The Neck of the Funnel
by Harry Buschman
I loved working in Manhattan. They were exciting
days, filled with adventure.
Snowstorms, blackouts, bomb scares and rare acts of kindness; all of them etched
in my mind sharper than any photograph could be. Although I carried a camera
with me at all times, I learned that the eye and the memory are better instruments
than the camera. They store not only the pictures but the stories behind them.
The rich and famous can be found in Manhattan and so can the poor and obscure.
The city is a funnel through which people pass as they travel from one place
to another, squeezed together like sardines in a can. The close contact is a
law of physics, not one of choice, and once the people were freed from the neck
of the funnel they got away from each other as fast as they could. But while
we were all together, even complete nonentities like me were able, for a moment
or two, to rub elbows with the elite. Although it gave me great joy to bask
in their reflected celebrity, it was undoubtedly a great nuisance to them.
So it was the evening I found myself standing next to Jason Robards Jr. (was
there ever a Jason Robards Sr.?) at a urinal in Penn Station. We nodded politely
to each other. His nod, of course, was an acknowledgment to me that he knew
I recognized him, not that he recognized me. In such revealing situations, some
men feel it's necessary to pass the time of day, and as we shook ourselves dry,
I praised his heralded performances in the O'Neill revivals, (none of which
I'd seen). He thanked me and his battered face cracked itself into what passed
for a smile. We went our separate ways at the door; he to the footlights, I
to home. If I had a camera with me perhaps the encounter would have been more
graphic, but I think the scene is better described than photographed.
Ruth Gordon was another one. My daughter and I were walking up Seventh Avenue
on our way to the auto show. There, slowly making her way downtown
was a dwarf of a woman, arms filled with papers and looking as homeless as a
bag lady in Washington Square. She huddled close to the store fronts and shot
fearful glances at people passing her. We said, "Good evening, Miss Gordon,"
and her papers scattered. "Shit," she exclaimed, and scuttled after
them. In her frame of mind my daughter and I thought it better not to help her
or engage her in further conversation. She seemed quite capable of pulling her
papers together without our help. It was a scene that words can describe far
better than a photograph can. She, too, passed through the funnel's neck to
some back stage door opening on a world of transformation. On a lesser scale,
my daughter and I went to mingle with the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. They were
photographable. Ruth Gordon was not.
I have never met anyone in the neck of the funnel who lived up to their press.
On the whole they were one thing in public and another in the flesh. John Wayne
for instance. I always thought of him as a face waiting to be carved on Mount
Rushmore, but seeing him emerge from the Biltmore Hotel one morning on my way
to work was a rude awakening. He caromed through the revolving doors like a
rudderless tramp steamer. He wore prescription sunglasses with steel frames
which couldn't conceal the puffiness of a monumental hangover. He was obviously
expecting a limo or at the very least a horse tied up at the curb, and finding
neither, spat into the street and grasped the awning's pipe support to steady
himself. He was in no mood for small talk. A photograph of him in that condition
would have been suicide. I had to be content with a brief and upbeat, "Good
morning, Mr. Wayne," to which he replied, "I'll be all right."
His answer seemed puzzling to me at the time, but thinking back, it was pretty
close to the mark. I've often wondered why John Wayne was in New York, far from
big sky country and not dressed as a cowboy or a Marine. The only answer seems
to be that magic neck of the funnel again. He was moving from one big sky country
to another and passing the time with a fifth or two of Bushmill's. Though I
carried a
camera with me, I kept it holstered.
Then there was the incident with Arturo Toscanini. My wife and I were fortunate
to get tickets to many of his final concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra
in Carnegie Hall. They came to us by way of a writer for the World Telegram
who had no interest in music. We would dress up sharp and find our way to the
hall and watch the old brute browbeat the orchestra into performances that are
now reissued on historical CD's. He had a way about him that electrified both
the audience and the boys in the band. Many fragile, lavender haired ladies
had to be helped to the exit during triple forte passages. My wife and I were
young, veterans of WW2 and ready for anything the Maestro could throw at us.
We loved the old man and realized he was a link with yesterday, and what we
heard from him was what the composer wished he'd written.
One evening, after a particularly volatile performance of Brahms and Berlioz,
we thought the least we could do was go around to the stage door and cheer as
the old icon made his way to his Cadillac. Because of a spring shower, we were
the only ones there. Normally, people would wait for an hour or two while the
players wandered out, and thinking the show was over, would go home. Toscanini
and his entourage would then take the opportunity to leave -- but with no crowd
waiting, they decided to run for it.
Our patience was rewarded and we inched our
way into the foyer just in time to see the elevator door open and there stood
Walter Toscanini, (his son) Vladimir Horowitz and his wife Wanda, (Toscanini's
daughter) and the little monster himself. I stuck out my hand to him, mouthing
some inane congratulations. He gave me a blank stare as though I were an article
of furniture that had suddenly found the gift of speech. Then he spotted my
wife. For a man of ninety, he was amazingly agile, he darted around me, grabbed
my wife's hand and kissed it.
It was weeks before my wife let me touch her hand and many weeks later I
remembered my faithful little camera had been hanging around my neck that
evening. Looking back I still recall the magical moment with Toscanini's family
smiling knowingly as the old lecher tried for another conquest and how in some
way the funnel's neck had drawn the six of us together for a moment in time.
The recollection warms me. A picture of that moment would probably not.
I could go on and on, and so could most New Yorkers. The upshot of it is that
I've never met anyone worth remembering in Cleveland or Detroit. These are not
passing through cities, they are cities that you're forced to stay in. It's
highly unlikely you will ever see anyone you know in cities like these. It's
just as well, you wouldn't want to be seen there either, or photographed. for
that matter.
Copyright Harry Buschman 1994
|
|
|