While cleaning out/sorting through Moki’s desk drawers a week or two ago I came across the red iPod Nano I bought him for Valentine’s Day back in 2010. Did he ever use it? Maybe he didn’t. I just brought it to my old MacAir 13″ and plugged it in, and there are definitely songs on it. A lot of his stuff and my stuff. Angela Bofill, Curtis Mayfield, Bee Gees, smooth jazz shit. But also Ben Bagley’s The Littlest Revue and a lot of Johnny Mercer. Well this is good to know, though I don’t recall transferring anything at all into the Nano; I barely touched it. I charged it up a couple weeks ago with a USB plugged into the strip on the windowsill. But when I looked at the Nano today, it appeared that the screen was smashed. No damage on the outside; just radiating cracks inside the crystal, and most of the screen obscured. This is sad. It fell off my desk and just that little fall destroyed it? Do I throw it out now, or keep as another needless memento?
Later that year, after I started in at Amex Pub, Michael gave me an iPod Touch for my birthday. It was the closest thing to an iPhone I’d have for two years. I used the hell out of it. Started my Audible career, listening to The Worst Hard Time on the bus down to Philadelphia to do the half marathon in September 2010. Moki had had it engraved, something like “To Tuppy Two.”
Then in early 2013 (I think) I was waiting for a 14 bus amongst the snowdrifts and slush at 10th Avenue and 16th (?) Street after a day at Chelsea Piers. Somehow the iPod slipped out of my grasp without my knowing it. It was gone for good. By now I was mainly using the iPhone 4s, so it was hardly a necessity. Still, losing Moki’s gift to me…sad.
Years later, like 2021, not long before we went down to Brian’s funeral in Palm Beach, I bought another IPod Touch, same model. I put it in the cheap orange case I’d used for the 2010 one, and occasionally used it for Audible. The screen was abraded, but otherwise it was much like the 2010 one. I had that 2010 one with me when we went to Dan’s funeral up in Winchester in June or July 2011. Took pictures of us in South Station, where we were waiting for a train. For some reason those photos disappeared. I had fuzzy ones of a xc race in Franklin Park (still do), but the Tuppy Two photos I want, the only ones I want, are gone. I bought that other iPod in 2021 because I somehow thought I could transfer the old backup, and the photos would be on it. Yes, I spent a lot of time with this in 2021.
Some good news from the Winchester (A.T.) front. Phoned her, and then Jamie arrived. He very much wanted to talk to me. Apologized for not having called back a long time ago in December. Sick for two weeks around Christmas. He knows I need the $2210 and says he’ll Priority Mail it to me tomorrow. For me, this seems like a stroke of magnificent luck.
Another blessing appeared a few days ago, courtesy of the A.C. Two letters from NYAC, one addressed to Moki’s family (that would be me), the other addressed directly to me. I believe Joe Mangan had a hand in this. They are offering me a Widow’s “Z” membership, rather like a continuation of my spousal card membership, because of Moki’s many years (53?) with the Club. I don’t seem to have any initiation or dues, I merely have to pay for my food and drink when I get billed. I can’t use the gym or Travers Island and certain other facilities. I suppose later on I can convert this membership into a full membership, probably without initiation.
It will be interesting if they look through my past and find the Elizabeth Gray incident from Christmas 2017. Will they ask me about it, or just let it go, figuring it was on Moki’s watch and deciding it would be inappropriate to delve into it all now? Though I’d love to set the record straight with them. Just tonight I came across yet another scrap of correspondence from Moki to an official at the Club, telling him that we did nothing wrong, so far as he could see. Ms. Gray was an extraordinary nutcase and a bully. The lies she wove when she went downstairs with her brother to speak to the manager! We were drunk (we were not, though she undoubtedly was); we were noisy (we were not); of course I used the n-word (so like these Lefty bullies to get all coy like that, loving the word but refusing to say it); I left, then came back and sneaked up the back stairs (what the hell are the back stairs?). At the disciplinary hearing they even told Michael they had me on video (video and stills they never produced). He was a drunken wreck when he got home that evening, Feb. 20, 2018 or whenever it was. “Oh they had your ass, they had you dead to rights! They knew everything!” I should have gone to that meeting, but I didn’t trust myself not to get enraged. It was Michael whose status was on the line, not mine.
My spousal card: I continue to have use of it till the end of March! By which time I’ll presumably have my new widow’s membership Z card. This means I can go and have lunch on occasion in the next two months. Maybe meet Mark Brennan. Perhaps I’ll bring Moki Mouse.
I walked my NYAC papers to the membership office, 12th floor, on Friday. The swarthy girl at the desk had never seen these forms before.
Curiously, in the first few days after Moki’s death, I stuck some NYAC bills in the metal caddy on our front door. “PAY NYAC!” I had this idea that I would use Moki’s remaining money in his USAA account to pay his back bill (now about $1300). Then I would proceed to use my spousal card and no one would be the wiser. Fortunately Moki’s USAA account got locked before I could put this into operation, and it would have been a waste of money anyway. Now I don’t have to pay anything, and I get a complimentary membership, sort of. The NYAC saga has been one of the few truly happy-ending stories of the past two months.
It will be nice to go into the “Ladies Lounge” by the lobby to see John the bartender. He probably has heard about Moki. Those were happy times, back in 2021 and 2022. A few mishaps. I fell down on the pavement once around March 2022 and broke my glasses, tripping in my black boots after two drinks at the bar. (An event preceded by a slight workout at TMPL, then a walk up 9th Ave to stop at a hardware store for a fixture that would give my bathroom an outlet via one of the light sockets above the medicine cabinet; then a bottle of v at the wines & liquors shop with the antique neon sign; then a couple of drinks at home while I tried to screw in the fixture, letting my hand slip so the globe bulb fell down and crashed in the sink; oh, now I had another thing to buy, it seemed.) M could tell I had been drinking earlier. And a few weeks before this, Moki was drinking at the bar, tried to get me on the iPhone, didn’t, started to walk home by himself, but slipped and fell in front of Carnegie Hall, where a useless Good Samaritan helped him up and called for an ambulance. He ended up at the Mount Sinai facility over by 10th Avenue, from whence he texted me and where I joined him for a few hours. He was in good spirits. They didn’t let him out till five a.m. I have a vague memory of leaving and then coming back to escort him home.
Thursday the 25th (Tim’s birthday, I now remember) I filled out some papers for Marc Bern LLP, the WTC Victims’ Fund lawyers. Needing Paul Bourguet’s number, I check the Contacts on my iPhone and half-accidentally called him, ringing off almost immediately. Anthony was there and told me all about the big payoff he finally got, though it took him two years. A quarter of a million, minus 10%, the max contingency the lawyers can take. Nice piece of change, and I could use it. I told A that one of the last things Moki said was, Where is Anthony and his wonderful Starbucks coffee beans? Paul filled me in on why he gave up drinking. Was over a liter of v per day, and finally his doctor told him he had cirrhosis, and in the future he might think about getting on a wait list for a liver transplant. So that was two years ago and he hasn’t drunk a drop since.
I had to go up to the TD Bank on 57th and 8th to have a negro manager with a torn Achilles tendon and knee-walking apparatus notarize my Victims’ Fund papers. Then I xeroxed some stuff at Kinko’s and mailed in the packed to Marc Bern LLP down on 42nd St. Also copied the Civil Court judgment, as it will be necessary for my name-change petition. (Or maybe not, if I delay the latter until after I try to vacate the judgment. I had intended to file both of these by Friday, but now I realize the name-change isn’t important, while getting rid of the judgment is primary. Can I get away with calling it a default judgment? And if not, is there an alternative process of quashing the judgment because of the plaintiff’s deceit about changing the date, then changing it back at the last minute without notifying me, so that I was unready and unprepared…?)
Not sure why, but I reupped with USATF that same day. About $60. This time I put down my 1953 birthdate. Let’s see if this causes a fuss. It’ll get back to Devon or whoever manages the USATF end (Neil Fitzgerald still?). I can’t imagine running in any masters’ races for the next few months. I have not truly run at all in months, years. No more than a few minutes on a treadmill or elliptical. Was still trying to go out to the Park a year or two ago, never got far at all. Walk/jog up the bridle path hill just south of Tavern on the Green; about all I could do. My involvement with NYCRuns figures into these vague intentions. I will be forced to make myself look like a half-decent runner by the spring, if I’m working all those races.
One use I could make of USATF very shortly is…Level 1 Coach training again! I bonked out of that in 2016 after signing up twice. Still have the book; is it any good at all? But they’re doing the training on Zoom these days. Somehow that seems like cheating. If you don’t travel down to Villanova or out to Brooklyn, it isn’t much of a challenge, is it? Let’s see how much it is.
Remarkably, I was last a USATF member as recently as 2018. What was I thinking, renewing in 2017 and 2018?
Went to the gym this afternoon, Sunday. Did not feel ill, but was definitely fatigued. This is the latter stage of the walking pneumonia. A few days ago I went and had to give up because I’d worn out my legs a few days earlier with 20 min on the C2. This time I did a few minutes on the C2, then a few minutes on the elliptical, then the stationary, then back to the C2 for a few. In the evening I went to STPA for Mass and N and a rosary I partly said in the Adoration Room. On this freezing wet night the church was packed. I needed the pews in the A.R. because I had to sit down.
