Bit 10
Things were different when Max worked on Broadway
Things were different
when Max worked on Broadway. It was during the heyday of
the 70s when shows like Jesus Christ Superstar and
Grease were knocking people's socks off. He was in
his prime then; blonde, young, and full of a come hither
mentality.
The Great White Way was
bordered on the south by 42nd Street and on the west by
8th Avenue. For Max, the stretches of those two non-Disney
infected streets were rank, delightful, disgusting, and
alluring all rolled into one. Max really loved New York
City.
He'd been fortunate to
land a job working for a concession company that supplied
theatergoers with orange drinks and candy during
intermissions. It was a job that enabled him to continue
his university studies during the day out on the island.
Evenings, he'd make the
trek into the city via the Long Island Railroad -- and
return to his parent's home several hours later. He was a
theater major at the university and considered this
experience to be valuable fodder for his future career on
the stage.
On winter evenings, Max
would stay in the lobby of whatever theater he happened to
be working in -- the Royal, Winter Garden, Hellinger --
and peer out at the cold New Yorkers and tourists hurrying
passed.
But on warm and sultry
nights, Max liked to walk around outside and experience
the electricity and pizzazz of the theater district. He'd
often would walk up and down the streets enjoying the
smells wafting out from Pizza Parlors filled with junkies
and Knish stands surrounded by boys and girls of the
night.
Some of these nights, as
he'd walk around the block (up 8th Avenue from 45th
Street, right on 46th, over to 7th Avenue, and back down
to 45th) Max would pass a gray, seedy hole-in-the-wall
named Dirty Edna's Scoreboard. Peeking inside, he'd spy a
rather plain, but handsome, middle-aged man tending to the
drinking needs of a patron or two.
Later in the evening,
as Max was getting back on the train to Long Island, the
bartender would be donning a dress and all the
accoutrements that went with it.
Next: Bit 11
"Ruby Lessssssss Begonia!!!!"
