No Time to Lose

No Time to Lose

When I woke up, I regretted the jello shots I pounded back at Dylan’s New Year’s Eve party. At least I took an Uber before midnight and didn’t drive here. The room seemed very old-fashioned as I started to get my bearings. The framed etchings on the wall across from me were charcoal and a little blurry. As I reached for my i-phone, I figured the hotel had a retro theme for these prices. 

A mounting feeling of panic overtook me when I couldn’t find my phone. I needed to text Amanda to tell her where I was. I pushed the pillows aside and didn’t see the phone. I knelt down next to the bed and looked all over the floor for it. 

When I stepped into my khakis, I searched the pockets and found loose change. Nausea overtook me when I looked out the window. A woman wearing a bonnet and long dress walked down the street pushing a baby carriage. 

There appeared to be a wagon train of horses and buggies loping through the street. 

I hoped Dylan’s whacky friends hadn’t put hallucinogens in those shots.

Breathe, I told myself mimicking Amanda after one of her yoga classes.

“Anthony, it’s all in the breath,” she would say looking hotter than hell in her yoga pants. Few people called me Anthony, but I made exceptions for Amanda and Nonna Lucia, the beautiful women who didn’t call me Tony.

 When my breathing became steadier, I looked for the remote control to turn on the TV. My room had no TV. 

I opened the door of my room and saw a newspaper, with the caption 

Happy New Year!

My relief was immense that I wasn’t losing it until I noticed the date….January 1, 1920.   

Boxing great Jack Dempsey dined with his trainer near Central Park, I read, shaking with fear and dread. 

How can this be? I said aloud as I spread the paper around the bed. 

Women suffragists toast the New Year with sparkling water, another caption read. 

Shell-shocked veterans huddle together on the street in the Bowery. 

Breathe, I said to myself.

The Treaty of Versailles has stopped those Krauts in their tracks.

As shattered as I was feeling, I had the thought who calls nationalities by pejorative nicknames? And when I read a few more ethnic slurs, I grabbed my coat and headed downstairs for a wake -me -up cocktail. 

As I made my way to the lounge area, a blue haze of smoke enveloped me. I saw a few men in double-breasted suits with their hats hanging loosely from the peaks of their chairs. 

The bartender, dressed in a tuxedo, said, “Happy New Year Sir. I’m Al.”

While reaching to shake his hand, I said, “Tony De Marco, Sir. I’d like a shot and a beer.”

“No way, Mr. De Marco. New law’s gonna put me and my family on the street.

I can give you some soda water. It’ll be a nickel.”

“Al,” I said so quietly that he leaned his elbow on the bar to hear me.

“Is it really 1920?”

“Yeah, hard to believe another decade’s behind us,” he said matter-of factly.

“You must have tied on a good one last night to be asking me that,” he winked, with the wit and charm of a pro.

“Al, is there a phone in here?” I asked silently muttering expletives about the Temperance Movement that was keeping Al and me from a little fun. 

“Dottie, in the lobby can get you through to an operator,” he said and I placed a quarter from my pocket onto the bar already figuring my credit card would look Martian in this crazy time warp I landed in. I used it to check in before my world fell apart. 

Al came out from behind the bar and clapped my back to thank me for the tip.

“If you’re looking for work the Italian neighborhood ain’t too far from here,” pronouncing it eye talion in a way Nonna Lucia would have hated. 

“Al’s an OK guy” I whispered to Nonna Lucia figuring talking to a dead grandmother was no crazier than anything else going on. 

When I reached the lobby, I saw a woman in a purple dress in front of a switchboard. Her name tag said Dottie Armstrong. But what could she do for me?

Could she text Amanda to tell her that I love her?

Could she thank Amanda for convincing me to take a wad of cash to Dylan’s party? 

“Anthony, if you can’t get an Uber you might need cash for a cab. If you guys stop in to McGee’s Pub, you’ll need cash. “

      I nonetheless approached Miss Armstrong and she disconnected her ear piece and said, “Sir, do you have a calling card? ”I mumbled something, and mounted the adjacent staircase to my room. 

When I re-entered my room I re-lived my conversation with Amanda and how her godparents were in town, and how she couldn’t disappoint her parents or them. How we’d have our own party tomorrow. I felt like her father was just being a dick for the hell of it.

 I wanted her here with me. I wanted her bad.

I slumped into the chair by the window and started to cry.

Would I never see my parents again and fight with my dad about politics?

Would I never see my mother’s lip quiver whenever she handed me a gift? 

Thoughts of my parents posting pictures of me throughout their tree-lined neighborhood brought up sobs of grief in me.

Through my hiccups, I prayed to Nonna Lucia in heaven to get a message to my parents that I was still alive but thrown back a hundred years in a living hell with no cell phone, internet, car, or job. And no Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to get me in the mood.

I hated Dallas football but the cheerleaders were hot. I got up from the chair, dropped my clothes and lay in bed picturing Amanda spooned into me, and drifted off to sleep.

The nap didn’t last long, but long enough for me to reach for my i-phone to see the time, and I remembered the year I landed in, and was blanketed with depression, that I was stuck in time.

Visions of Nonno Carmen arriving here with little English and a few pennies emboldened me to fight this thing with all that I had. I reached into a part of myself that had fallen asleep in the luxuries of my time. I knew I’d have to distract myself from thoughts of Amanda, my parents, and just about everything familiar, and accept my plight with as much vigor as I could.

When I left the hotel, I felt hungry and looked for a diner for breakfast.

The familiar scents of bacon and eggs hit me as I walked through the greasy door. 

Not one woman was in the place, and the men ranged in age but most of them wore suits and ties.

After a hearty breakfast, I spotted a trolley car and asked the driver to take me to the Italian section that Al the bartender suggested.

I knew enough history to know it might be the only area I could live and work. 

As the street car slowed on it’s frequent stops, a few revelers boarded with New Year’s hats and kazoos. One guy was obviously still drunk and I averted my eyes and saw a sign on a shop that said No Irish Need Apply. Traces of Amanda’s Pop-Pop’s stories threatened to flatten me. But I was determined to be strong

Al, my only friend in my new life didn’t give me a bum steer about prejudice. 1920 was thick with it on its’ first dawning day. 

The trolley driver turned to me “Hey you, with the fancy pants, this here is the Italian section.”

I thanked him, and descended the trolley car staircase to tiny streets bustling with people. 

Thanking Nonna Lucia for flooding my childhood with the Italian language, I asked fellow who was shooting baskets in a makeshift barrel basket, where I could rent a room.

He spoke too quickly for me to understand but I got the gist of what he said and made my way to Luigi’s with a sign in English - Rooms for Rent. 

Loud radio sounds greeted me in the lobby of Luigi’s. The transaction required no ID and the guy barely looked at the money I handed him to pay my first week’s rent. I went to google a picture of 1920’s currency and was stricken with a reminder that my life had changed. 

But I came from good people who had the courage to leave the floral beauty of their native Italy to work ten hour days in a country that didn’t welcome them all that much. I had to do my parents proud that I was made of the stuff of Nonno Carmen’s grandpa, who opened a cobbler shop and kept his Sophia comfortable in their row home.

When the holiday was over, I would find a pair of overalls in a shop and introduce myself to the owner of Morano’s Shoemaker down the street.

I would walk in the shop dressed as the workman I hoped to become among the sweet smelling leather strewn about.

In my best Italian, I would introduce myself as Anthony De Marco and ask the owner for a job promising to work very hard to mold the leather, to pierce the shoestring holes and create beautiful shoes for our neighbors. Belle scarpe!