Best Friend for Hire

by Mary Mary Carlomagno

“Thanks, thanks, everyone,” Dave said, “but things don’t just happen. People make things happen. And Jessie, you made this happen,” he said, looking down at me. “Thanks again for coming out, it means a lot.”

  Then he quickly jumped off the stage and into the adoring crowd.

  I was overwhelmed. I was appreciated. Maybe it could all work out after all. But somewhere inside I knew my Pontius Pilate moment would be soon. Any hope I had for a good outcome dissipated when the fire chief who I had successfully dodged for an hour finally caught up with me.

  “Are you in charge of this circus, young lady?”

  “Well, yes, sort of,” I demurred.

  “Well, you just sort of shut down the city of Hoboken to all incoming and outgoing traffic. No one is getting in or out until this party ends. So you might want to end it now.”

  “Okay, sir, but we’re waiting for The Boss. Can’t we have a little more time?” I pleaded.

  “I don’t care if you’re waiting for the Pope, no one is getting in and no one is getting out. Consider yourself shut down. Clear it out now, or we will.”

  I knew it was over, even as I stared at the door and willed Bruce to walk through it. As I looked, the door opened slowly and my heart raced. But it wasn’t Bruce, it was Mark Feist, again. He caught my eye and shook his pack of Marlboros at me. As if he needed another bad habit to make him more repulsive, he even smoked. All this waiting, reminded me of a play I had read in high school drama class called Waiting for Godot, which is about two characters who wait for the arrival of a character named Godot. Godot could or could not be God and he may or may not show up. Godot never showed up, but in the interim, the characters argue, philosophize and even consider suicide as they wait for him or it. I could relate. Like those characters, I was waiting in vain, along with the entire town of Hoboken, for someone who would never show up.

  And just as I was about to get on the stage to announce the bad news, James cued the headliner act. The lights went up and Badlands launched into their cover version of “Cover Me.”

  The times are tough now, just getting tougher.

  This old world is rough, it’s just getting rougher.

  Cover me, come on baby, cover me.

  It took all of three lines for the crowd to realize that they were listening to a cover band, a very good cover band, but it was not Bruce. Bruce, like Godot, was a no-show. The disappointment in everyone’s eyes was apparent. They realized that booing a Bruce cover band was not in good form, so they politely listened along. Some people snuck out before they were kicked out. Others looked around, confused and dejected. Some were too drunk to realize anything at all. The media took some photos and then most of them left as well, even most of the stringers.

  Not only had I exposed the bar to two possible lawsuits, the first from the bloody- nosed girl who threatened to sue the bar from her stretcher and the second, which I was sure would be forthcoming, from the CBS reporter who’d been manhandled and tossed on the street by Maggie. But I had also alienated the mayor, which left her no alternative but to shut us down. As the crowd dispersed, some of them even demanded their money back. Grumbles of “bummer,” “let down,” and “buzz kill” were overheard as they were marched out. Daniel and Bertram managed the crowd control along with Maggie and two stringer photographers who had now become her groupies. Dave avoided making any eye contact with me at all as Lively led him to the upstairs office to do God knows what. Derek and Allison were led out by a fireman and waved at me as they left. Somehow I had managed to disappoint everyone. I was at a personal low point as I apologized to whomever would listen at the door, but most of these stragglers just wanted out. The firemen led everyone out on to the street and back to their fruitful lives. My life at the moment had hit rock bottom. And as if I did not feel bad enough, even Corbin Pennington had had enough of me. He looked at me with a “shame on you” look on his face and, before I could open my mouth, he ripped the plaque from out of my hands and simply said while he shook his head, “You won’t be needing this anymore.”

  The fight or flight impulse is scientifically described as the body’s automatic response to impending attack or harm. Some may choose to fight, to dig in, to stick around and weather the storm, or some other display of sporty heroism that you might see in a movie like Rudy or Hoosiers. But this wasn’t a movie, and I was too tired to stick around and fight. When confronted with the last few months of harmful situations, namely single-handedly ruining my friend’s wedding, burying a historic landmark bar, trashing any semblance of a love life and sabotaging my new career, I felt like I had no other choice but to take flight or, in my case, to take a flight.

  That would have been a great plan if I had enough money to buy an actual plane ticket. But I didn’t, I had about $60 for my trip, so flight was not an option, at least via plane. I packed a bag and headed out, impulsively, not really knowing where I would go. I just needed to take action and go somewhere, to distance myself from the misery and failure. I wanted out; I had officially said “uncle” to an uncaring universe.

  If you are down and out, there is nothing that makes you feel even worse than bus travel. It’s the most time-consuming, least glamorous, cheapest way to travel. Planes have glamorous jet-set efficiency, trains hold a romantic cross-country allure, but buses are common, just a down-and-dirty way to get from point A to point B.

  The Port Authority bus terminal on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan is a dismal place despite recent upgrade attempts to humanize the once crime-ridden concourse. But no amount of Au Bon Pains, Tie Racks, and Aunt Annie’s were going to lift my spirits. Even the overbearing classical music provided no solace to my troubled escape. In the newly remodeled waiting room, I licked my wounds and reviewed my options. I had about $67 for my trip, which is actually quite a lot for bus travel. If you had a very flexible travel itinerary, you could board a Peter Pan bus and get to Boston for $1. As I tried to come up with a reason to travel to Boston, I looked at my fellow commuters, who all moved with their own purpose. An elderly woman headed for a visit with her grandchildren, two coeds returned to college after a weekend at home, a young couple gathered their twin boys and gear and dashed off to their gate. They all seemed to be living better, more purpose-filled lives than mine. I drank my oversized Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in an effort to stay warm in the sub-zero bus terminal.

  The newly installed televisions flashed the news of the day. The world’s complicated stories were distilled down to a 60-second sound bite. Images of a train derailment in China cut to the English royal family christening a ship and then back to unrest along the Gaza Strip, each given equal gravity, about 20 seconds worth, give or take. The news dulled my senses momentarily, so much so that I might have fallen asleep, because what happened next seemed dreamlike.

  Suddenly and without warning, the Governor of New Jersey was in front of me. He even whispered my name.

  “Pssst. Hey, Jessie, over here.” I could see that he was motioning to me from the television screen. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed, but no one apparently did. Since the governor of New Jersey doesn’t usually communicate through a television screen in the middle of the Port Authority, I did what anyone would do in that situation. I ignored him. I tried to avoid eye contact, but the governor was persistent and adopted his usual persuasive conversational style—he hollered as if I had just cut him off on the Garden State Parkway.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you. Eyes in front. Eyes in front.” He meant business. And I knew better than to ignore the man who had gained national recognition as a feisty advocate for his state in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. He wasn’t going away, that was for sure. His abrasive style was often spun in the media as strong leadership skills, but despite the public relations designed to humanize him, I felt bullied. I pointed to myself and looked around for a moment as if to say, “Who, me? Are you really talking to me?” Impatiently, he raised his voice. He did not like to be kept wa
iting.

  “Yeah, you. You, the one from New Jersey. What are you doing? We don’t bail out, we show up. We don’t give up, we get up. If it’s a choice between fight and flight, we fight.”

  Had he read my mind about the fight or flight thing, or what?

  “We don’t care what people think of us, we know the truth. We band together; when the going gets tough, we DON’T get going. We are from New Jersey, we stay right where we are.”

  And as if making a personal plea to me alone, the governor asked, “So where are you going? You can’t leave. We won’t let you. Now get back there.” And he shook his chubby fingers at me and pointed toward the door.

  I thought to myself, there, where? Get back where? But the governor had disappeared just as mysteriously as he had arrived. I looked down at my nearly empty coffee and inspected its contents; maybe caffeine is more harmful than I thought. When I looked up again, one of those state tourism commercials was on, a lovely montage of a boardwalk sausage stand, a cranberry bog, and a panoramic shot of the Statue of Liberty (which technically is in New Jersey) against the background music of that Bon Jovi song about not being able to go home. All pretty ironic, really. But before I could get my head around my real or imagined conversation with the governor and the expensively produced tourism commercial which extolled the handful of reasons to visit my home state, there was breaking news on the screen, a live report from Eyewitness News. I looked closer and recognized a familiar scene. The camera zoomed in on The Garage sign and then widened out to a shot of Washington Street, the sawhorses still in place from the fundraiser the night before, the crowd still gathered as if they had stayed there overnight.

  “Eyewitness News is coming to you live from Hoboken,” a peppy midday reporter shouted so she could be heard over the large crowd that was lined up outside the bar.

  “…where Bruce Springsteen has made a surprise appearance. Fans of The Boss will remember that he filmed the “Glory Days” video here in the mid-1980s. When he heard about this New Jersey rock institution being closed, he tweeted a message to his followers promising a free concert to save the landmark and asked for their support. The first hundred people would be treated to a free show.”

  The reporter cut to the original footage of Bruce’s video and then back to the chaotic but jovial crowd on Washington Street. It was kind of like a flashback to the confusing events of the fundraiser.

  “So what do you think about Bruce showing up here?” the reporter asked an optimistic fan, clad in an oversized black shirt with a younger Bruce’s image on it.

  “We knew he would come. We would have waited all night. We thought it would be yesterday, but we knew he’d be here sooner or later.”

  It took me a moment to process what was happening, and then I leapt to my feet and searched for the door. I dug through my suitcase to find my phone, which I saw had messages and texts from everyone I knew, including Emily, who sounded chipper despite the way we’d left things. In the few short hours away, I had missed five calls from Maggie, ten calls from Bertram, a retweet from James, and three hang-ups from Dave. And now Bruce was at the bar, mid-concert, and I was sitting in the middle of Port Authority destined for parts unknown. Suddenly, possessed with purpose, I ditched my super-sized coffee, gathered my bag, and, with phone in hand, ran full speed to the nearest exit. Outside the Port Authority, on the street, I looked for a cab to take me across the river. Bus travel might have been cheaper, but money was no longer an issue, I had to get back. I just hoped I wasn’t too late.

  The first two taxis I approached rolled up their window and drove away speechless when I asked them if they would drive me all the way back to Hoboken. The third was more receptive. This negotiation is common among cabbies, who never want to travel to New Jersey. There is some mystery and confusion about cabbies crossing the state line, the general rule of thumb is that they can drive you there, but cannot pick up a fare to come back into Manhattan. This notion only reinforces the idea of New Jersey being somehow a one-way destination that even cabbies hesitate to travel to. But for me, that was all I needed, a one-way trip to Hoboken regardless of the cost. When you do find the right cabbie, be prepared to pay double or triple the amount that a 12-minute fare in the city would cost. Even with that incentive, drivers are reluctant to cross the river, so it often takes the right offer and the kind of person who is apt to ignore the rules to earn a little cash.

  “Forty bucks to Hoboken?” I asked.

  “Fifty plus the toll,” he said in a heavy Jamaican accent.

  “Fifty dollars, really? How about $50 with the toll?”

  “Plus the toll,” he volleyed back.

  “Okay, fine, okay. Just go!” I hopped into the backseat of the Ford Hybrid Escape.

  He tore down 31st Street and cut west across to Tenth Avenue, which took about five minutes, and suddenly we were in the Lincoln Tunnel. And just a few minutes later, we are out of the tunnel and making the turn at the Hoboken sign that takes you right into town. The ride took about 10 minutes, but I quickly calculated that that could be half of a “Rosalita” or part of “Jungleland,” so time was of the essence. In the next 10 minutes, I texted Bertram to tell him about my arrival, so that he could get me in.

  “Park on 12th and come up Hudson, I will meet you at the back door. J”

  It was a good thing that he had given me that instruction, because there was no way to get close to the bar. The roads were again closed to traffic and crowds of people lined the streets for blocks around the bar.

  “Just drop me here,” I ordered the cabbie and quickly handed him $60, which, for the record, left me with just $7 to my name.

  He screeched to a halt and I sprinted the four blocks to the bar with my wheeled suitcase in tow.

  “Just in time.” Bertram rushed me into the back of the bar, where Bruce was three songs into his short set. The back door slammed as Bruce approached the mic and he looked back at the flash of daylight that opening the back door had let into the dark room.

  “Thanks for joining us,” Bruce nodded.

  “You know I played here once before,” he said with typical Bruce understatement as the crowd cheered.

  “And I think it’s important to recognize that. But it’s more than the recognition, isn’t it? We get recognized all the time for what we do. I just knew I couldn’t pass up a chance to play here again. Places like The Garage are important. They’re important to keep around and we need to recognize that too, don’t we? But it’s more than the recognition you get when you do something right, it’s more about doing the right thing. That’s what it’s about.”

  And as if time stood still, Bruce Springsteen looked directly at me and smiled. I just stood there, motionless, letting everything sink in, and for a moment it was just Bruce and me, and everything else went quiet. But when you are in the middle of a Bruce Springsteen concert, which is more like a shared religious experience than a musical performance, you are not alone for long. The band broke into a heavy guitar riff and the magic began. The crowd erupted. I looked around and let them envelope me and I knew that I had finally come home.

  We watched as the last of the cars pulled away from the bar and headed toward the end of Washington Street and out of town. Behind them, a few diehard fans tried for one last photo opportunity. The street cleaners with their heavy wire brushes and power sprayers washed away any evidence of the event that had just taken place. We stood outside the bar and watched for a few moments. The Korean grocer across the street rolled down the metal gate to open his store, oblivious to what had just happened. And then it was just the three of us. I wondered about that time that is spent when you are desperately waiting for something to happen, for something to change; that time seems like eternity when you are waiting. But when the “something” happens, that time feels short, erased as if you never suffered through it.

  We slowly moved inside the bar, to the darkly lit empty ba
ckroom, where the only evidence that was left were some toppled Rolling Rock bottles and an overflowing garbage can of plastic keg cups. It was as if the echo of the music could still be heard, faintly. Bertram, who had made it his habit to quote only Grateful Dead lyrics, chose that moment to share the words of a new inspirational leader.

  “Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny,” he said, quoting one of the seminal lines from “Rosalita.”

  It was actually funny in a way, funny strange, really. Because it was like a karmic switch had been thrown and our lives changed in minutes. Bruce’s appearance provided good publicity for the bar, which was like a Teflon coating against anyone in opposition. Going against Bruce was bad for business, any business, and that included Tot Land. Andres Schmidt was going to have to find another place for the town’s tiniest residents to hang out. He called Dave and told him, “Maybe you’re not so bad after all, you can stick around, for now.” I suspected that his persuasive daughter had something to do with his change of heart. Perhaps the combination of Dave’s charm and the arrival of a rock superhero had won them over in the end. Whatever the reason, The Garage had been saved, creating a dividing line in The Garage’s history as the time pre-Bruce and the time after-Bruce, kind of like BC and AD was for Jesus.

  “Congratulations, guys. It worked. It really worked,” I said, convincing myself as much as them that the reality matched our shared vision.

  “Okay, then…that is that. I’m gonna grab my stuff.” And I headed to the office.

  Downstairs, the sounds of cleanup were noisily underway, beer glasses clanged together, bar seats shuffled across the floor and tables slid back into the dining room.

  Outside, the street cleaning crew gave orders to some pajama-clad residents, who shuffled to move their cars from one side of the street to another to avoid being booted. Being booted was a new convenient way for cars to be fined without having to tow them. The police put a large metal device on your car wheel, which can only be removed by paying the fine and entering a secret code. It’s kind of like The Amazing Race of car ticketing, where you get clues as you go along. The annoying part of this new system is that the person has to return the boot once it is removed, which seemed a little mean, if you ask me. From the sound of the sirens and car alarms, it seemed like everyone in town was anxious to get things cleaned up and back to normal.