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The Last Neanderthal |
I'm here, and I work at Byrd's. Byrd's Auto Salvage. Near JFK. It's a beautiful place in all seasons, especially winter.
After the ice ages melted away, you got Neanderthals in Europe. We fought hyenas, up close, one on one, and killed them by breaking their thick necks. One on two, two on one. And wolves.
It took at least two of us to kill a bear -- one would stride toward the bear, looking straight into its eyes, dodging the charge if it came, and the other would come in from the side and do the job with a club or a rock.
We worship lightning, and I fear it. I've heard what it can do. I've seen what it can do. I take shelter in an electrical storm.
We have three words for each other -- Brother, Sister, and Haatata. "Neanderthal" is your word; it's a Cro-Magnon word. We call you "Thins."
My ancestors didn't come to The New World until 1870's. Here to New York. It was a different city then, and we had a better go of it around the turn of the century and for a couple of decades after that.
Nothing was the same for us after World War I. A breakdown occurred after WWI, and it became more difficult for us to survive.
Everyone else in our spread-out community (we were represented in all five boroughs and New Jersey) either died, went to prison, or found a way back to Europe. One crossed the Atlantic in a balloon. But I have a Neanderthal mind of my own, and I went against the grain and stayed.
This Thin woman drove in here five months ago, February, looking for some Audi wheel covers we didn't have, and her appearance began the shifts and turns and openings which compel me to tell this story. Nothing's the same anymore.
I didn't actually see her drive in because I was back in the yard working the big magnet, stacking pressed shells. I was up high in the cab with the doors and windows open, and Byrd had just called on the two-way to ask why I didn't close it up and why I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I could hear Henry laughing in the background. It was a slow day and he was being funny; I know that now, but five months ago I really had no idea what he was doing. I'll admit it. I thought he was just asking a couple of dumb questions.
She walked out to where I was, and I looked down at her. She was way down there, in a big fur coat, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting about the wheel covers. Planes were landing. Planes were taking off. I didn't know what was going on. I never talk to customers. Byrd doesn't even want me to answer the phone when I'm in the office. But like I said, it was a slow day. Byrd and Henry were having some fun with this woman. And with me, too. I understand it now.
I told her to ask Byrd about it, but she said he'd told her to talk to me.
"Aren't you cold up there?" she asked, finally.
I told her I liked it this way, to each his own, etc., and then, to get rid of her, I said "Leave your name and phone number with Byrd and I'll see what I can do." I was imitating what I'd heard Byrd say to people.
So I forgot about her as soon as she was out of sight. But when I got into the office after work, Byrd had taken a red magic marker and neatly written her name and number here on the wall of my corner. It's Barbara and 202/634-5789. It's still here. This is my stool. This is where I sit. It's one of my places. I eat and drink here.
Byrd and Henry don't know what to make of me, but I burn four times as much energy as every Thin around here, and I get paid for it. It also keeps me out of trouble. I have impulses that are hard to control. Hard work every day helps, seven days a week. Byrd put me on salary. With benefits. Everybody else is hourly, and Byrd tells them that when they can match me in output, he'll put them on salary too. With benefits.
I only like one Thin, and that's Barbara. That's it. She squirms and makes the sounds that stir me deeply. They reach deep into my DNA.
THE MOVIE:
Review of Johnny Truffles: "Johnny Truffles" is a feast for the eyes, with long lingering scenes and a camera focusing on the details. Shot on location in New York, Miami, the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the Barbary Coast, the Sahara, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Congo, with a sound track touching all great American pop genres from Artie Shaw to Hip-Hop. "Johnny Truffles" is five-star!
Opening: Johnny Truffles coming through the door of his lounge, onto 52nd St., looking good, checking the necktie with his fingertips, looking around, shooting out the shirt cuffs to check the fold, to check the cufflinks, walking to the parking garage where he keeps the Viper, or maybe it's the sedan.
After a while, he breaks into a sidewalk dance move and several faces in the crowd smile quickly or ignore him or light up. Sidney Bechet fades in, "Petit Fleur," or maybe Django Reinhart and S. Grappelli, "Nuages," or Artie Shaw, "Nightmare." Traffic shots, crowd shots. Also rans: Sammy Turner, "Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)" or "Angel Baby." Not the mythic "Harlem Nocturne," but only because it's been worked too hard.
In the garage Johnny slips into the Mustang, Jaguar sedan, Viper, Citroen, or hot-rod Camaro, and heads out into the Manhattan streets, working the engine and driving wildly enough to match any taxi driver.
The story is Johnny going from one situation to the next, no connections necessary, in comic-book style. No backstory or prep necessary, sometimes there's none -- just a shift to a scene and we're in it. It moves like this from beginning to end. Some voice over.
Unusual sort of comedy, but the tone is straightfaced, more like serious homage than a spoof or satire. Contemporary settings.
Johnny's Antagonists: Floyd Z, Hassan Habib Salah and the Chaldeans, Big Bobby Blue, Johnny Nocturne, Cousin Doc Duvalier and the Tonton Macoutes, the Feds (Ross Cutler, others), BATF, NYPD and NYC bureaucrats, the Sheriff of Beaufort County (SC).
Johnny's women: Wanda, Roxanne, Linda, Honeygirl, Rumba Drums, Giselle, Greta, Daphne.
Duttos: Rousseau, Bobby Three-Heads, Jefferson, Dr. YaYa, Frankie Panorama.
Other parts: The Fat Man Down on South Street, Pink Ibo, Lee, Richard the Photographer -- Black Leather Jacket/Coolshades.
Movie fades out to the last half of "In the Still of the Night," from the saxophone solo on out. The last notes of the movie are the Five Satins falsetto -- woo-hooooo, woooo-uh-hooooo, wooo-oooo-wooo-ooooo.
Go to Johnny's, Part Nine