Birds on a Wire

On the way to the F train stop by Prospect Park, Victor Maisel stopped for coffee at the Two Little Red Hens. A tiny bakery on 8th Avenue, between 11th and twelfth Streets. The morning was cold and there was a short line ahead of him. He scanned the pastries in the display case while waiting to order. 

He was unsure of what he might order or if, in fact, he would order anything other than the coffee. 

A woman wearing a long black broad shouldered cashmere coat was waiting in front of him, tapping her foot in a way Victor found annoying. She reminded him of the tall tightly wound actress in Just Shoot Me. 

He felt like saying to her, ‘There’s really nothing either of us can do to speed things up, so give yourself a break.’ But then he thought, ‘Isn’t it just as foolish of me to be annoyed with her for being annoyed?’ His mother would have told him he was just caught in the finger trap of one of his dark moods.

Just Shoot Me ordered a cinnamon bun and said, “Isn’t that one missing some icing?” “Can I have a different one?” 

“It’s the last one.”

Victor could see that. Surely she had when right in front of Victor’s eyes she had pointed to it, but perhaps, he thought, maybe not. 

“Do you want it or not?”

“Yes, but could you put a little more icing on it?”

She turned back to Victor. “They try make you think it’s the very last one so that you take it even though the reason it’s the last one there is because no one else wanted to take it. But, if it really is the last one, I want it and there’s no reason I can’t have it the way I want it, you know what I mean?”

Victor did know what she meant. One needed to watch out for oneself. No one else will. People take advantage. Treat you badly. Intentionally. Without cause or consideration. 

A middle-aged man in a newsboy hat and a gray gabardine overcoat was sitting at the window counter facing the avenue. He looked at Victor, casting his eyes upward in a theatrical ‘God help us!’ plea. Which Victor saw as recognition of the shared moment. 

Often, on passing by the shop on his way to work, Victor saw the man in the newsboy hat sitting alone with a coffee cup on the bench in front of the pastry shop or if it was cold or raining, at the window inside, as he was then. The man, who Victor knew as Benjamin, would always lift two fingers and nod as Victor walked by. 

Victor enjoyed the casual familiarity of the simple gesture. 

The young girl behind the counter went to the back of the shop, holding the bun in one hand and the bag in the other.

One morning last spring, Victor brought his coffee out to the bench and squeezed in beside Benjamin’s briefcase.

Benjamin was wearing neatly pressed tweed trousers, a pale blue button-front shirt, open at the collar, a soft brown faux-leather jacket. Eyes lost in thought.

“Oh, hello,” Benjamin had said. “I’m sorry. I was just distracted. I didn’t mean to seem to ignore you.” He moved his briefcase onto his lap.

“Oh, that’s fine. Mind if I sit here?”

“No, no. Not at all.” Which he pronounced as ‘nota-tall.’

Before Victor could think of anything to say, Benjamin said, “What do you do?”

“I’m a medical writer.”

“A doctor?”

“Not a real doctor, as some would say. No. I used to be a college teacher and now I work for a Med Ed company.”

“So, you’re not really a doctor.”

“No, not in the way I think you might mean it. No.”

“I’m a film editor,” said Benjamin.

“That sounds like such a great job.”

“That’s what everybody says.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it sounds a lot better than it is. It’s not glamorous, like you might think. I don’t know any actors or anything like that.”

“Where do you work?”

“At home. All my equipment‘s there.”

“I’d love all that independence. It must be good.”

“It could be, I guess. But it’s, you know, kind of isolating. I mean it’s good in a way. I can work at any time of the day. Start whenever. No distractions. But it’s isolated. You know what I mean?”

“Yes. I can see that.”

“I mean, sometimes there’s no work, and then it’s all high pressure, getting the dailies back at night. I mean that kind of makes it feel less creative, you know. More like a plumber knee-deep in water…” 

“I’ve never worked like that. On my own time. Take the jobs you like. Get them done. Move on. Your own person. I have to be in the office by eight-thirty at the latest every day. They watch you come in. When you leave. You have a certain number of billable hours you have to work each week. Time sheets. Project numbers. The runners bring the job folders in. You sign for them. Then they come pick them up… and it’s not really Med Ed. It’s more like Med Ad.”

“I’d love that. The hustle and bustle. Meetings. Do you have meetings?”

“Yes…”

“… The exchange of ideas. The back and forth, riffing off one another. The vibe. It sounds great.”

“… but meetings are mostly a waste. They drag on and when you leave someone asks, ‘What are we supposed to do?’ Really. And even when I go back to my area. They call them areas now, open plan, no doors or windows. I find it difficult to write, even to think, in the midst of other people, working or not working. The physical pressure of people while I am working is oppressive.” 

“Don’t you find, though, that creativity is fed by other ideas, words, images?”

“Yes, but not often enough.”

In the bakery, with two more people lined up behind him, Victor began to feel dizzyingly warm. 

The girl came back out and showed Just Shoot Me that the baker had added extra icing.

She took the bag and left the shop.

Victor asked the girl if there were any more cinnamon buns. 

She looked at him. “No, that was the last one. There’s another batch in about an hour.”

“That’s ok. I’ll have a coffee, black with sugar, and… no, yes, no, that’s it. Just the coffee.” He brought the coffee over to the window where Benjamin sat. Cars hustled by, heading toward Flatbush and the bridge. Victor tugged at his tie. Opened his top shirt button.

“Today’s my last day,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re going to let me go today,” Victor said.

“How do you know that?”

“They let the medical director go yesterday. No notice. Right after five, they called her in. Just a one-on-one with HR. She called me to tell me that I’d probably be next. No reason, they told her, just pack your things, and when she came out of the meeting, all the office doors along the hall were closed. Like everybody knew it was coming and nobody wanted to be seen witnessing it. Like when the lights flicker at midnight when someone gets the electric chair.”

“Shit,” said Benjamin. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, thanks. I don’t want to go in today. I’m thinking about calling in sick and let it just end like that. I’m not putting myself through that. I’ve never been fired before…”

“Neither have I.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do. I think I’ll just sit here for a while. I don’t want to go there. To go through that charade, playing surprised and hurt and angry. They’ve seen that show plenty. I’m not playing. I’m done. I’m too old for that.”

The train rumbled under their feet. It squealed to a stop and then started up again running toward the city.

Victor lifted the cup to his lips, breathed in deeply, and took a small slow sip.

Benjamin looked at him and then looked away, out toward the traffic on the avenue.