PART XXII - A Breath of Fresh Air

     It's one thing to a be poor person.  It's another thing to be someone who wakes up regularly because their home is on fire, with chaos raining down around them.  Everything they know is falling apart, just after being rebuilt.  That's terrifying.  THAT was my life.
     During the therapy drama, Corey's older brother (an affluent, married executive) flew to NY from Hong Kong, and we all had dinner in the city.  Corey's brother quickly summarized how Corey took advantage of me.  Corey complained profusely that everything was wrong with his life.  His brother instructed him to start giving "burned paper" offerings (sold in Chinatown) to clean up karma for himself AND me, as well as the “bad energy” in our home.  I offered to help.  His brother hired a spiritual Chinese woman in California to conduct an assessment (partly via phone) and advise Corey what he needed to do “to clean up for his bad deeds and remove evil spirits from us and our home”.  Thankfully, I was included in that cleansing, and Corey was superstitiously petrified to exclude me.  
     In Chinatown, we bought 1,000 "joss paper" symbols of money (gold and silver) from a specialty store that sold “offerings to the spirits”.  It was mostly my chore to hand-roll each paper and sort them in groups of 100.  

Corey set up aluminum roasting pans on towels in the northeast corner of the living room and proceeded to ignite the rolls of paper on fire, while surrounded by fruit, nuts, and candy.  It was a nightly ritual.  He neglected to anticipate the smoldering ashes flying up around the room, the way the hot pan scorched my towels or the wooden floor, and the smell!  

As soon as the weeks of rituals finished, the spiritual woman did a cleansing and confirmed that all bad spirits clinging to us had been satisfied and dispersed.
     An eerie coincidence occurred.  Around the same time, Joe’s sister hired a guru to telephone him and conduct a spiritual cleansing for him.  We were all clean. As the New Year started, I wanted to be rid of Corey, as well as his stress, emotional baggage, and usage.

     Constantly supporting a household of 2 on the income of 1 had delayed me from saving enough to make the required “first month, last month, and security deposit” (and one month’s commission for a real estate agent) for any new apartment I might want.  It had been just like living with my mother!  And Chris!  What a coincidence!  Thanks!

     I always earned my highest retail commissions in December.  In fact, I was the highest-grossing salesmen in my store during Decembers for 3 years in a row—even if taxes did take almost half of it away (LIFE LESSON: learn how investments and the tax laws can benefit you because working harder doesn't earn more money).  
     Once again, I only ate cost-effective rice and pasta meals.  I took control of my own computer, whenever I wanted it, and intensified my search for a new job in the city and new possible apartments—whatever I could get—to be away from that "living nightmare".  Unchanged since the 1890s, finding apartments in New York City is dreadful: full of phonies, traps, tricksters, and fraudsters.  Yet, apartments usually get taken on the same day that they are listed as available.  Relying on NYC's unnatural "supply/demand", landlords, slumlords, and realtors don't care if they respond to you accurately... or at all.  Due to my layers of anxiety/pressure, I realized that I subconsciously gripped the computer mouse so tightly that my fingers hurt.  When I woke from sleep, my jaw was sore from being clenched, too.

     A coworker gave me 2 books (and the actual red string), which were helpful: spiritually & nutritionally.  I used it for the nutrition/digestive information, not weight-loss.  

     My second apartment in Flushing was a few blocks away on Ash Avenue.  Was it named after a species of tree, or because everything inside of its buildings was dirty/ashy?  I really landed in Flushing's "Valley of Ashes" (from The Great Gatsby)!

     To save money from the cost of imminent movers, I did the sweaty/tiring work of carrying as much as I could, from the old place to the new.  Back and forth, back and forth... after work and during my days off.  

     I hadn't bought new shoes in years, and two pairs of my shoes already had holes in them.

     After the movers delivered my furniture (adding more dents and scratches to it), I felt some relief.

     I could see nail holes in the dilapidated apartment's floor, indicating how the living room had been—characteristically—sub-divided to sleep numerous illegal aliens (like this...)

     The neighbors along my hallway kept their front doors open, revealing stinky squalor and multiple strangers using one dirty kitchen and sub-divided rooms.  The Superintendent was lax to fix anything.  The place had mice and roaches, and it never mattered how clean I kept it.  I sealed up my possessions in double plastic bags.  However, moths still got into my closet and chewed holes in my Ralph Lauren camelhair overcoat, my Brooks Brothers blazer, and both of my triple-ply cashmere sweaters.  
     I wore rubber boots when going into my kitchen, so the scurrying mice didn’t touch my feet!!  Four were caught in my glue traps!  I finally sealed every hole in the walls, around the stove and fridge, and even under the antiquated radiators.  
     It was a deterioration from the "me" of earlier.  I was living as if I had engaged in gambling, addiction, joyriding, crime, or being a school-failure.  Yet, I hadn't done any of those things!  Where were all the good consequences from the good things I had done?  
     However, my purgatory was falling away behind me, and my penance was "paying for any sins of past lives”.  After a few more "tests", more sunshine would befall me!

     During my last Christmas season at that job, I collected the most donations for St. Jude’s Children Cancer Research Hospital.  (I respect that medical facility because it's the only one in America that doesn't deny poor patients, doesn't make them pay, and it doesn't operate for profit).  Every year, I did my best to collect for them and a group called Save the Children.  LIFE LESSON: You never know when that donated dollar is enough to make someone’s or some family’s dreams come true!  
     On a busy Saturday, I saw a priest enter the store.  Nobody wanted to help him, since “men of the cloth” didn’t spend much.  By then, most coworkers were merely "cashiers" rather than salesmen... not caring about customer service or building relationships.  I approached the priest and offered to assist him, and he told me that he needed black socks.  My coworkers chuckled at me for getting such a small purchase, while they "gobbled up" lines of customers at the registers.  
     Regardless, I felt that he was a customer who needed help, as much as any other.  I learned that the priest had some gift cards from parishioners, and he also needed two pairs of black trousers... and an overcoat.  We chatted.  He was impressed with my Christmas spirit; life's gloom, doldrums, and misery never dampened it.  At the cash register, I emphatically asked for a donation to St. Jude’s.  He gave me $500!  He smiled and told me that he had been the priest whom St. Jude’s founder, Danny Thomas, approached to bless the hospital when it opened in the 1960s!  He was delighted to help it with a donation, and sincerely thanked me for my great service.  (That's him, below)

     He put his hands on my shoulders and offered me a blessing.  I felt great after that!  A week later, when he picked up his tailored trousers, he gave me another blessing!  He told everyone in his congregation—and his colleagues at St. John's University—to shop with me.  Things improved tremendou$ly.
     My former colleague, Lea, encouraged me via email: "Your next job will come.  It's not in vain that you have this desire in your heart!  Keep doing what you know, always looking, and one day you will find it!  I know you will!"
     I was still looking to leave my work environment.  Ignorant of the deteriorating and cheapening conditions, the newest Vice Presidents wanted us to miraculously attract hipster clients and dress them like this… 

     It was called the "Thom Browne style".  (He chose not to spell it as Tom Brown).  Fashion tycoon Anna Wintour lavished her influence on him, to prove she could make "stars" (just as Usher helped "make" Justin Bieber).  I met Thom twice.  He said that his exorbitantly expensive clothes were inspired by his boyhood.  Was he kidding us, or testing our powers of deduction?  I quickly assessed that all he did was merely put men into boys' size suits!
     It was a fashion trend that soon faded.  But before it did, our Vice Presidents took away the products that sold successfully in our store and replaced the allotment with Thom's merchandise… which was undesirable on the North Shore of Long Island.  The VPs still demanded sales results.  My GM made me the "lead sales associate" for that.  Maybe he hoped that it would make my life more difficult, but I actually earned the best sales in the region!

     In the new year, a friend (who quit from our store) was hired at a luxury boutique on NYC's elite Madison Avenue in a managerial role.  When he found out that the company wanted to hire another departmental manager, he instantly recruited me!  He raved about me to his Store Director, who summoned me for an interview.  My friend texted me, "You are brilliant.  That is why you have to leave that hellish place, so you can start a real career!"

     I never fear change, nor do I doubt by abilities.  I started 4 new careers in industries that I previously knew nothing about… and I succeeded and exceeded goals in each of them!  
     The Store Director loved me!  I was nattily dressed, and he admired that (and my cuff links).  The young man valued my intellect, diction, and polished manners.  I got the job!  He also sensed my gayness, and he revealed that he was gay, but he acted "closeted" at work. 

(That picture is symbolically accurate: the guy is in a closet… with a party-boy's outfit.  But that's not really him.)
     I was not allowed to tell anybody that he was gay.  He disapproved of guys acting too "gay" or "fabulous" at work.  He only behaved like "himself" at gay bars near his Hell's Kitchen apartment (that he shared with a roommate due to its cost), or during his many weekends at Fire Island.  He wore pink socks under his conservative custom suits from Michael Andrews Bespoke.  
     He gave me a tour through the construction debris of our new boutique and showed me the blueprints of my future department.  I got acquainted with the Vice President of Stores (12-years with the company), and the Director overseeing my department (a "closeted" gay man with 18 years at the company).  They adored me.  I was young, had great ideals, possessed 10 years of customer service with a proven track-record, was well-dressed, well-mannered, had a touch of class, spoke well, and added the demographic of being openly gay man to the spectrum.  It was my first job in Manhattan.

     I finally lived and worked in NYC.  However, going to NYC for a nice life is similar to going to casinos in Las Vegas hoping to win $10 million or going to Los Angeles hoping to become a world-famous movie star.  They are the biggest lies in America.  But people only realize it after they live there for awhile.

     I became a Department Manager, overseeing a team of 13 people.  The interviewers were impressed with my proven abilities to deal with people of other nationalities.  My new team consisted of a pan-national mix.  My Assistant Manger was an opinionated Turkish woman.

A docile-but-backstabbing clerk was from Ecuador. 

A stubbornly emotional saleswoman was Jamaican.

An ambitious saleswoman was from the Philippines.  

The trio of technicians were from Russia, Georgia, and Vietnam.

     When I told them of my experiences working on Long Island, the people who were familiar with LI recoiled in their chairs—saying they'd never want to work there because LI people are so argumentative, crass, rude, demanding, impatient, irrational, shouting/threatening (essentially the behavior of dogs or spoiled babies), and have a knack for trying to cause problems so they can get discounts as compensation.  I felt as though someone was throwing me a life-line to escape!  Rescued off the island!!!

*(use this link to see how THAT went)...

https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2014/06/this-job-sucks-to-put-it-mildly.html



     Instead of riding slow buses through traffic, my commutes used the subway into Manhattan.  Whether morning or night, as my trains reached Queensboro Plaza, if I looked out at the never-ending traffic jams, I felt grateful to be out of a car!

     I was also delighted with the prospect of working amongst decent colleagues and supervisors.  

     Love was on my mind, too, as the exponential chances of meeting a decent fellow improved.  

     As the new year continued, I joined another gay-friendly dating site.  Around the time of Valentine’s Day, I was online and met a young man named Louis (he prefers to spell it Lewis).

     With ancestry from the island-nation of Taiwan, he was born on an island: Manhattan.  

     He and I were born on neighboring islands... which sounds quaint, until you know that they are the most populated and congested islands within the continental USA.  As a born-bred Manhattanite, Lewis lived in a handsome prewar apartment building on the Upper West Side, equidistant to Central Park and Riverside Park.  The building employs two doormen, two porters, and a superintendent.  Aside from managing several tenants who paid rent to his parents, Lewis worked at a Swiss luxury clothing/leather-goods retailer: a true fashion house.  

His store was a few blocks up Madison Ave from my new job: a convenient coincidence!  He didn’t believe in chatting endlessly online, so we swapped phone numbers and had a real conversation and heard each other's voices.  It lasted for several hours!  He asked me on a date, and I accepted—yet still leery of my last “too fast” experiences.  A week after Valentine's Day, we went out for dinner at a posh Thai restaurant in Manhattan.  While I was with him, I felt excitement and a glow, like energy flowing through my whole body.  

     Corey communicated later that he walked into the SAME restaurant that night with a "new friend" and saw instantly how much Lewis and I were attracted to each other.  Corey said that he immediately spun on his elevated heel and left the restaurant before being seen.  He wished me the best.
 

     A few weeks later, just as "The Adjustment Bureau" premiered at movie theaters (the film's main character pursues love but heavenly angels try to prohibit it… until they realize that he deserved a new plan in life), I got a series of urgent voicemails from my estranged sister, asking me to call her back.  She feebly apologized for being out of touch.  She told me about a terrible nightmare that she had.  It took place in my mother’s bedroom, where she saw Edith slumped on the floor, looking down, calling to her for help... but my sister did what she does best—she didn’t help.  My sister explained that the dream didn’t mean much… until my mother called and broke the news that Edith was dead!  (I later called my former church’s office to confirm).  The way she passed away was eerily similar to my sister's dream.  Our mother had gone to her gated community and found her; she was sitting on her bedroom floor, against the bed.  That compelled my sister (and her husband) to make a visit back home during the funeral.  (Maybe she expected money?)  
     Sis described our family home as being filled with shopping bags that were full of papers, garbage, and “stuff”—as if a hoarder lived there.  Bags of stuff were on each of the stairs of the staircase, and surrounded the dining room.  Water leaked through the roof, where squirrels created a nest in the eves, and dripped onto the dining room table.  The bathroom tiles were cracking.  The hole had never been properly covered in the kitchen floor, since the furnace crisis.  The house was generally dusty and unclean.  The gardens were extremely overgrown.  The extra refrigerator in the garage (helpful during parties) died, and the food had been spoiling for months.  Mom’s Mercedes had been replaced with a smaller economy car.  
     My sister begged Mom to sell the house, but Mom clung to the notion of keeping her home at any cost (which I pointed out was odd, since she had spent most of her time at Edith’s gated community or at casinos).  My sister told me that my old room hadn’t been cleaned since I had left, but it was filled with different kinds of Chinese Buddha statues.  She had no idea what it meant, nor could she tell if they represented good or evil entities.  I found it eerily odd that I was currently living in “Chinatown” Flushing and my uncultured mother had Asian Buddha statues suddenly in my old bedroom.  My noncommittal brother-in-law let it be known that, "Naturally, Ken, your negative spell is over.  Your mother was evil and did a terrible thing to you by using you and dumping you.  It eventually backfired against her.  Now Edith is dead, so her resources might be gone."  Since his wedding, it was the first time he spoke to me... and the last.

     I told my sister how upset I was that she had never tried to warn me before the arrest, nor did she offer help in any way, not even a consoling phone call.  I was disgusted that neither she nor Dad responded to my lawyer’s pleas for help—even as written witnesses, which would’ve shortened my case.  She barely apologized.  She wanted to talk about her five dogs, their two new cars, and her new job as a hairdresser.  I made the call brief, and I hung up the phone with finality.

     I checked with our mortgage bank, Wells Fargo, and they hadn't received mortgage payments for a few months.  (Probably because Edith was dead and had left her remaining funds to relatives.  Thus, my mother's free cashflow ended).  Wells Fargo was unhelpful to me, saying that there was nothing I could do about getting off the mortgage or deed.  They said that if the home went to foreclosure, it might take YEARS to process because New York State is one of the few states that requires "judicial foreclosure"!  Thus, it goes through the courts for every step.  NY has the 2nd-longest foreclosure timeline, averaging 986 days!!!  Meanwhile, the "revolving debt" of that mortgage would ruin my credit score!  Especially if it went delinquent!  I was powerless to do anything but "wait and see".  
     I called my former attorney to request paperwork of my case, but he said that he discarded it.  I couldn't believe that.  I called the NYS Attorney General, in an effort to relocate my case records or apply pressure on my attorney.  They wouldn't help me.  The Nassau county clerk, court clerk, and District Attorney's office failed to have my case's paperwork.  I called my mother's former divorce attorney but they said that they didn't keep files beyond a few years (but if they had them, they would charged me $75 for a copy).  It was as if the whole scenario had vanished.  All of the secretaries and clerks "wished me luck".  

     I went to my old job to resign, and I looked around me.  I was fed up with unhelpful people and those who "used" me.  I was fed up participating in organizations that took me for granted.  Instead, I finally wanted great people and great places.  
     A coworker consoled me, "Your happy heart brings joy and peace where there is none."  Oh really???  Why would I want to ALWAYS be where there ISN'T any joy or peace!?  A great voice wants to sing amongst a great choir—not in a cell or among out-of-tune people.  LIFE LESSON!
     I considered all the salesmanship and unpaid tutorial work that I did for my company and its staff.  To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Stop trying to teach people who don't want to learn.  It wastes your time and annoys the people."