II
During the warmup for the partita, the six foot plus Irish attendant, bristling in his slender crew cut, those spectacles gleaming at the presence he ensnared on the mini white screen, the digitals and codes running the KLM rapids.
"Tell me Major Fenton, what line can you read"? he asked of the 7 retina lined inner sanctum, the balcony theatrics long since gone they way of "Goodbye Mr Chips" the "you get the drift" pioneer Marvin Kotchman, following his karma to its inevitability.... starting in a furnished cellar off Church and Ocean Avenue hundreds of thousand years age when he and his Harvard legalese spouse were ready to spring Marvin’s presence on the RKO Kenmore denizens down the street.
III
The tallish insouciant attendant flipped the light, Major Fenton, a patient, since the balcony morphed as a medicare and medicaid rendevous for KLM’s reputed
empathy and smiling light touch.
Indeed! As Marvin would say "You get the drift?" whether its bifocals, cataracts glaucoma field test...they came in their huddling droids: canes,walkers, wheel chairs ,sitting in the once reality scene of the Midwood movie house’s balcony metamorphosis..
"Goodbye Mr. Chips"
IV
The big screen and the balcony of the Midwood movie house’s reality scene may
have been disguised and masked as the elevator brought the patients to the once "necking" balcony.for adolescents chasing their dreams.
That early morning Friday,("GBF") the crew cutted "highly intelligent" but guarded in his lomy parlance murmured "Come with me,"as he escorted Major Fenton to the next tier of patient rapport.... sparkling ego walls, framed with KLM pedigree academic, surfing for credibility..
V
Major Fenton and the very quiet minded Peter O’Toolish had first broken the ice two years earlier, while the retina aide de camp has rubbed their sneakers at the Avenue J bus stop.
"Going my way"’? asked the Major, scuffling his sneaker against the in house specialist’s sneaker.
"Oh hello," said t1he taciturn crew cutted a la Dagwood Bumsted fellow, still in his blue scrubs, covered up by his overcoat...."Going back to my apartment in Bensonhurst" he continued, sizing
the Majopr’s fated appointment with KLM’s chosen ones.
"Hjow’d your day go?" asked Major Fenton, his eyes searching the Avenue J traffic for a B 11," putting out his right hand grasp, symbolic of fellowship and fraternity.
VI
In the ensuing two years, the two humans met on those monthly wet maculate appointed injections by the retina specialist, whose resume now graced the 7 maned KLM marquee, that old Midwood cinema coming attractions and "Goodbye Mr Chips" now showing.
"Y’ge tthe drift?," asked the Marvin in absentio.How sweet it is," bellowed Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) from his post atop Niagara Falls, where his own post retirement was playing out,the town of Niagara reachedg out with a 2 hundred thousand $ grant to the "Honeymooners" to rehabilitate Niagara and the Falls in an age where hoineymoons and marriage were under a blitz.
VII
On one occasion, when the Majore and his wife of a nurse shared their space with Dunkin Doughnuts, the gaunt taciturn attendant was having his coffee break. Small talk ensued
with the frau, and his two lady seniors, jawing at his table.
"Two Holocaust survivors," he added, in his monthly sojourn.
"You know what day this is?" askled the Major, changing the repartee from the usual line of brain waves, Ucla’s LSD experiments duringf the 60's.. Goethe’s psychoanalytic study by Dr. Eisler."
"It’s the Pope’s name day. Benedict 16, He had Daniel Barenbaum play Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth....the maestro brought in the musicians into the Vatican."
VII
Major Fenton was anticipating their meeting in the summer heat and humdity of July’s y.......but the taciturn "sir" and crew cutted six footer had split out..
Given his notice to Marvin Kochman’s heirs at KLM.
"Where? Donde ?" the Major asked his femme contempories... champions of Dr. Marvin ‘s scenario.
"Medical school.....his resume accepted by an Israeli school. He was so intelligent ....yet it seemed to me something was lacking .. I don’t know..Bu this balcony wasn’t worth his price of admission....his ticket stub.....
"Goodbye Mr. Chips"
Scenes from the City that never sleeps, July 11,2012
