"No Foolin!" Pt 2

[New York City. Winter, 1987. I was standing in Vinny's office, applying for a job as a messenger.]

“Criminal record?” he enquired.

“Not in this country, mate,” I joked. “Haven’t had time. Haha! I just got here last week! Hahaha!”

“I thought so!” he exclaimed. “Back in New Zealand, huh?” He leaned back in his chair and asked, “What crime? Felony or misdemeanor?” 

Now, maybe it wasn’t too smart to make a joke about my criminal record to my potential employer like that, but after my sour-apple-shit-hole outburst of earlier, I kinda figured we an an understanding, Vinny and me.

“Criminal record?” I started to protest. “There wasn’t any…” 

But you know how it is… people hear what they want to hear. 

“Wait a second!” he interrupted. “Let me see if I can guess!” 

“Really,” I began. “There wasn’t…” but he held up his hand, stopping me short.

“That’s all right!” he said. “Let me guess! I like to guess.” He looked at me and cocked his head. “Arsonist? Naw, you’re not an arsonist and you couldn’t be a murderer, either. Nothing too serious. You’re too goggle-eyed for that!”

“Huh?” I said. “Goggle-eyed?”

He ignored me, continuing his critical appraisal, “Yeah, and you’re kinda skinny, too, and with yer accent and that suntan ya look damn suspicious. A hustler, maybe? Dope freak? Second story man? Wait a minute! Don’t tell me!”

I laughed inwardly because I’m not a second story man and never could be… 

I’m a backdoor man. 

I stood and said nothing. It occurred to me that Vinny had probably encountered, in his working life at Empire Messenger Service in NY, NY, an extremely broad range of humanity… most of them, it must be admitted, the poorer, more marginalized members of society. 

I couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. 

Let’s face it, friends… You don’t have to be poor or different to be treated like a criminal in this country… but it sure helps! 

He smiled and leaned forward across his desk. “Got it!” he said. “You’re a flasher!”

“Huh?” I stammered. 

“Yeah, that’s it!” he said in triumph. “I’m never wrong! Flasher, right? A dog-gone wienie wagger!”

“I never…” I began, but he mistook this as a natural desire on my part to keep it quiet and interrupted again.

“You never flashed kids,” he agreed. “Did ya, Flasher? Good! Good!”

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

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

“I’ve been trying to tell you …” I said.

“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?”

“HOLD ON!” I finally insisted. “I don’t have a criminal record.”

“Oh?” He seemed disappointed. “You’re sure?” He looked at me hopefully. Maybe I could come up with something if I thought hard enough?

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

Then my intuition quietly told me I was going to get the job, and I said to myself, ‘Careful what you wish for, Flasher old boy.’

“Okay,” said Vinny a little resignedly. “See the girl out front. Fill out these forms. Ya start tomorrow.” 

He handed me the forms and I turned to go, pausing at the door. “Thank you,” I said. “You won’t regret …”

“Sure, Flasher!” he interrupted. “Good luck. And for god’s sake 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.

"No Foolin!"

New York City. Winter, 1987.

I’d arrived from New Zealand a couple of weeks before and was crashing on my friend Andrew’s couch. It was a nice couch and life was a whirlwind of fun in the big city, but…

Things weren’t going too well, financially speaking.

I was broke. Every day I went out looking for work as an animator, but there was none to be found. 

So to make ends meet I applied for a job at Empire Messenger Service as, what else? A messenger. 

No experience needed, read the flyer taped to a lamppost on 8th Ave.

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

The head office for Empire Messenger Service resided in the basement of the Empire State Building, so it was pretty easy to find. After filling out a brief but surprisingly invasive questionnaire, I sat on a wooden bench with many others in the overheated room and awaited my turn for an interview.

It was good to sit down. I was tired. The night before some idiot (me) had borrowed enough money from somewhere for a couple of eight-balls and we’d been all over town, drinking frozen margaritas and jabbering like lunatic monkeys until dawn. 

Tired as I was, I fell asleep.

“YOU! Next!”

Someone elbowed me awake and said it’s your turn, so I rose and walked towards the manager’s office. 

I stepped through the open doorway into the tiny office and stood where I was, facing a middle-aged, balding man who sat behind a cluttered desk. 

‘Vinny’ read the plastic nameplate in front of him.

“Where’d you get the suntan, buddy?” he asked. 

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 shit-hole you freakin blankety yanks call the Big bleedin Apple!”

My sudden rant surprised even me. 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’d recently arrived from a land down under where summer was winter and winter was summer. 

But no, not me. I was half asleep and I let loose!

(I’m never at my best when I first wake up. I’ll bet some of you… are like that too, sometimes.) 

But it was also something else, this letting loose of sour apples and freezing shit-holes into the face of Vinny the hiring manager. 

Something deeper. More personal. It was frustration! I was an out of work artist down on his luck… looking for a job every day up and down New York City… and getting nothing but rejection! 

Oh sure, they liked my work, those that looked at it, but they couldn’t use me at present. Animation? Not much call for that! Maybe in the future. 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 love it madly, passionately, even desperately, because sometimes it’ll feel like that’s all you’ve got.

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

“Yeah,” I answered, calming down, waking up. “That was English.”

“Ya got a funny accent. You a Limey?”

“No,” I answered, “I’m a Kiwi.” I explained where I was from. 

He glanced at my questionnaire on his desk.

“It says here you’re an artist?”

“Yes,” I replied proudly, “I am.”

“Well,” he said magnanimously, “I think we can overlook that.” Then he asked simply, “Healthy?”

“Healthy,” I affirmed. Sure, I was healthy as an ox… and twice as smart, too, or would be later when my hangover was gone. 

To be continued...