So, I was chatting with my wife and daughter this past weekend. My daughter is a year or two into her new life as a young New York City professional, and figuring out all that good (and not so good) stuff: office mates and office politics; kind bosses and the other kind of bosses, long hours and happy hours, etcetera.
At one point in the conversation my wife says to me: “Did you ever tell Maddy about ‘The Interview’?
I have to think for a moment and say “No, I think it was one of those stories that she had to be at least 18 to hear, and to be honest, I mostly forgot about it myself ….”
“Tell her”, says my better half.
So I do:
I graduated from college in January 1983, rather than spring of 1982 as I was supposed to. I blew out my knee in a late season lacrosse game two weeks before senior finals, and missed all of my tests (and graduation) while in-hospital. I had to come back in the fall to retake the classes. I graduated in the middle of a cold winter, and in the middle of an even colder Recession.
I could not find a job, at all. I tried, I really did. No internet back then; one had to wait for the Sunday Classifieds for new job listings. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living; an English Lit major (Help Me! Help Me! Help Me!), I figured I’d graduate and go to work at something, anything.
I tried to bust down the door to IBM (at that time, the equivalent of breaking into Fort Knox with a pea-shooter. It was like invading a foreign country without a map.) I wrote about a thousand letters to Reader’s Digest. I walked into the main offices of Con Ed, Pepsi, Merrill Lynch, and AT&T: all of the Westchester County blue chips. When my calls and letters were so emphatically ignored I just showed up at their door and asked if I could speak to Human Resources. It usually didn’t go so well.
In the meantime I drove early morning delivery trucks (for The Penny-Saver, an Animal Hospital-Medical Lab, and a Magazine Rack Wholesaler); I was a substitute teacher at Panas, and Lakeland, High; and I was a “Nautilus Instructor” at various local gyms. (Remember Nautilus?) And I did about a thousand temp jobs through the various placement agencies, in the hope of getting a foot, any foot, in the door…any door.
Months went by, then the summer, and then the fall. Winter came and went again.
By this time my buddies were all making head-way in their respective careers. Farley was at IBM; so was Casey, and Doctor No. Dre was at Merrill Lynch, I think; Boney A was a rising star in the Direct Marketing Industry. Reilly worked for the D.A.’s Office in Yonkers. KD was a young Captain in Korea; Neck was seeing the world in the Air Force. Spanky had his own Auto Body Shop, a house, and a new wife(!)
And I was a part-time sub, making minimum wage ($3.35 an hour in 1984) on an as-needed basis at my old high school. To say I was desperate for a full time job would be a vast understatement.
One Sunday an ad in the NY Times caught my eye: “Full Time Manager-Adult Only Nightclub”. I knew that I knew nothing about night clubs, but at 23 I figured I was at least probably an adult. I had a sense something was amiss, but hey, I needed work. I answered the ad, and was called in for an Interview.
On the appointed day I arrived (dressed in a suit and tie) to the given address: a non-descript brownstone somewhere in mid-town Manhattan. Inside there were about 10 to 15 guys in a room, standing in a line facing a guy sitting at a card table/desk.
I waited for my turn, and handed my resume to the guy sitting at the desk. He studied me for a moment and said: “You got college, huh?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?
“I need a job.”
“Uh-huh. OK. If we need ya we’ll give ya a call. Bye”.
Interview over.
The next day I get a call, and a rough voice tells me to come to a certain address on such and such a day to talk with so and so about “that job thing”.
And I show up, again in a suit and tie, somewhere else in mid-town Manhattan, and there’s a skinny guy leaning up against a stoop out front. Looks a lot like Fredo (John Cazale) in The Godfather. “Follow Me” he says. And I do.
And we go upstairs into a very dark room, and my eyes adjust a bit and I see that there are about five or six scantily dressed women—very scantily dressed—and I think “Eureka!”
And my mind is racing and I’m caught somewhere between joy and despair and Fredo is talking to me and I don’t hear a word he’s saying. I’m staring at the girls and they are staring at me.
And as I stare and Fredo talks, I see the look in their eyes change from utter boredom, (‘just another John’—no pun intended), to (as they slowly realize what I am actually there for)…to, well…picture a room full of napping cats who suddenly awake to find a juicy little mouse directly in their midst. I thought their eyes might fall out of their skulls. One actually blurts out “It’s gonna be HIM!!!?”
And Fredo is still talking and I’m still not listening. I’m really thinking furiously now. And staring. I’m 23 years old, just a hick from Peekskill.
If ever there was the proverbial good angel versus bad devil discussion going on in real life, this was it.
‘Can you do this, John?’
‘Hell Yes!’ Then, ‘Hell No!’
‘Should I do this, John?
‘Hell Yes!’ Then, ‘Hell No!’
‘John, there is a room full of naked girls here, right in front of you. And you’re gonna be their…their…Manager.’
‘Hell Yes!!’ Then, ‘Hell No!!’
‘But John you need a job, like really, really badly. Like, now. And the money...’
‘Hell Yes! Then, ‘Hell No!’
Now Fredo is showing me around the place. Laundry room. Kitchen. Bathroom. And he keeps repeating something over and over again. And I finally tune-in to him, and he’s leaning into me and saying: “Nevuh, evuh make friends wit da girls. You unnerstan?! Nevuh, evuh, evuh trust‘em.”
And I finally say something:
“I can’t do this.”
And he stares at me goggle-eyed.
“What?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Why the @*#% not?!! This is a %#@%$ good job!”
Now he looks like he wants to hit me.
And I walk out. And he’s yelling something, but I don’t hear him. And my ears are ringing like a bell, and my feet are like lead, and my head is just about dragging down on the ground. And I trudge all the way back to Grand Central Terminal, and ride that lonely midday Hudson Line train all the way back to Peekskill: the longest walk, and longest ride, perhaps of my entire life.
Even now I can feel that hopeless pit in my stomach: ‘What the heck am I gonna do? What the heck CAN I do?’
Two weeks later I was offered a full-time job as a Production Assistant at Robert Maxwell’s old medical journal-publishing firm, The Pergamon Press in Elmsford, NY. |
