"How it all started"

DANCER by Layla Edwards

"How it all started"
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I had dropped out of college when I was 20, and I went to look for a job. I went to The American Museum of Natural History and called on the house telephone to Lew. My friend from college, Sue, had worked for him on a fellowship from NSA. And she had brought him home for dinner. He seemed like a nice man, but I had been too shy to notice. I was intimidated a grown up was in the house, but he was nice for a grown up. I called him on the house telephone and said “Dr. Irizarri, I am Anne, Sue Holper’s friend, you had dinner at our house, I am looking for a job.”

And he said “stay right there, Anne, I am coming down, you are an answer to a prayer.” And he came down and told me he was just wishing he had 25 extra hours a week to do the things he wanted, and since he didn’t have them, he wanted a Girl Friday to do them for him, and he had no idea about how to go about finding a Girl Friday, and he hired me on the spot.

Then I called my mother.
“I decided to drop out of college for one semester” I told her.
“But what will you do” she said.
“I will get a job” I said.
“But who will ever hire you” she said.
“Dr. Lewis Irizarri, anthropologist at The American Museum of Natural History just did” I told her.

That was a wonderful job and Lew turned out to be the loveliest employer I ever had as well as a great friend who has lasted me my whole life.

It caused a huge commotion at home when I decided to drop out of college, even tho I told them it was just for one semester. When my mother said “what will you do” it shut her right up that I said Lew had hired me. After all I was working at the American Museum of Natural History for an anthropologist, a curator of ethnology. Their whole idea of college was so it would give me a job. And the job I had for Lew sounded good on paper. Or should I say, where I was working and who I was working for, sounded very good on paper. They had no idea what my actual job was. They probably thought I was a research assistant.

“Annie dropped out of college” my dad told his sisters.
“O no!” they said, “what will she do.”
“She is working for an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, she is his research assistant.”
“O that doesn’t sound too bad” they said.
It sounded like a job I would get when I had gotten my degree, before I became a school teacher like everyone else in the family.

I was living at home then. And I would get dressed each day and take the bus and 3 subway trains to the Museum. My job was 5 hours a day. I would arrive at the Museum and Lew would make a list of what he wanted. And I would set out to do it. A friend of Lew’s and mine at the Museum, a nice girl from Wisconsin, used to refer to my job as “are you still doing Lew’s shopping for him?” Which was an accurate description of my job, altho Lew and I both preferred calling it, I was his Girl Friday.

My first assignment was to go to Madison Square Gardens and get their schedule of their college basketball games. I was told to make sure it is the college games. Then he sent me to the 42nd Street Library to look up zip codes of some people he was writing to in Maine. It was all on a list. So I went from one place to another. I realize now everything Lew had me get for him or look up for him, people no longer hire a Girl Friday to do that for them, it is all on internet.

But I went to Madison Square Garden and got him the schedule of the college basketball games, I went to the ticket office. Then I walked over to the 42nd Street Library and looked up all the things he wanted me to look up. And then I walked along 5th Avenue and window shopped, and I think I bought myself a pair of shoes. And he wanted a large box of Kleenex and I bought that for him. And in all my long time of working for him, it was the only error I ever made. It turns out when Lew had written Kleenex down on the paper he meant Kleenex. I had bought tissues. Kleenex pops up. I had to exchange it.

Then because he was a member of the faculty at Columbia University, or something, he had library privileges there. He was allowed to take out books. And he had a long list of books he wanted. That was the only assignment which was a little hard, carrying all those books back to the Museum. I guess I took the bus, but still I had to walk to the bus stop with them and then walk to the Museum.

All my jobs were variations on the above it seems to me. I kept track of my own hours, and Lew paid me 50 dollars a week for 25 hours. I felt like I got the best of the bargain because I would do long window shopping and shopping on way back to the Museum. And I was astounded years later, when Lew had had a slew of Girl Fridays who followed in my footsteps, when he told Janet, I was the best of all of them. Janet said his newest one is always lying down in the ladies room at the Museum.

Sue and Rosemary had worked for Bob on a Fellowship. Rosemary and Bob remained best friends, she would visit us in the office. Rosemary was my age, so when June came, she graduated Hunter College, and my assignment for that day was to buy all the stuff so we would have party for Rosemary in the office. I thought “this sure is a neat job, going to work means buying the candy and cake and having a party with Rosemary in the office.”

A few months after I began working for Lew, one of my boyfriends, Kenny, returned home from Italy, and was staying at his parents’ house in Queens. He called me up and said “I have decided to write a novel and I think you would be easy to live with, do you want to share an apartment with me in the East Village?” I had a big crush on Kenny then. I think he had other girlfriends. He said he chose me because “you won’t bother me while I am writing.” And I accepted the offer even tho it was hardly an expression of passionate love. It had been my dream for long time to live with a guy.

I didn’t know what the East Village was, I had never lived there, I had always lived with roommates on the Upper West Side of Manhattan while I had been in college. But Kenny picked me up, and we found an apartment on East 12th Street between A and B. So I told my parents, “I am moving into an apartment with Sally Blake.” She had been my friend from City College and come home one evening for dinner, and my brother and father were smitten with her, such a beautiful blond, and my mom liked her too. I said “Kenny is helping me move my stuff,” and she said “OK.” And I moved in with Kenny on East 12th Street.

I completely forgot my parents thought I was living with Sally Blake, till one night, when I was in bed with Kenny, two young men knocked on the door. I could hear them from the other side of the wall. And one was a friend from college.
He said “Anne, your mother gave me your address, and I am here with my friend Steve, to take you and Sally out.” I don’t think I opened the door. I called thru the wall, “I am not living with Sally, I am living with Kenny.” And they went away. I had had a crush on him in college and he had never responded, and I thought “wow if you wait long enough he did ask me out.” But it was too late, I was living with Kenny now. Also I realized how much my mom believed I was living with Sally, if she directed the two young men to my apartment so they could take us out on a date.

My mom decided to visit me at the Museum with her new best friend Nicole from Cairo, Egypt. They were both going for their Masters in Public Health at Columbia together. Lew was very gracious to both the women and I took them around, and showed them everything on the 5th floor where the public is not allowed to go. And I also confided to my mom "I am not living with Sally, I am living with Kenny and I am very happy." Which caused total apoplexy. She had a fit and her whole visit was ruined.

“Why are you so upset” I kept saying, “I am happy, that is all that matters.”
“That is not all that matters” she kept saying.
“If you love him why don’t you marry him” she said.
“I don’t want to get married, I like living with him.”
She was very upset about it. When I walked with Nicole alone I said “I don’t know why she is so upset.”

I was now 21. I had moved in with Kenny month before my 21st birthday. I liked my life at the time. I loved living with Kenny in the East Village (we became close after we began living together; he proposed marriage). I loved the East Village, I loved working for Lew at the Museum. Kenny was working for his dad. His dad had an attaché case factory on Broom Street. Kenny worked in the office. He had all those beautiful clothes he had bought in Rome. And each morning we had breakfast, and then wore very attractive clothes. I was wearing very pretty nylon stockings then, with nice shoes, nice skirt, nice blouse. Maybe Kenny wore a suit, and he had an attaché case of course. And we set off for the subway together. Kenny had developed the habit of drinking tea when he was in Rome, so we had tea for breakfast. But my craving for coffee had not left, so after I left Kenny I stopped at coffee shop for cup of coffee and donut, and then took subway up to the Museum.

And Kenny introduced me to pot. I don’t know if I would have smoked it, if I wasn’t just starting to live with him, and still had huge crush on him, and wasn’t yet comfortable in his company. I was trying to please him. So it was a toss up, my reluctance to "take a drug" or my desire to please him. And my desire to please him won. I took the drug, I was willing to try pot. And almost instantly-- maybe not the first time or the second time when nothing happened, but the third time when I got high-- it was a great love affair. It was a love affair which ended very badly, but for a long time pot was a huge joy in my life.

It was my first experience of liberation. I just didn’t know I could have that. To be free to be myself. And to actually experience my own mind. I found my own mind thrilling, I loved it. And I loved being free to be myself. It was so much fun to be myself.