that pale no hoper

From L.A. I ventured east to NYC where I worked part-time in a photographic lab, enrolled at the School of Visual Arts, majored in didn't apply myself, minored in mind-altering experiences, tried to figure out what was between a major and a minor, thought maybe I'd have some luck there.

Ended up working for (and getting paid weekly) by the Kidney Foundation, who were in need of "friendly, out-going people" to schedule clothing pickups.

"Great supplemental income for stay at home moms and senior citizens," the ad said. "All other welcome to apply."

I figured I fit the category of "all other" like a mousquetaire, which is exactly why Mrs. Therkleson hired me.

"We enjoy young men with beards," she said. "You remind us of our husbands."

Not knowing how to respond, I simply thanked her and told her I'd always been a huge hit with stay-at-home moms and senior citizens.

She said she initially had some reservations about hiring me because she thought I was "counterculture."

I assured her that my values and lifestyle were in complete congruence with those of the prevailing culture.

"I do enjoy a good sense of humor," she said.

At nights I lived in a YMCA near the United Nations, where I met exchange students from France, Italy, Russia and Sri Lanka, Greece, and Israel, played pool with prophets, philosophers, and scholars from NYU, the New School, and the Pratt Institute, survived on Cap'n Crunch cereal, distilled water, Shiraz, carrots and Baby Ruths.

Met a young woman named Mary, born in Queens, educated at the Wooster school in Connecticut, Irish Catholic, taller than me, smarter than me, more sheltered than me, lovelier than a spider's web at dawn.

"I want to teach on an Indian reservation," she said.

"Really?"

"Either that or join the Peace Corps."

"Both are noble."

"I also want to write."

"Have you written anything?"

"I wrote a poem the other night. Can I read it to you?"

"Please."

She took out one of those black and white marble-covered composition notebooks, opened it, and read from it.

"I was standing in the front yard watching my mother. Her hair was tied in a messy knot in the back of her head. A few greasy strands clung to the side of her face.'There's so much to be done,' she said. I, on the other hand, was waiting for the happy ending I could carry out into the real world. Or at least the good, pacifist man to rewrite the vision of the human community."

She closed the notebook, found my eyes again, said nothing, and waited.

I nodded meaningfully, but could not find the words to express my feelings. I swallowed hard, my eyes produced a brilliant gleaming glow.

"Kind of poignant," I said.

"You think so?"

"I'm no critic, but...it found a place in my heart."

She beamed.

Shortly thereafter, she moved to San Francisco to become an investment banker, while I headed south to Miami to work as a bartender in a predominantly black nightclub called the Neo Nubian. There, I was accepted, for some reason. The sistas adored me, the brothas thought I was ai'ight. I dated many black women during that time and found them to be resplendent and resolved. Some prayed for my soul, others just shook their heads and smiled, called me "stoopid," "craazy," and "off the chain."

While I tended bar, I studied for the paramedic licensing exam, the postal exam, the

firefighter's exam, the police officer exam, the civil service exam, the telephone company exam, and even the armed services vocational aptitude battery, and failed them all.

Then one sunny afternoon, as I was having several dirty martinis with my friend Selina at an outdoor cafe, we were approached by a svelte man in khakis and a white Oxford shirt buttoned up to his Adam's apple.

He said his name was Klein and he was an independent film producer. He'd been watching me from across the street, thought I had the kind of face that might excite anesthetic admiration, and wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing a walk-on role in a movie he was currently shooting in South Beach.

"Do I get paid?" I said.

"A thousand bucks," he said.

I pointed toward Selina. "What about her?"

Klein looked blankly at Selina. "OK," he said.

Selina and I played a swinging couple trying to pick up another married couple at a parent-teacher's association meeting.

I had lines like, "I'm in real estate. I don't know how real it is, but I make a comfortable living."

It ended up winning some film festivals in the Czech Republic.

I was singled out.

One reviewer called my performance "impregnable."

Another compared me to Leif Garrett.

A Hollywood agent offered to represent me, but I told him I couldn't live with the pressure of being overexposed like that.

So I moved back to the Nutmeg state, where my aptitude for isolation was tremendous, and tried once more in vain to reinvent myself.