Doorman Wanted By Glenn R. Miller - 40

CHAPTER 38

Thursday, 9:03 pm

O ne can overthink these things, I suppose. Judith asked that I drop the Hamlet act, but her comparison is not quite right. I suspect she imagines me to be mucking about castle parapets and whatnot—or, at least, the roof of L’Hermitage—with overwrought expressions of agony and despair on my face, wondering if I should dash myself onto the building’s canopy below as a means of escaping my frozen indecision.

But, I’m not. There is no such thing as a great epiphany, at least within my experience. I know exactly what needs to be done and have known—in one form or another—for a long time. The issue, as with so many matters, comes down to one of timing. Timing and, now with Mr. Stewart’s annoying entrance onto stage, odds.

I exit L’Hermitage from the front doors. Both the lobby and the reception rooms are empty—no idea where Jacob has headed off to. I walk towards 5th Avenue. It’s evenings like this that I seek the solitude that only the park can give me, whether there are hundreds of walkers like me or not.

I think back to a conversation my father and I had when I was thirteen or fourteen.

He had told me to watch for the sparks of life and when they appear, grab them.

“I don’t get it,” I’d said in my sullen, early teenage posturing way. There’s no stupider creature to walk the planet than a fourteen-year-old boy’s father.

“Too often, we miss the clues and magic that surround us,” he said. “But there are sparks, Henry. And we need to see them and harness them. That’s where the magic of life comes in.”

My grunt of semiacknowledgment must have sufficiently encouraged him to continue along this line.

“When those sparks come along, grab them. Follow them. Use them to create something wonderful, Henry.”

“Like what, a bunch of bland buildings?” I asked.

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. The phrase “bland buildings” was not my own. It was a phrase used within a Post editorial column about the problematic growth of corporate landlords within the New York metropolitan area. Dad’s company was mentioned as one of the key offenders of the growing trend, how these practices take advantage of low-income residents and destroy a community’s fabric. It was a column that made an impression on me, not only because it provided a greater sense of how Dad spent his days and made his money, but, more importantly, informed me of a sensitive weak spot within his makeup. The columnist had ended with the throwaway line, “and, furthermore, Franken’s new construction simultaneously insults and assaults the cityscape with its patently bland buildings.” Dad was seemingly willing to accept the charges pertaining to moral turpitude; it was the imputation of a pedestrian aesthetic that most offended him. Of this, I was keenly aware.

“Yeah,” he said, after a painful pause. “Build yourself a bunch of bland buildings.” I would rather he had slapped me at that moment rather than giving the defeated response he did. He was simply trying to pass on a lesson to his son—“Build something”—and my retort was both painful and superfluous. I didn’t have the ability to apologize. The moment stuck with me, if not him, for years.

I enter the park at 69th and begin meandering in the direction of the bandshell. In what remains of the dim summer light, I can see that there is some sort of show taking place on the stage. A small but appreciative crowd is listening to a trio of young men, two on violins, one on bass, perform an eclectic combination of classical and rock music. It is the type of music that allows me to sit on the periphery, enjoy, soak up, but yet continue to fashion a game plan of sorts without an inordinate amount of distraction or unfocused concentration.

If nothing else, my conversation with Judith clarified for me that I have turned a corner in my thinking about the next steps. Up until that call, I had been mildly ambivalent about the use of the retail space, the creation of an organization focused on helping homeless artists, and in revealing my very identity. A fun idea, an interesting idea, but is it a solution, either for me or for those it might serve? But with the slightest whiff of having it removed as a possibility at this point in time, I feel both protective and defensive. And that whiff, that flutter of a response within me, would be what my father, were he here, might label as a spark.

The on-stage trio shifts effortlessly from “Hallelujah” to “Shenandoah” following polite applause from the audience. That all transitions could be so elegant and uncomplicated, I think. I prioritize my to-do list as follows: Number 1—form an organization that provides a safe space for homeless artists to create and display their art. Number 2—build that space within a well-trafficked area, thereby helping the artists more quickly get back on their feet. L’Hermitage certainly fits this criterion and, well, since it’s my own building, that’s exactly where I would like the gallery to reside, Mr. Stewart be hanged. And, Number 3—if it turns out that it advances the cause, step forward as the building’s owner to properly make the case.

But this leads to another important realization. These three to-do items, which I thought might be separate and unconnected, now seem not only connected, but perhaps, as one. And although I have ranked it as the third priority of to-dos, my disclosure might actually prove to be the critical step that allows the two other pieces to fall into place.

Best, however, to ease into the revelation. Perhaps best to test the waters, in a manner of speaking. To float a trial balloon by a sympathetic and fully understanding audience might help me hone my message once I take the main stage, should it come to that. And so, I get up from my park bench and head back to L’Hermitage, despite the fact that it is 9:30 and past the hour that most genteel people would consider the cut-off time for the unannounced pop-in. After all, sparks do fly.