Encounters In Grand Central - Part One

I don’t know what came over me the other day, but the moment I saw the little man walking in my direction with his beryl eyes, I was stricken with a desire to scrutinize his every movement. It was late afternoon, a workday, cloudless and bone cold. I crossed Vanderbilt Avenue from Forty-third Street, careful not to slip on the dull, soot-speckled sheet of ice that reminded me of a corroding mirror. The traffic stopped for my traverse, so I picked up my pace to return the courtesy. As I passed through the thin curtain of sunlight that sliced down the centerline of Vanderbilt, I felt the light’s heat peeking through a gap between two tall buildings on the South side of Forty-second Street. I entered shadow again, passing in front of a new dark grey Mercedes-Benz. At it’s wheel was straight shoulder-length hair with a vanguard of bangs, Cleopatra-like, around the pearl-white face of a woman. Large dark glasses shielded her eyes and the tinted windows hid her age. She was wearing red, with lipstick to match.. As I passed in front of her car I instinctively pulled my stomach in and my chin up. She didn’t seem to notice that I was staring at her. Her head did not move a centimeter, and both her bejeweled fair hands in the ten and two positions on the black steering wheel were motionless. The diamond on her right ring finger was almost the size of the old crystal knob on the broken door leading to the cramped bathroom in my Brooklyn apartment. The moment I thought, or fantasized, that she might be following me with her protected eyes, she stepped on the gas pedal, and, after a two second wheel-spin, sped north on Vanderbilt. As I stepped onto the curb on the east side of Vanderbilt, I could see over my left shoulder the New Jersey license plate. I wondered whether she was working or shopping in town.

I entered the car port on the western side of Grand Central Station and walked around a white M.T.A utility truck that yesterday was parked in the same identical location, as if it had been abandoned. I grasped the polished brass vertical handle on one of seven dark oak and multi-windowed doors. The brass burned my gloveless right hand as would be expected on a stingingly clear cold day. I held the door open for a young woman in a yellow ski cap and blue parka with several lift tickets dangling from the bottom zipper. She was precariously holding a baby dressed with so many layers that the baby’s arms were out straight as if they were in casts. She was in an awful rush, looking almost desperate as she ran past me through the door I held open. The baby smiled, as if to thank me, and its little breath was like smoke from a toy train. After four steps and through another set of identical doors, I was inside.

Grand Central Station is my preferred route to the Lexington Avenue subway, which I take twice a day to and from Brooklyn. And this is my preferred entrance which brings you onto the great hall’s western mezzanine. There is a shorter route to my train, but the extra time it takes to pass through the station calms my end-of-the-day nerves better than ten milligrams of valium, a prescription for which my doctor refuses to refill despite my pleas. My pace slowed, and I walked to the top of the staircase that leads to the atrium floor below. I rested my hand on the foot-wide marble banister to the right of the stairtop as I faced it, a position I often take to soak in the drama of the room. My right hand was inches from yellow police tape that was tied to the banister and ran at an angle blocking off most of the southern portion of the mezzanine. There were no chalk lines depicting where a body may have fallen, and no other indication of a crime. I concluded that the police didn’t want people hanging over the edge of the banister or didn’t want homeless people setting up camp at a place with a view.

As I panned this section of the mezzanine on my right, I noticed immediately next to the doors behind me a man sitting on an orange plastic milk crate, his back and head against the granite wall, his eyes closed and mouth open. He wore a light brown corduroy coat with a green cardigan sweater. His feet were flat on the floor in scuffed unlaced black work boots, and his knees and thighs, sheathed by dark brown polyester pants, were spread apart, having fallen to their respective sides. Both his arms dangled straight down to gloved hands whose fingertips were just touching the floor. A wood shoe-shine box, with brushes and cans strewn about, lay at his feet. His face was dark brown, puffy at the cheeks and dusted with grey hair which gave him a soft appearance like a peach. His lower lip was large and moist and exposed pink inner membrane and lower teeth that were black on their sides where each tooth touched the next. His upper teeth were obscured by a thin top lip. It was either lack of business that put him to sleep, or his sleep that caused his lack of business. There was no movement, no breathing that I could tell, in fact no evidence from where I stood that he was sleeping rather than dead. I figured that if he was in the same position tomorrow evening I would know more about his condition.

I heard a woman’s laugh and turned to my left to investigate, leaning my right elbow on the banister at the stairtop. The drinking bar which occupies the northern half of the mezzanine was crammed to the edge with white collar men and women willing to endure what always appears to be a suffocating can of sardines just to have a pre-commute drink. No police tape here. The laugh I heard disappeared like a stone thrown in a rock quarry. Through an opening between that talking heads of upwardly mobile patrons, I discerned a woman sitting at the bar in a grey business suit who had the facial tautness of a just-snuffed guffaw. Her face was rectangular, softened by a rounded chin; cotton-white skin, the kind that marks easily; and large wide lips moistened by clear balm. The tortoise shell glasses, which obscured large dark eyes, and the black-flecked-with-grey straight chin-length hair gave an appearance of intelligence, a middle-age maturity. Her right elbow was on the bar top, her forearm up and her hand sloping down in an arc which ended with her fingertips barely holding the top of a wine glass half filled, I guessed, with Chablis. She alternated between smiling and chuckling as she made circles with her glass and watched the wine twirl. At first I thought her left hand was in her lap. But then it moved with a back and forth stroking-like slowness appearing to caress the thigh of her companion. I backed up a step from the banister to see who the lucky guy was and was irked to discover that he must have been fifteen years younger than me and her. His hair was blond and short, and he had an oval face, not handsome, but jock-like. His face was so clean that it did not appear he ever needed to shave. It was as if he was home from college visiting his mother, except his companion, I thought obvious, was not his mother. I imagined a duffel bag resting at his feet. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a large signet ring on his right finger. I couldn’t get a date when I was his age, and today it would be a miracle for me to meet a middle-aged, intelligent, mature professional woman like the one petting the groin of the college kid. Of course, she might be an idiot and he the rocket scientist, but it didn’t look that way. Most likely he was proficient in other areas where she might have some perverse fantasies.

I turned in frustration to proceed down the staircase, and my motion was helped by a push on my left from a briskly paced woman passing me with great dispatch wearing black boots, long black coat, a black purse to her right, with short burgundy hair and a red hat. As she passed, without a glance over, she said ”sorry” faintly, with more breath than necessary for so short a message. I stopped on the second step down from the stairtop to stare with a sour eye at her burden of accouterments, not to mention the awkward high heels, she glided down the stairs with the speed of a tap dancer, and breezed through Gate 26-27 as if assisted by a strong wind from behind. I had had it with women, for the moment at least.

To Be Continued.

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Lindsay Lohan Brought To Emergency Room Unconscious - Part Three

Continued From Yesterday.

Dr. Sarah Sheehan filled a hyperdermic by stabbing a small glass bottle with the needle.

“I am going to wake her. So tell me, what did she take for her pain? I need to know right now because I am giving her this medication and I do not want it to ract poorly with what she took,” said Dr. Sheehan.

Yikes. Now Harry Morton had to be honest. If he told the doctor a lie, and things went poorly, then he would be responsible. Dammit. Maybe she won’t give a shit where he had gotten the pills. Hell. Just be honest. There are times when you have to be honest.

“Oxycontin,” said Harry. There he said it. But he was not going ot tell the doc about the cocaine. That would be a mistake. She would have to report that one. But they won’t pick it up. The Oxycontin wold cover any sign of cocaine.

“Strong stuff. But this will wake her,” said Dr. Sheehan.

Harry did not know that Dr. Sheehan already suspected it was some kind of narcotic and that what she was giving Lindsay Lohan would not create a problem.

Dr. Sheehan jabbed the needle in Lindsay’s arm and pushed the plunger of the stimulant into her. A huge lungful of rancid air came out of Lindsay’s open mouth with a gurgling sound, as if the air pushed through mucus.

“Where, what, owwww, my arm,” said Lindsay Lohan as she stirred on the gurney.

“I think the arm is broken. We’ll have to take an x-ray. Hi. I am Dr. Sheehan. Your name?”

“What? My name? Is Harry here?” asked Lindsay, her eyes barely open because the lights were bright.

“Yes. I’m here,” said Harry.

“Your name?” asked Dr. Sheehan, who already knew who it was.

“Lohan. Lindsay Morgan Lohan,” said Lindsay.

“Well Lindsay, it appears you may have broken your arm. And it also appears that you have been combining a narcotic with alcohol. You shouldn’t do that. You came in here to the emergency room unconscious but with a strong heartbeat. And you are OK. But you should consider yourself lucky” said Dr. Sheehan.

“Narcotic? I don’t take narcotics,” said Lindsay.

“Your friend here, Harry is it, said you took Oxycontin. That is a very strong and addictive narcotic,” said Dr. Sheehan.

Dammit doc, thought Harry Morton. Did she have to get into this right now. He had introduced Lindsay to Oxycontin a few months ago, and he never fully explained to her that it was sort of a narcotic. But then, Lindsay was not stupid. She read the label. She could read. Harry was sure she had Googled “oxycontin.” It’s not like he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes. Although, he did tell her it that it was no big deal. Of course, he did not really take it. Oh, he told Lindsay he took it when she popped a pill or two. But he didn’t. Harry did not want to get addicted. He knew the stuff was strong. And the whole purpose was really to addict Lindsay. Well, not rally to addict her. Just to control her. To make her want Harry around. And so far it was working. In fact, he could not believe how well it was working. The sex games, the drugs – it all was keeping Lindsay Morgan Lohan close to him.

“Can I get this x-ray like now and get out of here. I want to go home and sleep,” said Lindsay. She was starting to wake up.

Good. Harry saw that the word “narcotic” had not fully landed in Lindsay’s brain, and she was already on to the next topic, which was to move on, get out of where she was, and find some new place to rest and make believe she was healthy.

“I want to take a shower. I have to wash my hair,” said Lindsay.

Great. Great. Now Lindsay was thinking purely of how she looked. The whole talk of drugs is history. At least for now.

“OK. I’ll have the nurse come in to prepare you for an x-ray. But I am gong to have to admit you for one night. You can have a private room. It is very private. And you can take a shower there,” said Dr. Sheehan.

“Thanks. Thank you so much, Doctor,” said Lindsay.

“You’re welcome,” said Dr. Sheehan, who then turned and walked out through the curtain, leaving Lindsay and Harry alone.

“You OK, sweetheart,” said Harry.

“No, asshole. I am not OK. I feel like shit. My arm is killing me. And I am here, back in the fucking hospital,” said Lindsay.

“I love you, Lindsay. And I will take care of you. I will make certain that you get out of here looking great, and you will have like a little cast or bandage on your arm and it will look like a fashion statement. It will be cool, with your long black flowing hair and great clothes with a little wrist cast. The media will love it and think you are strong,” said Harry.

“You think?” asked Lindsay.

“Leave it to me, baby. You will come out of this looking better than before. You are strong. And you are beautiful,” said Harry.

“And talented,” said Lindsay with a smile.

“Of course. And talented,” said Harry.

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Lindsay Lohan Brought To Emergency Room Unconscious - Part Two

Continued From Yesterday.

Harry Morton was not happy that Lindsay Lohan’s unconscious body, not to mention her exposed breast, was being publicly wheeled through a common area of the emergency room. He expected onlookers and photographers and a crowd to gather around his famous girlfriend. But oddly, no one noticed. Everyone seemed to be in their own world of pain and misery, doubled over, holding their arms, blood on shirts, head bandages. Lindsay Lohan with her long black matted hair with one arm dangling off the side of the gurney as it was pushed attracted on one’s attention.

Mario wheeled the gurney into a side room and pulled the white curtain that was suspended on an aluminum track hanging from the ceiling. Harry walked through the curtain.

“The doctor will be here in a minute. What happened?” asked Mario.

“Well, she slipped and hurt her arm and then…” said Harry.

Mario glanced at the girl’s arms. The left one dangling off the side looked bruised and slighted bent.

“This arm?” asked Mario.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“She does not have any bruise to her head. Any idea why she is unconscious?” asked Mario.

“Well. Well, you see, she was, well, she was drinking and got a little sloppy. And then in the bathroom she fell. She was unsteady. And that’s when she hurt her arm. She said her arm hurt and she wanted something to get rid of the pain,” said Harry.

“And you are? A relation?” asked Mario knowing full well he was not any relation. By this point, Mario had recognized the girl on the gurney. It was Lindsay Lohan. It was an easy ID once you spent a moment with her. But quite frankly, the girl looked so filthy and trashy that one would miss that a famous and glamorous movie star was lying unconscious on this gurney. Also, Harry, the idiot, brought Lindsay into the wrong emergency room.

“Just a friend. I’m just a friend,” said Harry.

“OK. I will get the doctor,” said Mario as he left through the curtain leaving Harry Morton and Lindsay Lohan alone.

Harry glanced around and saw he had a few minutes. He quickly searched Lindsay’s jean pockets. Her left pocket is where he found it. Lindsay had taken to carrying around the small solid gold vile Harry had given her for the purpose of storing an “on the road” stash of cocaine. In the mad rush to get Lindsay to the car and then to the hospital, he had forgotten all about it. Carrying the unconscious Lindsay Lohan was not as easy as one would think. Though slight, her sizeable breasts and the huge head of hair made the whole move quite awkward. And he was afraid he further damaged the arm when Harry through her into the back seat of his Mercedes.

Harry removed the gold vile filled with cocaine from Lindsay’s left jean pocket and tucked it into his own pocket. Anything else he forget? Think fast, thought Harry.

Dr. Sarah Sheehan walked through the curtain. She was wearing a white gown which was open exposing black slacks and a navy blue blouse, as well as black Nike tennis shoes.

“Hello. I am Doctor Sheehan. So I got some of the story. What did she take for her pain?” asked Dr. Sheehan as she took Lindsay Lohan’s pulse from Lindsay’s left arm that dangled off the side. As Dr. Sheehan took the pulse she visually examined the bruises.

“Well, doc, I told her that they were strong, you know,” said Harry. Should he tell the doctor? And how would he explain how the pills were there. Should he tell her? Damn. Harry had to think fast. But he was good at this. He was good at this.

To Be Continued.

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Lindsay Lohan Brought To Emergency Room Unconscious - Part One

The clock on the emergency room wall read 2:32. That was 2:32 on Sunday morning, September 17th, 2006. This was one of two emergency rooms of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. One emergency room was for the publicity shy emergencies, which were celebrities, the other was for everyone else. But when Harry Morton made a turn onto George Burns Road off Beverly Boulevard, he mistakenly followed the directions to the wrong emergency room, the one for the common folk like you and me. In the back seat of Harry’s black Mercedes Benz SUV was Lindsay Morgan Lohan. Lindsay was unconscious and breathing heavily. The heavy breathing was comforting to Harry. At least Lindsay was breathing. She was alive. And here he was at one of the best medical facilities on the planet earth, so this was all going to be OK. But when Harry pulled up to the front of the emergency room, and ran inside to announce what he had in the back seat, he immediately realized it was the wrong emergency room, the one that was crowded and open and without any security barriers protecting late night celebrity visits.

What the two male nurses found in the back seat of Harry’s car was a white girl with long black hair in a white bra, the strap hanging off her right shoulder. The girl was wearing fayed blue jeans, the zipper half-way pulled up exposing pink underpants. The girl was lying on her side and the long disheveled black hair was splayed all over her face and back seat. The girl’s right arm was hanging off the seat, her left arm pinned under her motionless body.

One of the nurses. Mario, took a pulse and then started to drag the body out of the car. The male nurses on employ were large and could pretty much handle any unconscious body, no matter how large and heavy. But this one was maybe 100 pounds, at best, much of the weight located in the large breasts. The girl’s feet were bare and appeared to have dried vomit on them. As they dragged the girl out of the back seat by pulling on her legs, the hair fell back off the girl’s face. Mario saw an open mouth with dried vomit on the cheeks and eyes that were oddly half open, though the girl was clearly unconscious.

“Is she OK?” asked Harry.

“I do not know,” said Mario.

Mario picked up the girl who was top heavy and with the assistance of the other male nurse, they placed the unconscious girl on a gurney. Mario was a tad rough with the maneuver, purposely, seeing if the girl could be jostled awake. But it did not happen. She was as limp and cooked cappelini, and when the girl settled on her back on the gurney, her bra partially fell off exposing her right breast, which bounced like Jello as Mario pushed the gurney quickly through the emergency room sliding glass doors. Harry Morton followed from behind.

To Be Continued.

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George Bush And Donald Rumsfeld Prefer Iraqi Chaos to Iraqi Democracy – Part Five

Continued From Yesterday.

“If Iraqis want security, then chaos will certainly not provide it,” said Rumsfeld.

“Would you say that there is already chaos in Iraq?” asked Bush.

“No. Iraq has significant problems, but chaos is not one of them,” said Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld knew this was a philosophical discussion. Afterall, a house full of kids can be chaotic. It is how you use the word. The word “chaos” was too general. Overused. And Rumsfeld was not about to admit that his military planning had led a nation into the chaos referred to by the President.

“Wrong. There is chaos in Iraq. Besides, the Iranians are starting to piss me off,” said Bush.

“Mr. President, I do not feel we should abandon our mission simply because the Iranians are making trouble,” said Rumsfeld. It is not like Rumsfeld had not had these very same thoughts. The Iranians were always annoying. A schizophrenic nation with modern-thinking people and religious fanatics. Unfortunately, the religious fanatics remained firmly in control of things. And now this nutcase Iranian president who was more of a nightmare than Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had grabbed the world stage with almost daily pronouncements. It was a sopa opera. Hugo Chavez was dismissible because his public remarks were so brazenly self-serving that he was mocked by most of the intelligentsia of Latin America. But the Iranian President spoke with some sense of sobriety with arguments that sometimes made sense. The guy even had the temerity to send out personal letters to Bush and Blair. Iran gave Rumsfeld a headache. Negotiating with the Iranians was like a Gordian knot, twisted with half logic and stalling tactics and then mixed with a recipe of hope to be dashed again with new demands. There was an old saying in the Middle East that the Israelis and the Iranians were the most difficult negotiators, and the Lebanese were the only ones who could mediate them. That was a very old saying given the current events. Though Rumsfeld admired Lebanese businessmen. They were smart and sensible and always hungered for finding common ground.

“Yoo hoo. Earth to Donald. Earth to Donald. Are you there” asked Bush.

“Sorry. I was…I was thinking about what you were saying. Maybe you are right. Maybe chaos is like the power of a screaming baby. Everyone runs around trying to deal with the screaming baby. It motivates everyone. We let the Sunnis and the Shia go at it with each other like a cockfight, as you say, then that screaming baby will be dealt with soon enough,” said Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld was sorry he said it. On some level, this was true. Maybe a nation had to go through a re-birth, and birth was painful, lethal at times.

“You agree?” asked Bush.

“Yes,” said Rumsfeld.

Bush looked down at the cockroach and it was gone. He pushed the chair back to see if he could spot the German cockroach. If there is one thing that was troubling, it was a cockroach roaming around underfoot. It could crawl up your pant legs, get into drawers. They were ugly sons of bitches.

“Anything wrong, sir?” asked Rumsfeld.

“No. No. Just making sure it’s safe,” said Bush.

“Safe, sir?” said Rumsfeld.

“Nothing. Listen, talk to your guys about pulling back to Kurdistan. The more chaos there is at the doorstep of Iran, the more that makes me feel safe. And I want to feel safe, you understand me, Donald, my good man,” said President George W. Bush.

“Yes. I got it,” said Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld knew that the Pentagon would resist pulling back to Kurdistan. What the Pentagon wanted to do was pull out completely. Pulling back to Kurdistan would box the military into a northern province. But he would have meetings, and they would all talk, and the Iraqi question would remain unanswered. At least for the time being.

“The White House needs to be exterminated. We need an exterminator. There are cockroaches in the Oval Office, dammit,” said President George W. Bush as he was looking under the Presidential desk.

Donald Rumsfeld sat in his chair quietly waiting to be dismissed. He wanted to be dismissed. There were things to do. Or, more accurately, not do. It would be another day of not doing anything.

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