Winter Shades, by Louis

Winter shades means for me memories that kept recurring this past winter which was like so many others. To catch up, I also missed, I noticed, the prompt for Feb. 27, “Where I was on 9/11.” I would like to respond to that prompt also. I assume that the prompt “Backseat of the car” was for March 6, which I also missed but to which I would like to relate my reaction.

Memories

“Where I was on 9/11”: 72-16 = 70-14 = 66, so that I was 66 years old when that happened. I was still employed at the Division of AIDS Services in the New York City Human Administration. I was taking the Q-65 from College Point headed for Flushing where I was planning to board the Long Island Railroad stop, located at the corner of 41st Avenue and Main Street. This train was bound for Manhattan but was stopped at 61st Street (which is still in Queens County). Before boarding the train, while still on the Q-65 bus passing through a swampy road, I had a good view of far-off World Trade Center Towers, since, where I was there were no tall buildings. I saw a large volume of smoke coming out of the side of one of the twin towers, and I thought to myself it will be a technical feat to fight a fire so far up on a sky-scraper, meaning I did not at that point know the whole story, and did not learn until much later. Still that would make me an eye-witness though I was not actually in Manhattan at the time so avoided getting poisoned.

I was kind of happy I did not have to work that day. A surprise day off. Whoopee!

I returned to Flushing where I visited the gay sauna where I had a few regular boyfriends. I met one and had a very good time. It is kind of embarrassing to admit that I was enjoying myself while three thousand people were suffering and dying. But who knew?

Backseat of the Car: my father, DeWitt Brown, repaired air conditioners, TV’s and refrigerators for a living. He also repaired and collected junk cars. One John Doe worked for my father, and one evening I sat with him in the backseat of one of my father’s junk cars, we talked, and we had our honeymoon. In a trite sordid way, it was quite romantic, I thought.

©13 March 2017

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.