wasn't listening. My only response was to swear off chicken for the next few weeks. Whenever one was served I pictured the steaming carcass raising a cartoon head and laughing at me. It was years before I thought of things differently.
This afternoon I went to G.L.'s apartment to clean his venetian blinds, which had been soiled during a fire. I first met this man last week when I was sent to unpack his books and arrange them on the shelves in alphabetical order. He's got quite a library: leather-bound editions of Jane Austen and Emile Zola sandwiching several cookbooks and countless manuals devoted to the study of sadomasochistic sex. This morning G.L. answered the door in his bathrobe, drinking black coffee from a mug shaped to resemble a boot. He is not a pleasant man but seems to get along fine in the world as long as he has his way. He led me to the nearest window and suggested I use Formula 409 and paper towel, but that would have taken me weeks. Having experience with blinds I thought it might be quicker and more productive if I took them down and washed them in the tub. I thought he would argue with me but instead he took off his bathrobe saying, 'Sure, whatever.' He stood for a moment in his underpants before walking into the bathroom, where he ran water into the sink, preparing to shave something. G.L.'s bathroom is tiny and I thought he might need some privacy, so I just sort of stood around the living room until he called out, 'Hey, are you going to clean those blinds or not? I'm not made of money.'
I took down one of the blinds, slowly and carefully as if I were removing a tumor from a sensitive area of the brain. I stood with the blinds in my hands and counted to twenty. Then to thirty. He called out again and I had no choice but to press against him as I entered the bathroom. I passed him at the sink and made my way to the tub, where I knelt down and commenced to bathe the venetian blinds in water and ammonia. G.L. had a television propped beside the sink, a portable TV the size of a car battery, which he would constantly curse and re-channel. I couldn't see the screen but listened as he groused his way from one Saturday-afternoon program to another before settling on an infomercial devoted to something called 'The Oxygen Cocktail.' From what I could hear I gathered that The Oxygen Cocktail is some sort of a pick-me-up made from clarified air. The commercial suggested that early cavemen enjoyed a highly satisfying oxygen content, which afforded them the stamina to produce magnificent cave paintings and still find the energy to hunt mastodons. Participants in the recent Olympic Games testified to the virtues of The Oxygen Cocktail, and I listened while bending over the bathtub, scrubbing a sadist's blinds with ammonia. I wanted to part the shower curtain, curious to see this Oxygen Cocktail. Does it come in a can, a bottle, a nasal spray? Were the Olympians in swimsuits or street clothes?
The blinds weren't coming clean the way I'd hoped so I added some Clorox to the mixture, a stupid thing to do. The combination of ammonia and chloride can be lethal but I've discovered it can work miracles as long as you keep telling yourself, 'I want to live, I want to live. . ' I tried reminding myself of that fact. I pictured myself finishing the job and returning home to a refreshing Oxygen Cocktail. My throat began to burn and I heard G.L. begin to buckle and cough. When he parted the curtain asking, 'Are you trying to kill me?' I had to think hard for the answer.
Bart and I cleaned the apartment of another 'Sesame Street' writer that's the third one this month. I've never met any of these people but each of them has a little shrine where they display plush models of Grover and Big Bird along with eight Emmy Awards won for children's television. Eight of them. I had never seen an Emmy in person and noticed how the styles have changed over the years. This afternoon's writer had her awards marching in a neat row along the window ledge. It made me sad to see how a few of the earlier models had corroded. I had always imagined them to be made of pure gold but they're plated. Still, though, they have a satisfying weight, a heaviness that suggests achievement. I lifted each award in order to clean the window ledge and, as long as I had it in my hands, I posed before the full-length mirror, looking humble.
'I really wasn't prepared for this,' I said, hoping the audience might believe me. I have spent the better part of my life planning my awards speeches and always begin with that line. It is tiresome to listen as winners thank people most of us have never heard of, but in my award fantasies I like to mention everyone from my twelfth-grade English teacher to the Korean market where I buy my cigarettes and cat food. And that's what's nice about eight Emmys. Lifting each one I addressed the mirror, saying, 'But most of all I'd like to thank Amy, Lisa, Gretchen, Paul, Sharon, Lou, and Tiffany for their support.' Then I picked up the next, moving on to Hugh, Evelyne, Ira, Susan, Jim, Ronnie, Marge, and Steve. By my eighth Emmy I was groping for names. I was standing there, trying to remember the name of a counselor from Camp Cheerio when Bart entered the room and I realized with shame that I had forgotten to thank him.
SantaLand Diaries
I WAS in a coffee shop looking through the want ads when I read, 'Macy's Herald Square, the largest store in the world, has big opportunities for outgoing, fun-loving people of all shapes and sizes who want more than just a holiday job! Working as an elf in Macy's SantaLand means being at the center of the excitement.. '
I circled the ad and then I laughed out loud at the thought of it. The man seated next to me turned on his stool, checking to see if I was a lunatic. I continued to laugh, quietly. Yesterday I applied for a job at UPS. They are hiring drivers' helpers for the upcoming Christmas season and I went to their headquarters filled with hope. In line with three hundred other men and women my hope diminished. During the brief interview I was asked why I wanted to work for UPS and I answered that I wanted to work for UPS because I like the brown uniforms. What did they expect me to say?
'I'd like to work for UPS because, in my opinion, it's an opportunity to showcase my substantial leadership skills in one of the finest private delivery companies this country has seen since the Pony Express!'
I said I liked the uniforms and the UPS interviewer turned my application face-down on his desk and said, 'Give me a break.'
I came home this afternoon and checked the machine for a message from UPS but the only message I got was from the company that holds my student loan, Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae sounds like a naive and barefoot hillbilly girl but in fact they are a ruthless and aggressive conglomeration of bullies located in a tall brick building somewhere in Kansas. I picture it to be the tallest building in that state and I have decided they hire their employees straight out of prison. It scares me.
The woman at Macy's asked, 'Would you be interested in full-time elf or evening and weekend elf?'
I said, 'Full-time elf.'
I have an appointment next Wednesday at noon.
I am a thirty-three-year-old man applying for a job as an elf.
I often see people on the streets dressed as objects and handing out leaflets. I tend to avoid leaflets but it breaks my heart to see a grown man dressed as a taco. So, if there is a costume involved, I tend not only to accept the leaflet, but to accept it graciously, saying, 'Thank you so much,' and thinking, 'You poor, pathetic son of a bitch. I don't know what you have but I hope I never catch it.' This afternoon on Lexington Avenue I accepted a leaflet from a man dressed as a camcorder. Hot dogs, peanuts, tacos, video cameras, these things make me sad because they don't fit in on the streets. In a parade, maybe, but not on the streets. I figure that at least as an elf I will have a place; I'll be in Santa's Village with all the other elves. We will reside in a fluffy wonderland surrounded by candy canes and gingerbread shacks. It won't be quite as sad as standing on some street corner dressed as a french fry.
I am trying to look on the bright side. I arrived in New York three weeks ago with high hopes, hopes that have been challenged. In my imagination I'd go straight from Penn Station to the offices of 'One Life to Live,' where I would drop off my bags and spruce up before heading off for drinks with Cord Roberts and Victoria Buchannon, the show's greatest stars. We'd sit in a plush booth at a tony cocktail lounge where my new celebrity friends would lift their frosty glasses in my direction and say, 'A toast to David Sedaris, the best writer this show has ever had!!!'
I'd say, 'You guys, cut it out.' It was my plan to act modest.
People at surrounding tables would stare at us, whispering, 'Isn't that …? Isn't that …?'
I might be distracted by their enthusiasm and Victoria Buchannon would lay her hand over mine and tell me that I'd better get used to being the center of attention.
But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a failure.
