After I, The Prince, awoke at noon, I spent the next couple of hours writing, trying to relax a bit. I was getting pretty stressed out about not working. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a job, I had just come to the realization that it was time for a career change. It was time to follow my dreams - and that was writing. The problem was I didn’t know how I could make any money at it. I wanted to write a novel - who didn’t - but writing a novel on an air mattress was proving difficult. Besides, I should be out making money, not writing all day, especially while Michelle was slaving away at work.
My mom called, saving me from my pity party for one, “Yeah, so, what’s going on?”
“Nothing, same old stuff,” I said, getting up from the air mattress and moving onto the couch.
“Michelle is at work?” She asked.
“Of course, she is. You know she is. Where else could she be?” I snapped.
“I don’t know. One day, you were at work, the next day, you weren’t. I’m glad she’s there,” she said. “Anyway, I called to tell you Daddy has someone he wants you to talk to, so maybe you can get a little advice and straighten out your life.”
“I’m straightening it. I don’t want to talk to these people,” I said, cringing at the idea of calling anyone my father thinks could help.
“What people?! Call Dad’s lawyer friend. He said he would be willing to talk and see if he could help you. What do you have to lose? Give the man a call. Don’t make me beg.”
“Okay, I’ll call the mystery man who should be able to help because he, like five thousand other people, is a lawyer. Who is the guy anyway?”
“Dad met him while he was getting the oil changed at the garage,” said mom. She was serious.
“Dad tells everyone he meets my business?” I was horrified.
“Just call,” she barked.
“Okay, okay. I’ll call him in a few minutes,” I said, purposely banging my head against the couch. Then I hung up.
I walked over to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. Why do they torture me? Why? I sat back down on my air mattress and found the piece of paper where I had written down this guy’s name and number.
I dialed the number. Mr. Hofstein answered.
“Ken Hofstein,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Hofstein,” I said. “My name is David Michaels. You met my father the other week and he said to give you a call.”
“Yes, yes. Good to hear from you. So you want to be a lawyer, huh,” he said.
“Actually, I am a lawyer,” I said.
“Oh, I thought you wanted to be one. Anyway, what kind of law do you practice?” he asked.
“Well, I used to do compliance stuff, but then I was let go. I would really like to change over to something interesting like art law or entertainment,” I said.
“Everybody wants to be an entertainment lawyer. It’s hard to become one.”
“Well, that’s what I would like to do,” I said.
“Let me give you a little advice here, son. You know what you should be?” Dramatic pause, “You should be a cop.”
“Why? I’m a lawyer. I don’t want to be a cop,” I said.
“Mike, when you’re a cop, you get a pension and you’ll always have food in your belly. Best thing you’ll ever do with your life,” he said.
What was with this guy and cops?
“My name is David. Why would I want to be a cop if I spent three years and all that money going to law school? I don’t want to be a cop. That’s just silly,” I said.
“Well, that’s my advice for you, Mike. I have to run. Best of luck to you.”
That was the worst advice I had ever received. My plan of writing a novel was looking a whole hell of a lot better after talking to him.
I called my Mom back, “This guy told me to be a cop.”
“What? A cop? I thought he was a lawyer,” she said surprised.
“I don’t know what he is. I couldn’t believe what he was telling me.”
“RICHARD!” my mother screamed in the background, “WHAT KIND OF FOOL DID YOU HAVE DAVID CALL? HE TOLD HIM TO BE A COP!”
“Mom –” I tried to break in.
“YOU AND THESE PEOPLE YOU MEET AT THESE STUPID GARAGES. YOU’RE A FOOL,” she continued to scream.
“Mom, I’m going to go now.” I slowly hung up the phone.
Before I knew it, Michelle was home.
“Hi, big Bro. Whazzz up?”
How could I possibly explain what had been going on? That I had decided writing a novel was my best bet, that I should be a cop, that I was having a nervous breakdown in this minute apartment. I would tend to think that most people, including my sister, would think all of that was a bit disturbing. So I told her, “Nothing really. You?”
Michelle hustled to the computer to see who emailed her on JewDater.
“Let’s see who emailed me,” she shouted.
This was my entertainment. I was forced to not only sleep on my sister’s floor every night, but now I had to watch her sift through men. This was killing me.
Michelle and I were at the computer going over potential dates when Jon called. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to make fun of anyone yet.
“You want to meet me at the diner? I have some time to kill. Sara has the baby at her sister’s and won’t be done for an hour or so. I can’t stand that we have to take the train home together. We do everything together. Man!”
“Yeah, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
Michelle and the rest of the New York, single, male Jews would have to wait.
I ran out of the apartment and walked the three blocks to the diner. You never know what you are going to see in New York when you’re walking the streets. Today, on my walk over to meet Jon, I saw a couple fight right on the corner of my sister’s apartment. It was great. I love watching other people fight, and this one had screaming, not just the usual stern talking by people with pursed faces that generally occurs in public. This was the “Fuck You Asshole!” and hands flying kind of fight. I lingered a few minutes to try to catch the gist of it, but this couple was wily. They kept walking and screaming. They were quickly out of range after a few minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the all-out brawl where the people are stopped dead in their tracks shrieking at each other.
When I arrived at the coffee shop Jon was already at a table, “Where the fuck were you?”
“I saw a couple fighting on the way here. I got a little distracted,” I said.
“You want to see a fight? Just wait until Sara gets here. I hate waiting for her, she’s such a pain in the ass. So what’s up with you? How’s the job hunt?”
“Not too good. Some guy just told me to be a cop,” I confessed.
“A cop? What guy?”
“My mom had me call some lawyer, who my dad met, for advice on how to change my life, and he told me to be a cop. A fucking cop.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a cop. That’s not a bad job.”
“I’m a lawyer. I went to law school. If I had wanted to be a cop I would have been a bully in school and dropped out of college.”
“Maybe you could be a detective or something?”
“Or maybe I could be a fireman or a doctor or an astronaut – Fuck!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I guess check out the help wanted section of the paper again like I did when I was twenty-five. It’s so pathetic. Can you believe this all hit at once? I mean Erica, the apartment, the job. Sick. I’ve been trying to figure it all out.”
“And what did you come up with?”
“Not too much. I figure I must have done something wrong in the past, otherwise the bad Chi wouldn’t have hit all at once. But then, I thought back, and couldn’t come up with anything.”
“Maybe it’s just time for a change? I mean, you were with Erica for five years and you obviously weren’t getting married. You were at your job for five years and it was the same old, same old, every day. But the apartment, ah, the apartment. That’s the killer. That was one great place.”
“Thanks. Aren’t you trying to make me feel better? But you have had the same job and the same wife for the last five years. How come it isn’t time for you to make a change?”
“Dude, look at my life. I want to change. I’m trapped. Let me fill you in on something. The trap is marriage. Don’t do it. Because you know what happens if you do? The trap gets deeper and wider and then you can’t get out. You see it in action. Look, now I have a kid, and one on the way. I love Sara and all, but, c’mon, man. Do you think I want to live like this forever? I’m cleaning up baby shit on a regular basis. This is your big chance. You have to live it for the rest of us. I’m going to talk to Sara again and get you laid.”
“Yeah, but isn’t there more to life then getting laid?”
“Listen to me here, Dave. You have to sleep with as many women as you can right now. Believe me. That will make you feel better. You also have to tell me about it. I have to live through you at this point. You’re all I got, man. This is it. This is the big chance. Erica gave you a new lease on life. Don’t blow it.”
“Living on my sister’s floor on an air mattress is a new lease on life?”
Jon’s cell phone rang. “Yes. But I thought you said an hour – I’m sitting here with David . . . Okay, okay!” He turned to me obviously pissed, “I have to go. You see! Do you see? I’m trapped,” his voice was shaking, like he was about to cry. “I don’t know what happened to me. Fuck. I have to go or Sara is going to kill me. I’m a mere shell of the man I used to be. A shell.” Jon picked up his laptop bag and ran out of the diner petrified with fear. This was certainly no way to live.