A Moonwalk Memory
Place: Flophouse on Clark Street called the Elk Hotel.
It was Sunday evening, and I was fixing to go shave (what with having a two days growth of beard) and shower, before I went downstairs to the laundry/tv room to do my wash. But on passing the garbage can outside the latrine, I noticed a pair of pants and a shirt thrown atop it, which turned me in my tracks, thinking, “I could wear ’em while doing my wash and I could wash out the clothes on my back, as well. Then I’d have three changes of clean clothes to wear for the week rather than just two.”
So I gave ’em a looksee.
“Aw, shoot; when people throw away garbage here, it really is garbage,” I thought. And I noticed they were two sizes too big for me anyway beside being wrinkled and soiled; it looked like I’d just have two changes of clothes to wear for this week afterall.
But I thought again, “Wat da hey, I’ll just wear ’em to do my wash; who cares what you look like around here in this dump?” And when I would finish, then I could re-toss ’em where they rightly belonged atop the garbage can, give myself a shave and take a good shower and be all set for work Monday morning.
That was my plan. So I put on the yukky, oversized clothes, went downstairs to do my laundry, sat next to my pal, Herb, who was watching tv, and had the clothes whirling away in the washer when John the desk clerk approached me about a job.
“Job? Me? Now? Looking like this?” I sputtered.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “No one’ll notice. This job is easy and it pays good.”
My adrenaline was working overtime as I thought, “A sooner hell maybe, but a sooner reprieve from it too; if I took this job, I wouldn’t have to work for three days straight after this night.”
So I got my pal Herb to watch and collect my laundry for me and out the door I left into the purple haze of twilight.
This memorable time in my life was like a time to laugh, a time to heal, a time to be glad, when the Eagle landed on the moon, and astronaut Armstrong walked upon it. “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,” were his immortal words that would be remembered for as long as the history of human affairs endured.
During this time I was residing in a skid row area of Chicago, not far from State Street, “That Great Street,” and “The Magnificent Mile” of Michigan Avenue, and even not far from the “Nite-Life Street” of Rush.
I stopped at this nightspot on Rush called The Happy Medium, read what was playing, “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” and remarked, "Hum, this looks like a good show, think I’ll go in and see it.” Besides, this was where my job was for the night.
I had just finished watching the whole delightful “Jacques Brel” musical tribute, which I thoroughly enjoyed and enthusiastically applauded, especially Denise Le Brum’s closing rendition of “Carousel,” which I thought wonderfully sung beyond compare. This gal had a real lively voice, and great magnetism. I thought of her as a female Al Jolson, she had that super star quality. I told Paul the bartender when I swung back through the swinging barwing doors, “Wow, that gal, what’s her name, Le Brum? She had me spinning round and round, like I was on LSD o. something; she sure has a lotta magnetism!” Paul agreed.
Then the semi-clad hostesses with the mostest started swinging the swinging barwing doors bringing in the empty glasses, which I knocked out in short order and was looking for more. I couldn’t believe I was getting away with so little work, it was more like being invited to a celebration of life than being hired to do a job as porter. Paul even rewarded me with a beer for my puny efforts and I was wondering, “Am I gonna get paid yet for this, too?”
As soon as I sat at the table with Paul again, one of the hostesses informs us that there is a tv on stage.
“A teevee?” I asked. “What for?”
This was the night of July 20, 1969, when Armstrong would make his spectacular moonwalk, and I knew nothing about it. I had no idea that we had even made preparations for such a space feat. Nobody knew less than me about what was happening in the world. All I paid attention to was having my smokes and wine on hand while I read paperback books at night beneath a 25 watt lightbulb on intertwisted cord-and-thin-chain dangling from the chicken wire ceiling in my wallboard partitioned cubicle, my little space in the world, which was “Home, Sweet Home” to me. So when Paul suggested, “Why don’t you go out and watch it?” I replied, “Hey, okay!” Let the good times roll, y’know?
So here was a man walking on the moon, and no fairy tale; I was absolutely, positutely, definutely floored by it; — a flabbergasted; I felt a hundred years behind the times. Along with 600,000,000 other worldwide viewers, I, too, was witnessing history in the making. This was a really heavy, wonderful, exhilarating shock to my benumbed senses; how did I come to be so out of it? I wondered.
Finally, one of the bosses comes out, unplugs the tv and announces, “Well, we” ve got to put on our own show now,” to the applause of the audience for giving them a looksee.
At closing time I took out the garbage, and that was it. Then I went in to collect my pay for, let’s see, fetching some ice for the bartender downstairs, washing a few glasses, taking the garbage out, plus sweeping around some when I first came on; this was the easiest night’s work that I ever done, for which, as might be expected, they paid me twice as much as was my custom to receive, plus the fringe benefits, the great shows and free drinks; this was a miraculous extravaganza to me; God’s treat, I do believe.
After thanking one of the bosses for inviting me there to catch the performances this night, and for the pay, I stepped out into the dangerous downtown streets of the early-early morning. This was the time of jackrollers [Jacks who rolled you for dough] and/or at least hustlers of one kind or another. It was a long mile back to my flop. There was a cab, but somebody quickly hailed it.
A couple of hustlers outside Daley’s Square gave me a looksee, and the one asked the other, “Why don’t you hustle him?” An both broke up laughing. That’s when I thought about m appearance, two days growth of beard and costumed like the raunchiest-looking clown in town, too. My disguise was perfect; nobody suspected me of having any dough-rae-me.
When I got back to my flop, after buying a fifth of muscatel and some cigarettes at Dugan’s, the corner bar, it dawned on me that hey, I had a spectacular moonwalk myself. And all systems still being go, I climbed to the roof, via an open window and up the fire escape, to think it over.