I looked up the movie listings and saw that it was at Quad Cinema (my old neighborhood). Living now on the UES, the West Village seems like another state. I'll get around to it I thought, and put it off. When I finally found the time, the only place it was playing in was Floral Park. If the WV was another state, Floral Park was another country.
And to make matters more complex, it was the last day before Advanced Style was to advance on to Massachusetts. Yes, I could have gotten the DVD but this film seemed too important not to watch in cinema for the first time. So I googled how to take a bus from 57th and Mad all the way to Floral Park.
I hadn't taken an MTA bus in years. As a teen, I'd witnessed such an unpleasant exchange between a bus driver and a girl my age, that I later preferred subways, railroads, and taxis. She boarded and asked him what time it was. He was astonishingly surly and snapped that drivers weren't allowed to talk to passengers. Yes, I'd seen Ralph Kramden as a child, but his misanthrope ways were confined to the television screen.
Well, the girl - before hopping off the bus - told him to "go get a life." And he yelled, "go get a watch!" Had I been older, I would have roared with laughter. But back then, I was very sheltered and the event left me with a phobia. The omnibus is ominous. The omnibus is ominous.
With a copy of my mass transit directions, printed and stapled (incorrigible nerd), I waited nervously at the bus stop. I would have been more at ease waiting for a flight to Italy than this.
If I could affect a foreign accent, I would pass off as a tourist and be free to ask the most ridiculous questions without embarrassment...Is this the correct side of the street to stand going outbound? Does the bus make every stop? And what if I don't have enough for the fare on my Metrocard? I only have cash. Wait, I have a silver dollar. Can you take a look at this coin - is it a dollar? Will that fit in the coin slot? The girl standing in front of me answered all my tedious inquiries with so much kindness, I was touched.
My stop was "Little Neck Pkwy / Grand Central Pkwy". It just didn't seem right when I read the walking part of the directions. But I figured if Hotstop dot com tells me it's my stop, it has to be okay.
Well, it wasn't okay. Especially in the dark. I put on my google GPS navigator and started walking along what seemed like a service road with tall hedges on the right. Perfect opening scene for a tragic, heavy, and dramatic NBC Monday night special from the 80's. (You know, M.A.D.D.: The Cindy Lightner Story, The Burning Bed, etc). Mondays are bad enough. I never understood why they aired them on that night of the week.
Looking at the moving GPS dot, I realized I'd somehow passed the path to the right. Of course I did. It was a locked service gate to a hamlet / golf course. Trying to go around the compound would further jeopardize my personal safety as well as arriving on time. So I decided to climb over the 10-ft gate in my Prada high-riders.
Abduction on a service road vs. scrapes from fence-climbing was a no-brainer. Like a jewelry sleuth, I did remarkably well. One heel on the lock, hoist self up, swing one leg over at a time, and crawl like Spider-Man.
Further along, I asked a security guard where the theater was. I hoped he hadn't seen me climb over the gate. He guided me to an elevator and I went underground to find the biggest joke waiting for me. After this extraordinary sojourn, the projection man leads me to a sign that read something like this: "We will not be showing the last movie if there are less than 5 people." The sign might just as well have said: "It's not about the movie. It's all about the journey to the movie you won't get to see."
"I'm sorry. You're the only one here for this. Why don't you just go in there to see the ending of A Trip to Italy?"
This was truly a Seinfeldian moment. "No, no, no. I did not come here to see A Trip to Italy. I just did A Trip to Floral Park on a bus from 57th and Madison. I need to see Advanced Style. Please. I'll run the projector. I'll lock up after it's over. Anything. Please."
"Well you'll miss the last express bus back to Manhattan. How will you get home?"
"I don't know. I'll figure something out." He let me watch the film.
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| this was my day's quest |
The one I took to immediately was Ilona Smithkin. I love her voice and how she cut her hair to make a matching set of eyelashes. How she felt content to just be. At 91, she said it best about living in the present and not thinking too much about the future. "I just don't buy green bananas anymore."
It made me laugh because it's so true. Even as a non-nonagenarian, while you may look and plan ahead for some things in life, you should never buy very unripe bananas.
Who has time to wait around for green bananas? It's not so much the ironic possibility of dying before they ripen.
The real tragedy lies in buying premature bananas, having them stare at you, and eating them before it's time. Because nothing is worse to the palate than a stiff banana with its dry, astringent, pasty taste lingering in your mouth.
And they shouldn't be just yellow either. They should be speckled, mottled, and moled with beautiful brown age spots. Like people, bananas get better with age.
So how did I get back to Manhattan? Someone who watched A Trip to Italy was so intrigued I had made this sojourn to see a movie, he decided to watch it as well. So in the end, I wasn't the only one. He offered a ride on his motorcycle - with an extra helmet of course - to Jamaica Station. Normally, I would have declined. But I felt somewhat transformed by the film. One could live up to a hundred and it would still feel like a blink of an eye. That, and he seemed rather safe.
Zipping along the L.I.E on a motorcycle for the first time, I thought, "This is my life. And I am so thrilled living it to the fullest. At least for today."
Man fully alive is the glory of God ~St. Irenaeus
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