This is two weeks in a row that I don't have the time to sit down and write something with some merit or significance or something that I feel proud to call my own. It’s Friday, and I’m tasked, again, with forcing out a piece of garbage just to appease my editor-in-chief. So rather than give you all a shi**y listicle, à la last week, I decided I‘d try my hand at telling a story. Without further ado, I’ll introduce a new segment I call…
A Day in the Life of Josh Timpko And All The Wacky Shenanigans He Gets Himself Into. Or Doesn’t. Who Knows? Let’s Find Out! (title subject to change)
This particular story begins on June 14, Flag Day for those who care about irrelevant holidays. Just after watching the classic “zed–word” film, Shaun of the Dead, I receive a message from a former acquaintance from college saying that she’s working for *insert company name here* in New York City and they’re looking for someone to come in for two days and be a production assistant. Well shucks, I was flattered that she had thought of me however I was hesitant, being that I’m in Connecticut and have never commuted into NYC two days in a row nor have I worked for such an established… establishment before. I mean its *insert company name here* for crying out loud!
The more I thought it over, I wasn't going to let my cowardice get the best of me! Not today! I’m going to grab life by the genitals and say, “this belongs to me now!” I wrote her back, saying that I would be happy to take part in such an endeavor and would be available any time they needed me! She said “Great. Plan on being there at 7 a.m.!” and I died a little inside. It was 9 p.m. at this point so after some careful calculation I found that after driving my girlfriend home the earliest I could be in bed was 10 which means, assuming I could pass out right away, I’d be asleep by 10:30, giving me approximately five hours of sleep. This was the best case scenario. If I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and took the 4:30 train from New Haven to Grand Central I could arrive at 6:30 which would give me 30 minutes to speed walk to 5th Avenue, up, and across Central Park to the building of *insert company name here*. From there I would work in an unfamiliar territory for and indeterminate amount of time, maybe getting paid at the end of it or maybe not. I was in for one hell of a couple days.
So, barring repetition, I did all that sh*t above. Woke at 3:30, got on the train at 4:30, and was on my way to Grand Central. Sleeping was not an option, my nerves were at peak oscillation. Instead, I listened to music, read White Noise by Don Dellilo, watched as new train-goers came and went, and secretly hoped none of them would sit next to me. At the final stop before Grand Central a woman, donning blue scrubs and a friendly smile, took the seat next to me that so many before had opted against. I decided now was the best time for me to contact the girl who got me the gig and ask if everything was still on track (get it? Because I was on a train). Luckily the real world did not follow the same fate as my clumsy metaphor, because what happened next produced the feeling you only get when you’re one number off from winning $169 million lottery or, more appropriately, when you woke up at 3:30 in the morning to go work for a big name company and for the first time in your life feel as though you’re taking the first real career-wise step in the right direction only to get the text that there was a mix-up and they don't need you to go in after all.
I’m 30 minutes from NYC, at six in the morning, with no real reason to be there. No purpose. What ensued was… a surprising calm. I took out my book and read some more of Don Dellilo’s words. He writes “the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way.”
When I stepped into Grand Central, just as Dellilo also writes, “the air was full of rage and complaint.” I walked from the platform into the main concourse, looked up at the architecture, thought about all the people that have stood where I was standing, all the great filmmakers that have told stories there, the flash mobs, the romances and heartbreaks of total strangers. I thought about my place, not only in the universe, but in that city alone. Just a tiny dot on an endless timeline of taxi cabs, stock brokers, lawyers, millionaires, billionaires, homeless men and women, clergymen, roman catholic senators, and baristas or sculptors walking their dogs with plastic bags for picking their sh*t up from the sidewalk. Standing there, I tried hard to find something unseen or unthought of by any other before me, to retain even just a fraction of my individuality, to separate myself from the herd. I met the crushing futility of the task with nothing less than a smile and confident stride to the exits toward Vanderbilt Avenue. I was Sisyphus, thumbing my nose up at the Gods who had forced me push the boulder only to watch it fall.
I always say that the true evil of New York presents itself when people stop looking up, stop being amazed at the hypnotic declaration of our presence on this planet.
I walked to Central Park and watched runners and speed walkers, some pushing carriages with children in them, some pulling leashes connected to dehydrated Shiba Inu’s, Vizsla’s and German Shepards.
While walking back to Grand Central I recognized the beauty of a pair of birds as they flew past the Ritz Carlton and promptly shat on my blue shirt. There were more people on the sidewalks now than there were earlier in the morning. They had finally come out of hiding.
I saw a homeless woman with a swollen calf and foot. It had an almost purple color to it. She was rubbing on some kind of lotion; I assume to stop the swelling. A woman wore a pair of headphones from the 90’s, the kind you see attached to a Walkman. She bobbed her head and tapped her feet, out of sync with one another. I could see the was wearing two layers of pants. Another man was laying in a sleeping bag near Rockefeller Center. The bottoms of his feet were black as asphalt and smooth as marble.
By now I had forgotten about the job I came for. I was to get on the 9:04 train back to New Haven and be back home by 11:30. I wasn't angry or upset. I didn't regret my morning. If anything I wished I could be fortunate enough to do it every morning. To walk down 5th Avenue at 6:30, before the city wakes up. It was a time to feel an utter significance, like the first astronaut to step foot on a new planet. I watched the gap from the platform onto the train, sat down and read from my book.
“Sounds like a boring life,” the main character says to his wife.
“I hope it last forever,” she says back.
This marks the end of this week’s segment of Josh Gets Way More Deep Than He Needs To For An Odyssey Article (new title). I hope you enjoyed my last-minute attempt at making something meaningful.
