“Ignore him,” Joey said, “or he’ll be your friend for life.”
I couldn’t ignore him. My father spent his professional life helping just such people. He was licensed in clinical social work and directed Hudson County Coalition, an organization that oversaw local shelters and soup kitchens and, when there were funds, did some occupation training. Back in high school I volunteered there sometimes. My interest had more to do with helping out my father than the homeless, but ever since then I’d never been able to ignore a panhandler. At least I had that check mark on the merit side of God’s scorecard.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out two quarters. In the months and years that followed, I’d drop countless quarters into that same hopeful hand.
The man stuffed the change into the pocket of his sweatshirt, which was several sizes too large for his small frame.
“You seen my dog?” The man had the veiny nose of a longtime drinker and the fragile eyes of somebody who’d disappointed his share of well-meaning counselors.
I told him I hadn’t seen any dogs. “What kind is it?”
“Man, you know my dog.”
“Sorry, I don’t,” I said, concluding that the dog in question probably had never romped anyplace other than this man’s imagination.
“How about you?” he asked Joey. “You seen him?”
“I told you a hundred times already, I haven’t seen your dog. I see him, you’ll be the first to know.”
Through with us, the man went back to his spot beneath the streetlight and sat down on the curb. Joey and I kept walking. When we were out of earshot, Joey said, “I don’t care much for that guy, but I kinda liked his dog. Real well behaved. Last week I saw it on the side of the street, about a mile from here. Road pizza.” He shook his head. “Well, good night.”
I got in my car and turned on the radio but didn’t drive anywhere. Joey beeped his horn as he rode past. When he was out of sight, I got out of my car again and walked to the sub shop a half block down the road. Chairs were stacked in the window, and a lone employee wearing a sauce-splattered apron was sweeping the floor, but the neon sign overhead claimed open for business. I bought a cup of coffee and a footlong Italian sub. Extra tomatoes, no hot peppers, exactly the way I liked it. When I left the shop five minutes later, the neon sign was dark.
“I’ll keep an eye out for your dog,” I said, and handed the man his dinner.
When I began to work at the studio, the equipment—and the other engineers—were all in states of dysfunction. Joey knew I could help him. I was dependable and competent, and lacked the sort of ambition that would have me leaving him suddenly for a better studio and stealing his clients away.
Almost immediately, he began to give me more responsibility. Rather than work the sound console himself, he preferred to drop by and shoot the bull with the bands. The studio was his own small kingdom where he could come and feel welcomed. Otherwise, he wasn’t too interested in the day-to-day business of the studio, and in six months I was in charge. I fired the incompetents and lobbied Joey to overhaul the main console, which he had bought used when he first opened the studio.
This became my life, working at a third-rate recording studio in the middle of New Jersey, spending the bulk of my days with musicians of questionable talent, and then coming home to our house in the burbs. Cynthia and I were living the middle-class dream, only we weren’t middle-class, and I needed to figure out if this bothered me. And if it didn’t, why not.
Yet I must not have been entirely without ambition, because after about a year at the studio I began to toy with the idea of starting up a small record company. At first I kept it to myself. I began to save a little, and convinced Joey to throw some money into fixing the studio’s worst atrocities.
When I finally told Cynthia about my idea, I remember being bothered by her instant enthusiasm. It was August, and we were sitting on the back porch having breakfast. The porch was my favorite part of the house. Our little yard felt private, its perimeter lined on the sides with burning bushes and in the rear with forsythia hedges that, come fall, would turn a brilliant yellow.
“It isn’t a terrific plan,” I told her. “It’s risky as all hell.”
“Maybe so,” she said, “but I love the idea of our working together on something. And anyway, you need this. I know you do.”
I hadn’t been any fun at all for quite some time. That was putting it mildly. Not that I walked around sulking. But I had accepted unhappiness as a small price to pay for a life filled with most of the things I wanted.
“There are other remedies for depression,” I said, “besides throwing our money into a risky business.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. Prozac? Therapy?”