Its become ritual now---maybe the only ritual available to me at this time. But after the chaos of the early morning hours and the darkness outside---cityboy has only one goal. His coffee at the grocery store on the corner of 72nd street and West End Avenue. As I brush my teeth, shower and shave around 4:40 I long for the light outside, which means it is okay for me to begin my morning journey--my first steps out of the apartment---my first steps into the real world. I leave the house, walk the four blocks, put my mask on and ask for a large coffee. The man who makes my coffee speaks none or very little English---it doesn't matter--he is simply part of the ritual. I pay my two dollars, walk past the homeless man who sleeps on the corner, open the coffee and take a sip. Hopefully he has made it as i wish, a little light, but hot. Today it was perfect.
On the trip back to the apartment my mind wanders--that is easy since there is usually no one on the street at this time---today I thought about Richard II, the Shakespeare play. Do you know it? It is written all in verse--the language and writing are incredibly beautiful. I remember reading it in 1980, just as I was getting back into theater and being enthralled. I first saw the play in (can you believe it) 1957 when the Old Vic company, then representing England's most prestigious theater came to the Winter Garden theater. John Neville played Richard, it was long and hard for me to take---I was probably too young to absorb it all. Now a television production starring Maurice Evans enters my mind---I was probably even younger then---I remember Evans' last moment, fighting back against his assassin, Exton, who has been sent by the new King, Henry Bolingbroke, to kill him.
More memories: one of the earliest novels that I read as a child (adult novels, I did not read children's books) was called Catherine. It was by Anya Seton, about Catherine Swynford, the commoner who ended up as the third wife of John of Gaunt--Henry Bolingbroke's blood father.
In my second year at Hopkins I met S.....; she was also a Sophmore studying at Goucher. colIege. I remember she also had read Ms. Seton's novel---it gave us something to talk about on an early date S...and I dated in the first part of my Junior year at Hopkins---I remember we had one incredible date---on a Friday evening---I can still see her getting off the bus at Greenmount Avenue in 33rd street as I waited for her.
We had dinner at a nearby place, then went to a movie at the Senator---it was the movie of The Miracle Worker . I had dated before---but this time I felt that S...all during the date..was bonding with me in a way that was totally different from what I had experienced on dates before No gawkiness or strained conversation here---she Wanted to be with me, by the time we were in the lobby of the movie theater waiting for the movie to start, I felt a kind of shared energy with her that I had never felt before. It was relaxed, We simply belonged together. Without any touching, she had given herself to me. An indelible memory.
We had several other dates after that, some of them very physical---in the end, we separated---or she decided that it was time for her to end the relationship---I was, of course, very hurt. But looking back on it, it doesn't matter---that October afternoon in 1962 was like nothing that had ever happened to me before.
How did I get into this? Well, it does not matter---six minutes after six in the world of 2020.
The rest of the day undefined, as yet---let's stop now, will report soon.
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