My tastes were different, though I was no musician. I went for punk, mostly. Plug-and-play music, the scruffier and angstier the better. Prince’s music was about the only thing Flip and I could agree on. But somehow, as friends, we clicked.

My friendship with Flip had started in upstate New York where life was slow and attitudes were conservative. If you were a kid with any sort of ambition or dream for yourself then it was a place you knew you had to get out of as soon as possible. While Flip always prepped his thick brown hair and checked his look before making a move – even if we were just going to the Price Chopper to buy cigarettes – I was a perpetual slob in jeans, sneakers, T-shirts, and distressingly thinning black hair. Flip wanted to make it as a musician, which also meant he wanted to be famous and have money and any woman he wanted. He never had a problem attracting women and, though he was self-taught as a piano player, he had a lot of ideas about music. So, after a few years of living in Albany and not finding any good reason to stay, he figured he was ready. He made his move with a couple of friends to New York City.

I had nothing – no money, no ambition, no desire. I didn’t burn and seethe. I just imploded and drank too much. Further aspects of my larger problem. I knew I had to get out of Albany but didn’t know how. About a year after Flip moved, I wound up in New York accidentally, like a package mailed to the wrong address.

Once we reconnected in the city of dreams, Flip was always trying to put a fire under me, to get me excited about something. I think my directionless, lazy, time-wasting ways – which had survived the move completely intact – pissed him off and worried him. Here I was in New York City and what was I doing? Reading in the park. Reading in bars. Reading at home. I was still the same naked mole rat, sniffing and shuffling my way through a series of dumpy underground tunnels when mere inches away was nirvana.

What I could never explain to Flip, though I had tried, was that reading was a form of writing to me, a substitute for the writing I was eventually going to get down to doing myself. What I couldn’t explain to myself was that reading was not only an escape from the writing I wasn’t doing, it was also part of a larger delusion I had which was this: by immersing myself in a book, I was somehow slowing down time. And each new book I picked up carried with it a guarantee that there would be time in my future to sit and read it.

“At some point, you’re going to have to get really selfish if you want to do anything with your life,” Flip would say.

And I’d always tell him, “I know. It’s cool. You do what you need to do. I can take care of myself.”

I was waiting. I wanted to see him become famous and have all of his women because, in my life, I’d never seen anyone do anything before. I wanted to know it was possible that someone could get what they wanted – even if I thought what they wanted was dumb – before I stepped out and tried it myself. He was my test case, my surrogate, and I was his loyal audience. We used each other, but neither one of us was aware of that.

We were having a coffee and a cigarette one yawning Saturday afternoon when Flip said he wanted to check in on Shane, another musician friend I’d met a few times before, to see if he’d made a decision about playing in a band with him. Flip was anxious to snag him before anyone else did.

Shane had lived in the East Village since the mid ’70s. (“You have no idea,” was all he would say about that era.) He’d played with glam New York Dolls-types of bands that went nowhere. He’d played in rock bands that went nowhere. He’d played in a couple of quick, three-chord punk bands that went nowhere. He had opened for some big bands. He had a reputation. Somewhere in the midst of almost making it, he’d become a junkie, but he’d eventually managed to pull himself out. By the time I first met him in 1985, he’d been clean for six years.

Being in his mid-thirties, Shane seemed old to the early-twenties me. That he didn’t drink or do drugs of any kind made him seem even older. Like the other junkies in my neighborhood, Shane looked bloodless, his skull shrink-wrapped in a thin tissue of near-gray flesh, his mouth a mobile fissure outlined with weirdly purple lips. Yet, unlike the other junkies, his eyes shone like bright green suns surrounded by whites as bright as chalk. He also didn’t have the zero-body-fat, pure-muscle physique of a junkie. Shane, in fact, was a little paunchy, and wore his shirts untucked to disguise that fact. He was irreversibly healthy now.

And it was this healthiness, and the fact that he had no visible style or edge beyond another version of the same black leather jacket that everybody else had, that made me wonder what Flip was after in Shane.

We walked to his building on Second Avenue and hauled it upstairs.

Aside from a few guitars sitting out in stands, a twin bed, and a couple of bookshelves he’d taken in off the street, Shane’s place was empty. It echoed when you walked through it. The walls were rag-painted a buzzing sea green, and the windowsills, doors, and molding were the high-gloss black of fingernail polish. Shane liked to burn a brand of incense that always smelled like soap to me. He said it calmed him.

Shane had told us that the stuff he used to have had either been stolen and he never had the money to replace it, or he’d sold it to buy drugs. Once he got clean, he said, he realized that most of the stuff he owned had been garbage to begin with. Crap that a consumer culture wanted you to think was your reward for giving your life away to your job. Heroin, which he’d thought would lead him to some deeper, soulful reservoir of feeling and lift his talent to another level, nearly killed him. But getting clean helped him admit to himself that the only thing that might get him to that musical oasis was discipline and hard work. There could be no other way. He played every day, he said, every day.

After the usual heys and what’s ups (no handshakes – Shane didn’t like to shake hands with anyone if he didn’t have to), I asked Shane if it was okay if I looked at his books.

“Sure,” he said. “Just be careful you don’t get burned.” He held my look for a beat to see if I understood him, and then turned back to Flip.

Aside from some pocket paperback, sci-fi stuff – all of it arranged alphabetically and pushed flush to the very edge of the shelf – Shane read Western philosophy, from Socrates to Nietzsche to Sartre, and Eastern spirituality, from Vedic and Hindu texts that I barely recognized to the Hare Krishna books that its freaky disciples would thrust at anyone who looked at them. I’d only just started moving in these sorts of directions myself – part of some idea I had then that maybe philosophy or religion could help me figure out what to do with my life – so I was happy to quit trying to act cool, and disappear into my usual withdrawn state.

The religion and philosophy books were in rough shape: blown-out, battered, the spines nearly unreadable from the deep cracks running through them. Shane had wrestled with these things and they’d fought back. I saw that he had the same Vintage paperback copy of The Gay Science that I had, and pulled it out.

As I sat on the floor pondering all those Nietzschean exclamation points, Shane came over and asked what I was looking at. I held the cover up to him and he took the book from my hand, keeping it open to the page I’d been reading, a page the book had automatically fallen open to.

“I told you to be careful,” he said, and began to read the same page.

The last thing I’d read had been this:

“The strongest ideas and passions brought before those who are not capable of ideas and passions but only of intoxication! And here they are employed as a means to produce intoxication! Theater and music as the hashish-smoking and betel-chewing of the European! Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica? – It is almost the history of ‘culture,’ of our so-called higher culture.”

The lines were underlined in red felt-tip pen.

A long, quiet minute passed while Flip and I watched Shane read. I looked over at Flip and he made an annoyed face.

“Yeah, that’s it, man,” Shane said, handing the book back to me. “People don’t get it, only the artists. Everyone else is like some sick junkie, looking for a distraction from reality, which nobody wants to deal with because nobody knows how. They aren’t up to it.”

I nodded, knowing he wouldn’t listen to anything I might have to say, and turned back to the book.

Flip and Shane resumed their conversation but the mood was off now.

Things stood this way – Flip was acting like he had an offer that Shane should seriously consider (with the implicit suggestion that it might be the best he could expect for someone of his age), while Shane seemed to be insulted by Flip’s condescension, seeing him as just another kid with too much attitude in a neighborhood lousy with them.

A deeper problem that hadn’t come up yet was the fact that Flip and Alex, the other guy in this band-to-be, hadn’t really written any songs. Though they had one that had a “killer” guitar part and a chorus of:
Get Busy
Get Busy
Get Busy
Get Def

Flip had told me about this fragment a number of times. I was embarrassed for him but never said a word.

At least he’s doing something, I thought.

Bored, Flip walked over to one of Shane’s guitars, picked it up, and hit one of the few chords he knew. Flip had been trying to teach himself how to play guitar because it made for a cooler profile on stage; definitely cooler than keyboards.

Shane’s eyes went wide the moment Flip grabbed his guitar. He reached out to stop him, started to make some kind of sound but shut himself off and shoved his hand in his pocket instead. Flip, not seeing this at all, attempted to tune the strings but – Shane being Shane – they were already tuned.

Flip hit another chord a little less successfully than the first.

“So, what do you think?” he said. “We’re gonna start rehearsing tomorrow. You wanna come by?”

The cigarette artfully dangling from the corner of Flip’s mouth was curling smoke into his eyes so he stuck it, like he’d seen other guitar players do, on the end of one of the guitar’s trimmed strings.

Shane lurched forward, plucked the cigarette off the string with his precise daddy-longlegs fingers, and threw it on the floor. He pulled the guitar from Flip’s hands and stomped to a case lying on the floor by his bed.

Flip laughed out an offended, “Whoa!”

Shane was on his knees with the guitar flat across his thighs, his back turned slightly as if he were shielding it from us. He was breathing deeply and running a cotton cloth up and down the strings.

“Look, man,” he said, “I’m sorry. I just I hate it when other people play my guitars.”

“Yeah,” Flip said. “No shit.”

“It’s just that the strings get dirty so easily and when the strings get dirty the sound dies.” He ran the cloth up and down each string, stopping to examine first the string and then the dirt captured on the cloth after each pass. Then he folded the cloth over to a clean patch and made another pass. “That’s why I keep the action high, too. I like that clean ring. It’s a whole aesthetic, you know, I’m not just fucking around.”

Flip gave me a look that said, Can you believe this guy is explaining music to me?

“It’s harder that way,” he said, “but that’s what I want. It strengthens my hands. Keeps me aware.”

He held his right hand out to Flip like a claw. “Check out my callouses. I play every day for about an hour then I clean the strings and play for another hour. And I just keep going like that.”

Between the explaining and the cleaning, Shane seemed to be talking himself back down. “I wash my hands all the time,” he said softly. “Ten, twenty times a day. Before I play and after. Everything just feels better that way.”

When he was finished, he laid the guitar down in the case, closed it, and slid it under his bed. He knew he’d fucked up the gig with Flip but he seemed relieved about it.

For some reason he turned to me and said, “I’ve done the Dionysian stuff, you know? I’m in a more Apollonian phase. Cleaner, you know? More pure.”

I nodded again.

He looked at me like I was everybody else and said, “Never mind.”

Flip and I left soon after.

I understood something about Shane only later: surviving had ruined him. I would see him a few more times after that. Sometimes his hair was blond, sometimes it was brown. Once it was green. For a year or two he had a girlfriend. Once, when we actually spoke, he told me that he wasn’t playing so much any more. He didn’t give a reason why beyond a secretive shrug. After a while we both stopped saying hello.

I saw Flip last year in a comic book shop, though he didn’t see me. We’d drifted apart and I hadn’t spent time with him in many years. I was surprised to see he had a little girl with him, clutching his pant leg while he walked down an aisle, looking at comics but not picking anything up. He moved slowly, with an adult exhaustion and sorrow that was unfamiliar to me. His daughter looked bored, like she just wanted to go home.

I’d heard Flip was married and was part owner of an art moving company. Now I knew he had a child.

I don’t usually go into comics shops. I’d stopped in because I wasn’t ready to go home yet, to go and sit back down at my desk and write. I was wasting time I had no business wasting. But I needed to believe that I still had time to waste. I still need to believe it.

I held my breath and watched Flip walk by me. Then – and I still haven’t forgiven myself for this – I slipped out and went home.

Damian Van Denburgh is a 2011 fellow in Non-Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has had residencies at the Millay Colony and the MacDowell Colony, and his work has been published in Knee-Jerk and Fourth Genre. His essay, “The Spell of My Father’s Wedding Ring,” ran in the Modern Love column in the New York Times this past February. He works as a freelance writer in New York City.

Sure, there had previously been a Tintin phase and then a Han Solo period (I was always more a Han man than a Luke), but this was different. Here were Jewish oddballs raised by bohemians who only wanted to be left alone with their punk rock, their Led Zeppelin, their booming beats, Bud tall boys and girls, girls, girls. Just like me, my older brother Asher, and many of our closest friends in our middle class suburb of Baltimore.

And so I bought a Volkswagen medallion in a Fells Point thrift shop and fashioned it into a gaudy necklace. I wore Sharpie-savaged jeans, high-top Adidas, sweatshirts, and—as a committed Oriole fan, this still haunts me—a New York Yankees baseball cap swung sideways.

It was amazing to us that the Beastie Boys were just a few years older than we were. And yet they were already doing exactly what they wanted to do, as they would later declare in a rap. Perhaps one day we, too, could turn our lives into a wild, raunchy goof and call it a career. “My job ain’t a job, it’s a damn good time,” the band chanted and we believed them.

After graduating from high school, Asher moved to northern California to live with our dad. An advanced social creature, he quickly fell in with a roving band of stoners, which led to a gig performing The Rocky Horror Picture Show live every Saturday at midnight at a theater near the Berkley campus. Eventually he found his way to Sonoma State University.

I left Baltimore a few years after my brother and drove straight to New York City to start my freshman year in college. This was the first stop in my accidental trailing of the Beastie Boys. The trio famously grew up prowling Village clubs, collecting sounds and images they’d soon scratch into their own sample-mad, post-modern party jams.

By the time I moved into a dorm overlooking Washington Square Park in 1989, the Beasties’ second album, “Paul’s Boutique,” was my university’s de facto soundtrack. The CD bounced and grinded at parties; the cassette ticked ceaselessly from Walkman headphones. My friends and I banged into packed rooms lustily quoting lyrics: “Hey, ladies!” As another sweaty Saturday night wound down, we’d summon strength echoing the “Paul’s” sample: “Right up to your face and diss you!”

I was deep in a teenage Bukowski funk and I’d wander Manhattan in a tattered sportcoat drinking 40 ounces of Colt 45 until the brown bag was empty. “Paul’s Boutique” was my constant companion: “You know you light up when the lights go down/ Then you read the New York Post, Fulton Street, downtown/ Same faces every day but you don't know their names/ Party people going placed on the D train.”

This educational approach proved fiscally unsustainable so I left New York after one year. Asher convinced me to move to Hollywood to live with our cousin Aaron, take acting lessons and buy a motorcycle. Once he finished school, he’d join us in Los Angeles and together we would become, effectively, the Beastie Boys of the movie business. At the time we were about the same age the Beasties were when they released their first record—so why not?

Coincidentally, the actual Beastie Boys had also recently moved from New York to Los Angeles, shedding the fratty fooling of their early years for a more mature, socially conscious vision. MCA had even discovered Buddhism and become a vegan, while lyrically renouncing the group’s once-perceived misogyny.

And still their songs pumped at parties. I’d ditched my drunken poet pose back East and was once again rocking thrift store jewelry and questionable facial hair. Out West I grooved to the latest funkified iteration of the Beastie Boys.

Asher graduated from college in the spring of 1992 and a week later he pointed his Geo Tracker toward the apartment I shared with Aaron on Detroit Street, not far from the so-called Miracle Mile. There are photographs of us from that time taken at a poolside party in the Valley. Asher, Aaron, and I practically burst from the photos, chutzpah-propelled in outrageous sunglasses, mugging hardcore for the lens.

Then, on June 17, my brother was shot and killed during a botched robbery attempt. He and Aaron had been out that night working on a film script they were writing. After the work session, Asher was parallel parking on Detroit Street when a skinny dude approached the Tracker asking for spare change. My brother went for his wallet, the skinny dude stepped aside and behind him was a guy with a gun.

That fall Aaron and I, shattered, moved to San Francisco to begin putting our lives back together.

Among the many samples on “Paul’s Boutique” is one from the 1971 R&B hit “Mr. Big Stuff,” asking: “Who do you think you are?” The Beastie Boys’ MCA died of cancer in early May at 47 years of age. Asher would’ve turned 44 this month. I'm now married with two young daughters, living in Brooklyn where I sometimes play the Beasties while running Prospect Park's loop.

On one of the Beasties’ early hits, “Brass Monkey,” MCA told us in his deep bark: “I’ve got a castle in Brooklyn and that’s where I dwell.” While I hardly live in a castle, it is a 3-bedroom apartment that’s quite large by New York City standards. But any sense of modern royalty I have is not due to where I live, what I do, or the music I listen to—though all those things certainly make life more appealing. No, the feeling that I have led a rich life to this point is most poignantly due to the people I’ve known, whether intimately as in the case of my brother or distantly as with MCA and the Beastie Boys. Asher and MCA both died far too young, but not before discovering precisely who they were, and helping me figure out what kind of person I want to be.

Maccabee lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and two kids. He is the author of Jetpack Dreams, the editor of Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader, and he has written for the New York Times, New York magazine and Salon, among others. He is a News Editor for Fastcompany.com and at work on a screenplay, a coming of age story fueled by sex, drugs, rock n roll and Edgar Allan Poe.

First we all ignored him, shifting uneasily in our seats. If you looked, he’d jiggle the Styrofoam cup that held his wages at you, as if toasting, and wink. Then we read and reread the advertisements for “The Vampire Diaries” and Brooklyn law offices lining the paneling overhead. When The Beggar stood up clumsily, as the train rocked along its icy rails, some of us tensed our jaws and shut our lids in mock sleep —as one does when avoiding guilt for not feeling like rummaging through pockets and purses for spare change. Our noses prickled as the soiled, old man shuffled nearer, chewing on his empty gums. The folks closest to him stood up from their seats and sat further away, or turned their body toward the window. The rest of us turned up the volume on our iPods and fixed our expressions to neutral aloofness.

Despite this, we heard—

“Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna inconvenience yous tree-scum schmucks. I’m off duty!” followed by hoarse chuckles. “Yous thinking yous the shits of the shit, yea-ah? Sittin’ there, worryin’ about those bills …that leave yous too spent to enjoy all the big things yous worked for at that big ol'job that makes yous too tired to enjoy them anyways! know what I got? I got free seatin,’ free heatin,’ all around views. Not much money to spend. But no bills to pay. Yea-ah! I’m as good as better. Look at yous, sorry ass people. Frowni-frown- frownin’. Yous all sittin’ on MY bed. Yous in my LIVING room. Yea-ah! That's right. Stop pretendin’ like yous don’t know it... ”

And with that, he began hooting so hard it flanked our ear-drums. And those of us with our eyes sealed were forced to open them to The Beggar of Brighton 5th street— who stood in the middle of the train, empty, pastel-blue seating along each side. The pom- pom bounced in animated circles over his forehead as he slapped his knee with his left hand, and with the other jutted at us a long, nicotine-stained expletive with a pitted nail.

Glora Manuilova lives in Brooklyn's bootleg Soviet Russia-- Brighton Beach (or "Little Odessa," as some call it). She teaches World Humanities at The City College of New York, where she's also an MFA candidate. Website: http://amerikanish.tumblr.com/

It is not every day that one visits an Ashram for yoga and encounters a “retired” Mafia soldier, adrift there because of illness and poverty. From my end, I envisioned a documentary film covering his faded world; however, for his own security - though the events occurred many years ago - he wished to limit his exposure to the following narrative.

If you travel on the Cross Bay Parkway, past what is called Howard Beach, you probably would not give it much of a glance. More likely you are traveling through the Ozone Park district to the Rockaways. But if you look to the right, you would notice a strip of non-descript stores and located behind them, ordinary, single-family homes. Howard Beach’s claim to fame was via its most famous resident - the now deceased, "Dapper Don” John Gotti. It was there that plans were made to develop, expand and make profitable various criminal enterprises that would make him infamous. This is the story of Johnny.  He was only one of the minor minions but in speaking with him, he was quite open in his respect for Gotti and proud to describe his path to the mob.

Johnny is tall and gaunt with a wide, open face marked by a certain sensuality that shapes the contours of his mouth. His language is marked with “rough” talk, but a beguiling smile belies his claim to be a “stand up guy." You cannot help noticing the shadow of a one time “tough guy,” but now a relic; ravished by time and cancer. He proudly defines himself as gangster; actually a Mafia foot soldier...

First, I want you to know that I was always a stand up guy. Personality doesn’t change. I was from a large family and we were all different in our ways. I respected my father, but he was distant like many men of his generation. A World War II veteran, he would never talk about his experiences. He was a hard, adventuresome man and in his youth even acted as a guide for hunters in Maine. Eventually he made his way to Long Island after marrying my mom and became a truck driver then later a fisherman. Myself, I didn’t like fishing. I didn’t like studying. I was always a person of action.

I would say my family was very straight but it wasn’t “Ozzie and Harriet”. Father was a driven guy and mother was overwhelmed with seven of us. They did their best but couldn’t do much with such a large brood. We were left on our own. In contrast to my brothers and sister who were into education, I liked the active, more physical world and hung around with older, hard guys. Since I was big and strong for a teenager, they accepted me. As for my own large family, I only ever had a connection with my brother John. He never made “judgments” but we still saw the world differently. He was interested in saving humanity and I, in making it in the world the best way possible. The family ignored me and with my negative attitude toward school, assumed I was “going to fall on my face”. For a while I worked in the family business and I learned early to play two types of lives; the “knock around life style”, where one lives for the excitement of the moment”; and the straight life, which I found to be mostly a pain with its predictable hills and valleys. But even with these two kinds of lives, I was a family man; the kids came first.

There were always challenges, but I was an optimist with a faith that ultimately life is run by the angels. I believed whatever the adversity, one should figure how to make it the best way possible . In my first marriage, our new born was lethargic and had difficulty breathing. They could not handle him at the local clinic and urged us to rush him to the hospital. But there is no hospital in Howard Beach. So there I was on Cross Bay Boulevard and my car broke down. Jumping out onto the road, I tried to flag down help but no one would stop. In desperation I scooped him up in my arms and ran and ran until finally some cop picked me and brought me to the hospital. Staggering into the emergency room I screamed for a doctor. They immediately attempted to revive him but it was too late. Only years later I learned about the diagnosis of “sudden infant death syndrome". I didn’t feel anger; not at the drivers who passed me by or the failure of the doctors. I believe that when things happen, they are ordained to happen. In a way I am a religious person marked by a certain fatalism; “God chooses when to pick the flowers”.

Through a friend, I was recommended to join Gotti’s crew where I could make real money. I was invited, but not as a made man; more like a stand-in for different jobs. “When they called, I went.” I was a part time member of a crew and I knew where I stood in the pecking order. If I wanted to score in the territory of another family, I would send out feelers to learn how much it would cost to work a job on their turf. Meanwhile I was a craftsman and maintained a legitimate contracting business. I knew if I was picked up and did not have a “real job” the IRS or the cops would pounce.

Why did they let me join even though I was not Italian? Well in the straight world, you go for an interview. In that world, you need someone to vouch for you. They would tell the boss or maybe it would be a crew leader, “he can be relied on; a knock around guy, give him a shot”. We mostly functioned like a regular business. Profit was always the motive and we tried to bring in more each year. It was like a corporation with a pecking order from the top on down; and the bottom line was paramount. We were no different than the corporate raiders, except we were more likely to go to jail. We had meetings just like them. There were even family barbecues to keep us together. Anyhow it was more comfortable to socialize with the other gangsters and their families than with neighbors; we didn’t have to hide our line of work from each other since we all knew the score.

As for working for Gotti, a lieutenant vouched for me; “this guy can do the job”. I rarely interacted with him except on social occasions. He was a pleasant enough guy. Most of the time I was used as a collector or helped work the gambling weekends for high rollers. I am big and can look fierce so they used me as security, which meant keeping things peaceful and safe. The gambling crew would rent a floor in a shabby motel for the weekend and there we would set up the game tables and provide food and even women. The crew would rake in a 20% take from the gambling and, of course I would get a small piece - but it might amount to as much as two or three thousand cash for that weekend. I also had a collection route for the “numbers racket” but never prostitution or drugs. I identified with the “old timers” and they were not interested in going there.

Over the years I kept my head down and maybe I was just lucky, but I was never busted. Even if it would have happened, I was confident that someone would contact me with legal and financial support. My view was that it was important to get all my ducks in a row and if I would be hit, then I would look for the least amount of time for vacation (jail). When busted, a lawyer would probably be sent out who would suggest that should the “ducks fall” (which means convicted and go to jail), I should behave myself and keep my mouth shut. It was understood when I got out, money would be waiting for me. This made good, business sense.

For a while I served as a "bag man" but to the outside world I described myself as a “financial facilitator”. The mob trusted me to transfer their "bundles". Piles of cash were tied into blocks, fitted into garbage bags and taped up nice and neat. Money came in from various ventures but I didn’t speculate about the source just so long as I was taken care of. How they distributed it or where it was invested, I have no idea. My job was just to transfer the cash and at that time it was usually to Las Vegas; my favorite city.

One trip stands out. I was taking the back roads through Tennessee at 2:00 AM, going about four thousand miles per hour. I'mrelaxed, listening to music, I notice lights flashing behind me. The cop pulls me over and asks why am I traveling so fast on his road? I try to be cool and friendly. I explain that I am off to Las Vegas and suggest we go for a beer. I'm casual with him, though I admit my heart is pumping away. On the floor of the backseat and in the trunk, I have a few "bundles”.  He points to them but I explain, “no need to go there” and reach into my jacket. I say, “I have an envelope here that will convince you to go somewhere else. It is my intended gambling money of $15,000 and it is now yours”. This might sound cynical but wherever you are, the city or the sticks, all cops want to supplement their salary.

Finally I arrive in the City of Lights and make my way to our meeting place; not only me but “carriers” from all over. The bundles are emptied and then both are hand and machine counted. The other guys  and I wait to be rewarded, but instead of sending us out to the Strip to enjoy ourselves, they drive us out to the desert. We all get out of the limo and these bruisers who are packing order us to kneel down. I am fatalistic -“what is gong to happen is going to happen”. After several minutes of agony, they tell me, “my cards are good” and I am sent back to Vegas. Some of the guys are made to stay because they were caught short bagging. I never saw them again and I assume they found their burial plots out there in the sand. Why they'd take such a chance, I have no idea; maybe just plain stupid. If we don’t have trust, even amongst gangsters, what do we have?

To be part of that life, you need a tough temperament. Charlie, who is now on “life vacation,” was my early mentor. I met him as a kid when I joined a motorcycle gang. He taught me how to handle myself in intense situations. I learned that in this business the key is to get results with the least amount of physicality. Before sponsoring me, he arranged for a test. I guess it was like trying to get into school, but this was Mafia college. He gave me information on a guy who owed him money and was “reluctant to pay up”. I was instructed to convince him that it would be in his best interest to meet his obligation. I was given a background story, included the fact that he is a “tough son of a bitch” and two previous attempts to retrieve the debt had failed. My job was to go in with as little fan fair as possible and collect.

When I arrived at the deadbeat's deli, the first thing I did, without a word said, was to knock down the glass shelves. This was my wake-up message to remind him to meet his fiduciary responsibilities. Nobody likes to pay up to the shylock, but if you make the contract, you have to stick to the deal or there are consequences. My mentor watched my back and at the same time observed how I operated. I was successful and from then on when they needed a collector, I was the man.

It was not always so simple; sometimes there would be a fight and a few times, I got my teeth knocked out. I proved myself at the job though. In the regular world, you need to pass an exam. This was tougher. But once vouched for, there was no turning back. As a reward there was exciting, lucrative work. The word would be out, “he is a knock around guy and effective”; “give him a shot”. For example, if there was to be a truck hijacking and an additional crew member was needed, I was invited to join. They knew I would keep my head and could be counted on. Over time I became more trusted and was invited to more lucrative jobs. Like in the straight world; you do a good job and are promoted.

I am proud to say, I never needed to pack a gun because I was confident I could take care of every situation. My cue was a rage button. It was a felt sense of a rumbling fury. There would first be a “baby cry” in my voice that would build momentum until there was an explosion. The message is, “don’t be around me when I am this way.” It was a controlled anger and ended when I got my way. In many ways it was easy, I just needed to play the part of a scary gangster.

As for my family, my wife was not happy with the life. She loved the perks, but the fear of my being busted was too nerve-racking for her and it eventually broke up the marriage. My son looked at it differently.

When he finished high school he asked if he could join a crew. For him, it would be big money. I felt it was his decision to choose his life, but just as I was tested, he needed to pass and learn if there was a fit. He was big and brawny and could be physically imposing. Like how Charlie had sent me out when I was a kid, I put him to the test with a collection job - though it was actually a set-up. I instructed my pals to play act by muscling him when he arrived but not too badly as to do him harm. Well they gave him a black eye, kicked him out the door and that was the end of his career. He decided he didn’t have it in him and now has a real profession; a cop.

Do I or those “wise guys” have a conscience? I believe everyone has one. Look, I even went to Confession. The priest would tell me that he was shocked at my behavior and suggest that I do “hail Marys” and take the straight path. I knew where to draw a line. No problem for me to break someone’s thumb, but never to kill. There would be no amount of money that I would accept for that. We all have our own rules. Mine allowed me to crack some limbs but not murder.

How did I get out of this line of work? “Well, it is not like a job, where you just quit. You know too much. My cancer, which occurred a decade ago, was the “big casino” and that was my ticket out. First there was colon and then prostate cancer. The first time, I got fixed up and tried to stay healthy. The more recent bout was more difficult. First, since I had no health insurance, I went through almost two million dollars; essentially the medical costs brought me down. Once the private hospital had all of my money, it was “goodbye Charlie”. Who is the real gangster here?

Broke, it looked like the end of the rope, but I knew a lot of doctors. They taught me how to play the innocent and get medical service without paying. I kept my head straight and suffered it all; from the loss of my testicles to facing a life of homelessness. Look, all my plumbing is gone but I stay tough. Admittedly, I thought of giving up but at that time, my grandson was born and I made the decision to be around to see him grow up.

After the first bout, it was important to regain my strength but also my finances; so I returned to my favorite place, Las Vegas. I am a good gambler but I am also a guy who enjoys going to the edge. Teaming up with a friend, we decided to cheat the House. We used a number of tricks and were successful, but eventually we were caught flipping chips in a grade B casino. Four husky guys came up behind me and another four surrounded my partner. They quietly escorted us to the parking garage. There, we were given a choice; a one way trip to the desert or the cinder block routine. It was a no-brainier and I just asked them to get it over with. They placed my arm between the blocks, and broke it with a bat. For my friend, they chose to break his legs. They were gentlemen and dropped us off at the nearest emergency room. “I was not angry; to me, they were doing their job.”

I wondered to myself, why I took the risk since I could make money by legitimate gambling. For me it was the excitement of the score; the juice high. It was the same feeling when I did collections; it was not just about money but the “juice” flowing through the veins.

Now I make do in a totally different world; an Ashram, a million miles away from Howard Beach. Almost homeless and without resources, I came at my brother’s invitation. In contrast to the Mafia guys who have no illusions, here I think most of the people are full of shit and play holy. I openly tell them I used to be a gangster and that seems to be okay with them and ensures they don’t mess with me. Meanwhile I help out and my mechanical skills save the Ashram a shit load of money. In turn I found a temporary home.

In the end, the issue has never been one of conscience for the life I chose, but regrets. I failed to do more to help myself in this life. Meanwhile I am a survivor and wait to see what the angels will bring. 

We used to sometimes go to Atlantic City.  Neil would play at the low stakes table while I wandered around with the baby strapped to my chest and poked my nose in the shops.  I liked the colorful lights and sounds.  I found some of the people fascinating, particularly the women who stayed all day and played with the same quiet intensity as the men.  I was particularly enamored of anyone in unusual hats or sparkly outfits or giant earrings or long, gaudy painted nails or leather fur-trim designer clothes – I would love these people for dressing the part, for wearing things that told me how important it all was to them.  I would usually vow at some point or another to learn to play poker myself but, to this day, have not gone through with it.  Too busy to learn, to busy to play, always too busy.

                When our second child came, it became impractical to go to Atlantic City so my husband contented himself with the faceless opponents he found on his phone.  But there was no reason for this, he realized – the city is full of underground gambling clubs.  After nosing around a bit among friends, he discovered one in midtown that was a good fit.  And so, one night a week, he would leave me with the kids and venture out at night to go and play poker for a couple of hours.  But one night, to satisfy my immense curiosity, he took me with him.  We called a babysitter for the kids and made it a date night.

                I don’t know what I was expecting, Guys and Dolls, some sort of swanky mobster affair.  Men in fedoras with guns tucked in holsters.  Curvy women in velvet and lipstick.  Cocktails and cigars.  Gangsters.  Or maybe James Bond.  Roulette wheels and blackjack tables.  Men in dinner jackets, their women dripping with diamonds.  I had my best shoes on, Tory Burch boots with four inch heels, and wore a tight skirt and my hair down in cascading curls.  We took a cab to midtown, then wandered around for a bit because we were lost.  I was beginning to regret wearing those shoes.  Then we found it, a non-descript office building that was easy to miss.  We took the elevator up and got off at a floor that looked like any other floor in any other office building in Manhattan, one with old, linoleum floors, peeling paint and noisy, grit-laden radiators in the bathroom.  Our destination was off to the right.  We pushed right through – the door was open.  No secret knocks or nefarious looking men guarding the front.  I saw my mistake as soon as we walked in.  My perception of what I would find had been a complete fantasy.  I shot my husband a look – he had been encouraging it.

                The “underground gambling den” was really just one dark-walled room that served as a small business during the day.  Office equipment had been pushed to one side.  The windows were covered with drapes, the lights bright.  There were three large oblong tables that seated about 10 – two tournament tables and one cash table.  There were about 30 people in the room, almost every seat filled.  They used rolling office chairs.  There was a single screen mounted near the ceiling that showed a timer that counted down the minutes left in each tournament.  The guy who runs the poker club greeted us -  he couldn’t have been more than 25 years old.  He was tall and bean-pole thin and wore glasses and had a bit of a moustache that looked like it might have taken him days to grow.

                “Jordan!”  My husband clasped his hand.  “This is my wife.”

The young man looked at me appraisingly but respectfully and with obsequious interest.  Neil had told me that Jordan was very excited about his fledgling business and took it seriously and wanted it to succeed.  I could see it all in his demeanor.

“Welcome.”  He said.  “Can I get you a drink?  Water?  Soda?”

                “Water.”  I said.  “Thanks.”

“You have a cash game going?”  Neil asked.

“Of course.”  Jordan gestured to one of the tables.  “Do you want to play?”  He asked me.

`               “No, thanks.”  I said.  “I’m just going to watch.”

Jordan pushed two chairs closer to the table and I set mine away from the table, behind Neil.

The dealer cut the deck, flipped the cards and began to throw them to the players.  I looked around the table.  It was composed almost exclusively of young single men in their twenties.  They were white, black, Asian, Indian – all American, all dressed in jeans and sweats.  There were only two other women in the room besides me, both of them in their sixties, both heavy and dressed in pants and big sweaters.  “Regulars.”  Neil whispered to me.  “They’re here every night.” 

                There was only one person dressed in any way that was interesting to me, a young man in his twenties, enormously overweight, who wore a dirty baseball cap with a Ron Paul pin in it and a Ron Paul sweatshirt.  He had large jiggling cheeks and smooth-shaven white skin and gigantic dark eyes that made him look like a very intense, overgrown baby.  After his cards were dealt, he put a lucky charm on top of them – a small chess piece, a knight, made of smoked glass.  He did it every time.

                “So do you think Ron Paul’s going to get it?”  Neil asked him.

                “Nah.  I wish.”  

                “What about Romney?”

                “Nah.”  He said dismissively.  “Might as well vote for Obama.”

                Neil had only put in for $40 worth of chips but the young men on either side of my husband and the young man in the Ron Paul hat each had at least $300 or $400 worth of chips before them.  As time wore on, it became clear that, though there were 10 people sitting at the table, the contest here was between these three people.  My husband held his own for awhile but, in the end, was no match for them.  Seeing him flounder was a new experience for me.   He is a decade older than me and always seemed to know things I didn’t know.  This is probably why I’ve always seen him as the kind of guy who, in every situation, wound up holding the reins.

Jordan sat down across from us.  “So what do you think of this?  Monday is going to be ladies night.”  He was not looking at me when he said it but I could tell it was for my benefit.  “I thought I would offer a prize for the best player that night.  Maybe, like, a gift-certificate for a mani-pedi.  And I’ll offer a prize for best female player in any quarter – like maybe a full day at a spa.  So what do you think?”  He still wouldn’t look at me.

“I think Monday should be strip poker night,” said Ron-Paul-hat, grinning in his fat cheeks.

People snickered but Jordan ignored them.  Then everyone fell quiet.  The cards had been dealt, the players now taking it all in.  I sat and watched, understanding little.  I had been sitting there for over an hour watching my husband lose his chips bit by bit.  I was getting bored and was ready to go but then he won a moderate-sized pile and so we decided to stay a bit longer.  More chips to play.

                At one point, a buzzer rang out.  The poker clock up on the screen near the ceiling, set for ten minutes each time, had, again, run itself down to zero.  The three dealers, one at each table, all young men, collected their chips and stood up and new dealers, also young men, took their places.

                “They are all taking breaks?”  I asked.

                “Yes.”  The young man to my right said.  “It gets, mentally, very tiring.”

                Jordan stood up then and addressed the room.  “How about pizza.  Anyone want pizza?”

                “Yeah, pepperoni.”  Said Ron-Paul-hat.

                “How many for pepperoni?

                “No, wait!  Anchovies!”  Ron-Paul-hat, grinning again.  He had little, corn niblet teeth.

                “You’re buggin’”

                “Put up your hands if you want pepperoni.”  Jordan said.  “Okay.  Pepperoni it is.  Anyone want anything else from the outside world?”

                “Hookers.”  Someone called out from another table.

                “Coke!”

                “Yeah, aw right!  Hookers and coke!  The Friday night special!”  Laughter.

                “It’s Wednesday.”

                “Wednesday is meth night.”  Jordan cracked.  More snickers all around.  The dealers kept dealing.  Everyone fell quiet.  Calmly, the young men flipped up their cards at one corner and took a look.

 Elioutte Green is the pen name for a writer based in Manhattan. She holds a MFA from Columbia and her work has been published in various small journals. She is presently completing her first novel.

“What?” I squawked, genuinely surprised. It was the week of Thanksgiving. We were meant to be discussing favorite trimmings alongside the turkey, not armed robbery. “So you've lost everything. Keys, wallet, phone, etc?”

“No, he just took the phone. He said give me your phone or I'll shoot you.”

In his mind the story ended here, but for me it fell short of so much. “Tell me every detail. It’s the most exciting thing you've said in weeks!” Realizing my voyeuristic delight had unsubtly revealed itself, I added: “Exciting in a bad way, obviously.”

He obliged me. “I was listening to music. I opened my gate, went to the mailbox, heard it close again, looked up, the guy goes "give me your phone I'll shoot you." I said "pardon". I was stunned so he said it again. I'm like "fine" and took it out and he kind of ripped it from me. Then he was gone.”

I was amazed. I had never felt unsafe in his neighborhood or in its surrounding areas. He lives in Bed-Stuy. His nearest subway stop is Nostrand Avenue where the food choices are a fried chicken lover’s delight and the vibe is jostling and purposeful. There’s nothing particularly endearing about this strip of fried food joints, the Laundromat, the tired-looking liquor store and the stream of pedestrians and traffic, but I was fond of the streets further north where his apartment is snugly nestled. Stray in that direction and you’ll find the mood changes; it grows sedate, relaxed and more salubrious. The streets are broad and exquisitely sleepy. The neighborhood is gloriously settled and at ease with itself. Somehow it feels less gimmicky than Manhattan. Even the trees ooze age and wisdom. In the past I had wanted to perch on a step, sip my coffee and become a part of the scenery, although perhaps that wasn’t so wise hearing his story.

“I don't think he ran away fast,” my ex was saying.

“Thank god he didn’t want your wallet too,” I was trying to console him, but he was still stuck on pace.

“He must have walked fast.”

“Where’s the mailbox?” I was trying to picture the scene with limited success. I lived more centrally and I didn’t own two cats that liked to jump on people while they were sleeping, so we had almost always stayed at mine while we dated.

“Right in front of the apartment.”

“Did he walk up the steps?”

“No, it's before the steps.” He explained the set-up. “The landlord used to have a slot for everyone by the top of the steps, but now there are separate slots for all three of us at the bottom.”

“So did you have any mail?”

“No, if I hadn’t gone to the mailbox this wouldn’t have happened.” He paused for a moment before adding:
“You're the first person to ask me that question, it's a good one.”

“Well it adds a whole new layer of pathos to your story.”

It was too bleak a thought to linger over so we discussed whether he should move neighborhoods and if so, where? We drifted on to more random topics. We were flitting all over the place, discussing work, weather, whether it’s ever acceptable to wear socks during sex. And because he was no longer talking about it, not wanting to dwell on it, I was certain that he would move.
 

The woman had parked her shopping cart several yards away and was rummaging through the nearby garbage cans, gathering bottles and whatever other odd pieces of trash she found useful or interesting. I was gaping at her unabashedly, since, as I said, the reality of the situation wasn’t really registering. This seems to happen to me frequently: Reality doesn’t quite register—but when it does, suddenly and without warning, it crushes me.

Like right now, when to my surprise, the woman stopped, looked right at me, and spoke. Her teeth were black but her eyes were sharp and intelligent. I pulled my headphones out, embarrassed to have fallen into such a solipsistic trance. She smiled: “Have you been downtown yet?”

I stared at her, struggling to understand.

“The protest downtown,” she said. “You look like you’d fit right in.”

The protest. It was September 30, 2011. I’d heard about Occupy Wall Street, of course, but I was startled to hear myself being cast in this light. My hair and beard were overgrown, certainly—after all, at that very moment I was waiting for an appointment with my barber—but had things really gotten so dire? I tried to smile back at her as I shook my head “no.” In all likelihood, she meant it as a compliment, but my vanity was wounded. I’d like to imagine that my beard is much more grand, more regal, than the scruffy growth on some young protester’s chin. Not knowing what to say—how to defend myself, how to explain my extreme self-importance to this poor old woman—I fell silent, and eventually she shuffled back toward her cart.

I got up and hurried off to my appointment with the barber. Obviously it was long overdue.

*****

Several weeks later, on my way home one night, I got stuck behind a man on the 8th Street subway stairs with a bag on his back that was large enough to fit a small piano. Oversized bags of any kind in Manhattan are a pet peeve of mine: Rolling suitcases that drag like dead tails behind the crisscrossing hordes of office workers in Midtown; giant strollers with enough pockets for a baby and its mother to live out of for a month; piles of shopping bags so vast they take up two seats and the entire floor on a subway car. I loathe all of these things. But, for some reason—my arbitrary, peevish mood, perhaps—this guy with the enormous bag was more than I could stand. He was blocking the entire staircase, teetering slowly back and forth. I raced up behind him scowling, hoping he could feel my contempt. But when he turned to look at me, his smile was disarming. He was young, in his early 20s probably, with blue eyes and the scruff of a man who might one day grow a very respectable beard.

“Youfromzoocotty,” he said.

“What?” I said, although I wasn’t even sure he’d asked me a question. As always when I’m talking to a stranger, I felt like I understood nothing.

“Zuccotti,” he repeated. “You from Zuccotti?”

That clicked. It was November 15 and that morning in a surprise raid the NYPD had cleared the protesters out of Zuccotti Park and removed their tents and other belongings, using the pretext that the park needed to be “cleaned” and made “safe” for other New Yorkers to “enjoy” as well. According to Mayor Bloomberg, “Health and safety conditions became intolerable.” I had laughed into my morning orange juice when I read that; it sounded so phony. I could have mentioned this to the man with the piano on his back, which I now realized was probably everything he owned (or at least whatever he’d brought with him to Zuccotti Park), but instead I just blurted out: “Oh, no I’m not!”

And I probably delivered it with some contempt. But not contempt for him or his cause. Once again, I was bristling at being misidentified as part of a group I had no actual relation to. And with that dismissive exchange, our inchoate bond was broken. He turned away, and I pushed past his giant bag and fled into the rainy night.

*****

Two days later, November 17, Occupy Wall Street held their national Day of Action, with marches throughout Manhattan (and other cities too) and a rally at Liberty Park that night. I watched the event streaming live on the Internet from my cubicle at a magazine in midtown, where I was freelance editing for the week. At first, I felt like watching a video of an anti-corporate protest from my desk at one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world was a bit too brazen. But as the hours passed and I got more and more excited text messages from friends, I thought, Fuck it, I don’t really care what these people think and I barely care about this job either.

In fact, I would have been thrilled to have been scolded for watching the video feed. I probably would have even escalated the situation myself. After all, quitting a job is one of the most life-affirming experiences a person can have, and I was itching to get up and leave this one forever. If I was being really honest with myself, I’d have liked to have been downtown, rallying in favor of better jobs, or better benefits, or something. The only thing keeping me at my desk was my sense of commitment: Despite the low pay, long hours, and endless frustrations, I had agreed to do this job and I would see it through for that reason alone. But I certainly wasn’t going to enjoy it.

The next morning, on the subway back to work, the gloomy silence of the commute—the rows of ears plugged with identical ear-buds and eyes trained on rows of indistinguishable electronic devices—was interrupted by the voice of a rabble-rouser: One of those bold men that sometimes takes advantage of a captive subway car to push his own crazy agenda. A hero! The speaker was a black man, middle aged, with a strong beard and a sly smile. He was wearing a high-school-football-style jacket, but on the left breast where a name is usually printed, instead it said simply: “Somebody.”

“Listen up, folks,” he said, looking up and down the subway car at a timid crowd that would not meet his eyes. “Slavery never ended! It has just been given a new name. You all think you’re important people, going off to your jobs, your careers … but you’re no better than slaves.”

He held up a copy of the Daily News. The cover photo was of the bloodied and distraught face of a protester at the previous day’s march, with a condescending headline that read: “For Cryin’ Out Loud.”

“You all work hard, right?” the man went on. “Forty, 50, 60 hours a week, and you think you’re lucky. Well, there’s a lot of people in this city who aren’t going to do anything today.” He smiled, and by this time I’d taken out my ear-buds and was smiling too, almost laughing. “You know what Mr. Bloomberg is doing today? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Well, maybe he’ll have another press conference to remind everyone what a nuisance the people that do want to make a difference in this city are. And there’s a lot of other people doing nothing all day too. That’s what they have you for: To do the hard work, to slave away all day at jobs that make them rich.”

No one looked at him. Perhaps they were too ashamed, or angry, or they thought he was the nuisance, another crazy black man on the subway who ought to be ignored. I felt my body getting hot, starting to tremble. He was articulating my feelings so exactly: The dread I feel every morning when I get up to go to work, the despair I feel when faced with the complacency of so many of my peers, the humiliation of being stuck in what feels like a trap. The subway doors opened and people began filing off the train.

“I’ll tell you what,” the man said, still smiling, as people pushed past him, their eyes downcast: “You all should learn the words to Kumbaya. Trust me, it helps.”

As I passed him, on my way out the door to spend another eight hours staring at a computer screen, checking blogs and chatting online while intermittently doing a bit of work, I nodded, as if in solidarity, as I had something real in common with this man. Maybe I did. And maybe I’d had something in common with the man on the subway stairs I’d acted so contemptuously toward. And with the woman in rags who’d been so polite, so genuine in her assumption that I was part of something. Part of what, however, I still couldn’t say ... and I was worried that this, whatever it was, was already coming to an end, before I’d even had a chance to understand ...

Rob Williams is a mercenary copywriter and copy editor who lives above a meat market in the East Village. You can find more of his stories at www.itmustbebobby.com.

A Barney's window display of Lady Gaga's work has legendary multi-media performance artist Colette's notorious creations written all over it.

Colette, whose seminal performance art and multi-media installations originated out of New York City's vibrant art scene in the 1970's has traveled to museums and galleries all over the world; including the Guggenheim; MOMA; and The Whitney.

Upon seeing Barney's Lady Gaga window display in midtown, Colette takes to the streets in protest to send a clear message to the Gaga camp that Colette is standing outside the door and must be invited in and given proper respect.

It took me a few moments to make sense of the situation. The man on the steps was a puppet-maker, and he was presenting a proposal to spend about $1,500 of the movement’s money on art supplies for the construction of large puppets. These puppets, he explained, would join the occupiers’ upcoming march on Times Square. Behind him, a ghostly puppet of the statue of liberty stood about 7 feet high, head and hands made of paper mache, body made of sheets. Many members of the crowd wiggled their fingers to show their approval of the plan.

“As an artist,” said a voice without a body. "AS AN ARTIST!" shouted the crowd. “I respect this proposal.” (I RESPECT THIS PROPOSAL!) “But as an activist” (BUT AS AN ACTIVIST!) “I can’t forget” (I CAN’T FORGET!) “That people are starving here.” (THAT PEOPLE ARE STARVING HERE!)

The puppet maker nodded sympathetically before responding. “But if we do not fund the arts” (BUT IF WE DO NOT FUND THE ARTS!) “my concern is” (MY CONCERN IS!) “who will?” (WHO WILL!?)

This was the human microphone, also known as “the people’s microphone”. One person speaks, and the surrounding people echo in unison; the crowd functions as a bullhorn for the individual.

The human mic imposes a set of formal limitations that shape the way communication is happening within the movement. If you want to say something, you have to know exactly what you are going to say and how you are going to say it before you open your mouth. That may sound, initially, like a self-evident prerequisite of speech. But think about all the particles and modifiers and interjections and digressions that normally punctuate improvisatory human speech: um, like, so anyway, whatever, uh, yeah, hmm, by the way, which reminds me, etc. There is no room for these at the General Assembly. You have to minimize waste and maximize content. You have to economize.

You also have to impose line breaks. The people (your microphone) can’t parrot more than a few iambs of unmemorized speech, so you must staccato-cize your sentences, pausing after each fragment for the crowd’s echo. The result is poetry. Witness the following stanza, extemporized by an anonymous woman:

As someone who used to work
In Times Square
I happen to know they have
A lot of horse cops.

Or this, spoken by a frustrated young man standing on a table:

I’m waiting for something to happen
And when that thing doesn’t happen
I’m disappointed.

At Occupy Wall Street, it’s hard to distinguish between functional and performative speech. If you close your eyes, a General Assembly can pass for a poetry reading, like the one I attended at the park on October 14th. The reading was organized exactly like a GA meeting: Anyone could stand up and read, and the surrounding audience repeated each line. Eileen Myles, former director of the St. Marks Poetry Project, performed a poem called “Anonymous”:

No I’m the poet
No you’re the poet
No he’s the poet
No they’re the poet
No she’s the poet
No that’s the poet
No this is the poet
No I’m the poet
(repeat)

Myles repeated this sequence several times over, and by the end she was jumping excitedly at each emphasized pronoun, and the audience was also jumping and shouting each line back to her, echoing her hoarse fervor.

She told me afterwards that she had written “Anonymous” specifically for this forum. “I was compelled by the human microphone as an incredible medium for writing for the group,” said Myles. “It’s kind of very ancient, to assume you have a chorus to read your lines. [Occupy Wall Street] is the first real talking back in a long and awful growing silence. So to be a poet writing into that space is to really have a job, and to have an audience that is the voice for the work as well.”

So in one sense, the human microphone is a crude, makeshift tool born of necessity: In New York City you need a permit to amplify sound electronically. In another sense it is an immensely powerful and multifarious metaphor. It is a metaphor for the vision of this movement, a governmental body that transforms the “I” of the individual into a larger, collective “I”. But even as it embodies the project of democracy, the human mic throws into relief the difficulties that plague its practice. Sometimes the individual “I” is  at odds with the collective.

From its beginnings in early September, the Occupy movement has been trying to model direct democracy, a form of government in which “the people” speak and decide for themselves, rather than appointing substitutes – congressmen, senators, lobbyists, commanders-in-chief - to speak and decide for them. Anyone can participate in the General Assembly, wherever it is being held; anyone can present a proposal and anyone can block a proposal, forcing the assembly to postpone a decision.

After about twenty minutes of redundant dialogue between the puppet-maker and the crowd, a man in a baseball hat suddenly leapt onto a chair and began yelling. “People are homeless! Do something substantial with the money, something that’s actually symbolic!”

For some reason the crowd did not repeat these words, maybe because his speech was too fast and passionate; he was not pausing to allow for echoes. “Let this man speak,” someone yelled, “he has something to say!”

Just like that, the order dissolved. The crowd was shifting and murmuring; strings of words, rather than being amplified and heard, were proliferating in distinct pockets. No one held the strings; the puppet was being pulled in many directions, about to be torn apart. “Mic check,” someone screamed. MIC CHECK! screamed the crowd.

Here was an ideologically diverse community of thousands, all with separate complaints, congregated in 33,000 square feet of park, the buzz of anger hovering in the atmosphere like charged particles after a big bang of creation. And this place was loud: Cars were honking, a jackhammer was hammering, there was a drum circle on the western steps. And you have a governmental model in which every voice counts equally. Abstracted, direct democracy is a breathtakingly simple idea. Standing on the corner of Broadway and Liberty, it was a logistical nightmare.

The facilitator of the meeting, a young black woman wearing an oversized striped sweater, spoke: “I personally respect this process!”

“That’s because it benefits you!” These words came from the center of the crowd. The boy (or man) was in his late teens or early twenties. He was thin but strong-looking, with a ruffled brown mohawk and a raspy voice. He had been sitting on the ground, but he now stood up. “You are an academic,” he said.

Mohawk boy: I do not respect the mob.
Crowd: I DO NOT RESPECT THE MOB!
Mohawk boy: My humble request is that you stop speaking for me.
Crowd: STOP SPEAKING FOR ME!
Mohawk boy: Please stop.
Crowd: PLEASE STOP!

“Respectfully,” said the facilitator, “this is not the time/ to make proposals. This is the time / for clarifying questions / related to this proposal.” The puppet-maker nodded his approval.

The puppet-maker nodded his approval.

“There is never a time for love in this community,” cried the boy with the mohawk. A space had cleared around him, and he was swiveling in it, appealing to those nearby. No one repeated is words. “There is only a time for agendas. It’s an insiders' group,” he roared, as though he was going to cry.

“It’s open to anyone,” said the facilitator. IT’S OPEN TO ANYONE! echoed the crowd. “Lies!” screamed the mohawk boy. “Forgive my passion! Lies! Forgive me. Forgive me.” Then he headed for the periphery of the circle, where a young woman was waiting to give him a hug. After the hug he began talking heatedly to a tall blonde wearing a leather jacket.

The facilitator leaned forward and clasped her hands. “This is what / direct democracy looks like. / It’s not always easy, / it’s not always comfortable, / but right now/ it sure looks beautiful. / So thanks for sticking with it.”

“I’m still here,” said the boy with the mohawk, now standing at the edge of the crowd.

“And we love you for it!” said someone. Everyone echoed.

Jean Garnett lives in Brooklyn, where she grew up. She works at a literary agency and is pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at The New School.

The first time I tired to pass as a senior I told the young man at Paragon Sporting Goods that I was 62. He asked me for ID. I said I didn’t have any on me. He asked me what year I was born. This is where my math skills messed me up. Even though I’d prepared for this question with a pen and paper before I’d gone to the store to try to save on my tennis permit by adding five years to my age, I gave him the wrong answer.

I said I was born in 1950. He punched a few keys on his computer and looked puzzled at the result. “It says you’re only 61,” he said.

I was sweating already because I’m out of practice lying to authorities. True, it wasn’t like lying to the IRS or unemployment, but still I was out of practice.

“Oh, so I’m too young? I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said.

My friend Trevor from the East River Park courts told me about the scam and said it was easy to pull off because you didn’t have to show any id. Plus the Paragon clerks who you have to fool didn’t care much one way or the other. The other thing that made it such an easy hustle, although I’d just blown it, was that for anyone in their teens or twenties, the difference in looks between anyone over 45 and a tennis player who has reached the magic age of 62 is indistinguishable.

I knew I’d never be as cool as my 57-year old English buddy, Trevor, from the courts under the Williamsburg Bridge. He is the charming scoundrel type of sometime painter, sometime photographer, sleazy in the best way, émigré artist type of New Yorker who’s scraped out a living in the city for the last few decades. He lived in the Chelsea Hotel, dated Madonna before her career got off the ground, and won a huge settlement from his landlord after not paying rent for years.

Now he works as a bartender at the hottest restaurant in the West Village, runs an antique lingerie web site and spends a few hours in the middle of most days at the East River Park tennis courts, or as he calls it, the East Village Country Club.

I think he is impressive in his way. And it is an approach that as we boomers get closer and closer, some of us are already there, to not having to scam for the geezer version of the city’s tennis license, that is disappearing. Trevor is a throwback to the Max’s Kansas City era and some of the more glamourous scenes from the city’s past. Plus he’s an expat who stayed, which to someone like me, who barely made it out of Jersey, also has a kind of allure

One of the things about aging is if you miss that chance to date Madonna in the 70's or to play in the NFL, Brett Favre aside, the opportunity, like all the years that add up to only having to pay $20 for your permit, is gone.

So while some of Trevor’s accomplishments are out of reach, no matter how much I might want to emulate his sleazy brand of cool, his reinvention of himself as a sophisticated, expat New Yorker, I thought, couldn’t I at least pull off his tennis permit ruse?

I did the math again. If I was going to be 62 in May 2011, I would have to be born in 1949.

This time at Paragon, there was a young woman running the permit desk. I said I wanted to buy a senior tennis permit. She asked me for ID. I said I didn’t have any on me. She asked me to spell out my name. She asked me when my birthday was. “November 2, 1949"

After some more clicks on her computer, she asked me to take three steps to the left and stand on the red line so she could take my picture for the permit.

A few days later I ran into Trevor at the courts. I showed him the plastic id-like card. It wasn’t as good as dating Madonna. It wasn’t as good as running an antique lingerie web site. But it was OK for me, a guy from Jersey who passed for 62 on only his second try.

Brent Shearer is the book critic for Long Island Tennis Magazine. He is the only reporter to have been kicked out of the 2008 U.S. Open.