Cafe Borgia
Dear Diary:
I had a cappuccino at Cafe Borgia on Bleecker Street 40 years ago. It was summer, and I was sitting inside a cafe.
The windows were open. Outside the one near me, two men were talking and smoking cigarettes. One had red hair and was very beautiful. When his friend walked away, I leaned out the window and asked if I could have a cigarette.
He offered me a pack. I took one, and he lit it for me. His friend soon returned, and they resumed their conversation.
When I was ready to leave, I stopped by their table and suggested we grab a drink at Jimmy Day’s a few blocks away.
We did, his friend eventually left for the Bronx and a year later the redhead and I were married.
PS I never smoked before and never will again.
– Robin Kornhaber
The hesitation blues
Dear Diary:
It’s hot on the platform. Uptown 1 comes, and I’m moving.
A man sitting to my left has earbuds in. I look over his shoulder, straining to see what he hears. It is one of my biggest flaws. I’m not a music snob, but I’m into music. I don’t recognize the song, but the title is romantic-sounding, and the album art is colorful.
I return to my own phone and shuffle through my “favorite” songs. I start a sudoku game. At 86th Street, I look at the man on my left. He is also playing sudoku.
People come and go. There should be an eight in the middle left square of the top right cell of his game. I almost tap her shoulder to tell her, but I hesitate. I’ll tell him when I get off.
110th Street. We are both engrossed in our games. People get off; People move on. As the train is about to leave the station, he jumps to the door before I can say a word.
There is no sound in my ears. I put my music on hold a long time ago. I see the darkness creeping past. The train slows to a stop.
116th Street. I disembark, climb the steps and quietly emerge into the light.
– Lauren Zhang
stagehand
Dear Diary:
I sat on a bench waiting for the M66 after watching “Orfeo ed Euridice”. at the Metropolitan Opera. A tall man in jeans and a black t-shirt sat next to me.
“You were just at the opera?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m a stagehand.”
Stagehand! He might even have said he was Pavarotti himself. I was in awe. Star-struck.
Set for “Orfeo ed Euridice”. Consists of two multi-story structures manually pushed by stagehands.
“Were you one of the ‘pushers’?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
I proceeded to ask him questions about the set, all of which he politely answered in detail.
“When I was a kid,” he said at one point, “I sang in the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus, even with the likes of Kathleen Battle and Pavarotti.”
“As I got older,” he continued, “I knew I didn’t have the voice for a professional career and moved on to other work. About 12 years ago, I found myself missing Matt so much that I became a stagehand. And changed careers. I couldn’t be happier to be back on stage.”
– Dottie Jeffries
Expert I
Dear Diary:
I was riding an elevator in a building in the Flatiron district to meet a photographer friend in the 1970s. At the same time an old lady wearing a long brown overcoat and carrying a large shopping bag walked by.
She pressed the button for the floor where I was supposed to meet my friend. When the lift opened, I found myself following her to the office number she had given me.
It had a Dutch door that opened in the top half, a small counter in the bottom half, and a sign that it served professional photographers only. In the space outside the door, I could see large cameras on tripods and related gear.
The woman reached the counter and touched the stem of the call bell. A clerk appeared and, with the air of a maître d’ in an upscale restaurant, asked what she was looking for.
“I want to see the Sinar camera,” she said.
“Do you realize it’s a professional view camera?” The clerk replied in a polite tone. “Do you know anything about view cameras?”
The woman pulled herself up.
“My name is Berenice Abbott,” she said, “and I’m an expert at it!”
– William Howes
Rerouted
Dear Diary:
I boarded the C train at the Jay Street-Metrotech station and saw an old woman who looked lost.
I asked if she was, and she said she had taken the train to Manhattan but was now confused because of the route all weekend.
I offered to help him.
“You out of town?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “indeed I am—from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.”
– Keyho tea
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