. Where’d you say you were from? You’ve got a funny accent. Australia? Yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m from New Zealand,” I said. “But I’ll change to an Aussie if it’ll help me get a job! Do you know anybody that’s doing animation? Perhaps you have a name of someone I could call?”

“Nope. If I do hear of anything, I’ll let you know. Good luck.”

“But you don’t have my telephone num...” 

Click.

And that was one of my more successful calls.

At least I got to talk to somebody.