*Fiction NOT Fact
I
t was New Year’s Eve. The platform, sixty feet above Times Square, was the production set of Cable News Network’s New Year’s Eve Celebration, and I was there—with Andy, and I would just like to make it perfectly clear, that the ONLY thing I destroyed during that entire evening was one (1) 8-foot metal production light which they didn’t really need anyway—they had four (4) others. And Paul, the assistant producer, promised he wouldn’t tell Andy, when I promised not to report the Network to OSHA for several occupational safety violations, which I had noticed during the evening as the crew was setting up lights, Teleprompter, cameras, microphones, reflector screens and miles and miles of black, silver, red and green cable. It was a veritable snakes’ lair up there with all that stuff slithering every which way. I had once worked for OSHA and was familiar with every one of those violations, AND the fines associated with each. So, it was a mutual agreement which worked nicely for both of us.
Earlier, on the way to Times Square in the taxi, Andy instructed,
“Ellee, repeat after me, ‘I will do no damage. I will do no damage. I will do no damage.' You need to repeat this ten times.”
“Why do I need to repeat it ten times?” I asked.
“Because I want it fixed firmly in your mind that you cannot, I repeat, CANNOT destroy anything on that set. Everything there is VERY expensive, and I really shouldn’t be taking you anyway. Consequently, it is imperative that you remain out of the way and DO NO DAMAGE!”
So, I decided to repeat his little mantra ten times just to make him feel more secure in his decision to take me along with him on New Year’s Eve. That was the least I could do. This was such an exciting night! I had never been to Times Square on New Year’s Eve before. AND in addition to being there, having the privilege of such a choice view of the entire Square, the Waterford crystal ball, all the people with their hats and horns, and the tons and tons of confetti! WOW! It was simply electrifying!
Leonardo, the delivery boy from The Hot Chocolate Palace had liked me right away. He was bringing everyone hot chocolate every fifteen minutes, and then hanging around for another fifteen minutes asking me a lot of questions like: my phone number, where I go to school, what my favorite TV show is, which I like better, double cheese pizza or cheese fries with mayonnaise dip, and more importantly, if I had a skate board. When I told him, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO have a skate board,” he suggested we get together the next week after school, and go skate boarding at the Skate Til You Drop indoor skate boarding park over on West 57th Street. That’s when Andy came over and brusquely told him he was outta there. "Hey, KID, your mom needs you home right now!”
After Leonardo took off, Andy turned to me and lectured, “Ellee, you shouldn’t have invited your little friend here!”
“Friend? Is that what you think he is? He’s NOT my friend! He’s just a delivery boy!”
“I could SEE you were flirting with him. I watched you flash your baby blues at him, and then flip your hair!”
“Whaaaat? I DID NOT flash or flip anything at that . . . that KID!”
Andy was jealous, even though that kid was just a . . . well . . . a kid. Andy was actually JEALOUS!
“Well, you did, I saw you!”
“No, I didn’t!!!”
“Yes, you DID!!”
“Noooooooooooo, I DID NOT! Andy, are you . . . ?” That’s when I saw it in his eyes. “You are! . . . you’re jealous!”
“That’s just ridiculous!!!!”he denied. “Look, I don’t have time for this—I have to get back to work!”
He was mad. And what’s more—HE WAS JEALOUS! I could see it in his expression. Why would he be so upset over a kid? Anyway I tried to stay out of the way, but after fifteen minutes Leonardo came back with more hot chocolate. By that time Andy had gone somewhere to do something—thank goodness, because that’s when the disaster struck. Please keep in mind it wasn’t MY fault, AND it was only one (1) light which got destroyed.
As Leonardo spotted where I was standing, and was carefully charting a path toward me, through and around and over the endless cable, while balancing with one hand his tray of piping hot chocolate, this time with mounds of fluffy white whipped cream on top, and with the other hand pushing aside equipment which was a hindrance to him, I noticed his left foot was caught in a loop of red cable which had intertwined with the green cable, the slack of which was about to run out, proving all too soon—catastrophic when that foot stayed there with the red cable, while the rest of him continued in my direction, causing him to perform a very difficult ballet manoeuver called midair splits. And there's a very good reason that manoeuver is called splits, but I won’t get into the painful details of that.
As his body was launched my way, I could see that the tray of piping hot chocolate, which was now on its own, had accelerated to a speed which would make its ETA ahead of Leonardo, so I reached out to catch it, but the 8-foot metal production light, which Leonardo had only moments before pushed out of his way with his right hand, just before succumbing to the red cable, was also headed my way, and at the very last nanosecond, we met up.
On my way to the floor, the light arrived two seconds before I did, and was there to greet me as I crashed on top of it, obliterating it beyond recognition. And the tray of piping hot chocolate with mounds of whipped cream on top—well, it went sailing right on past me, past the Teleprompter and reflector screens, past Paul the assistant producer, who did a double-take, and straight over the platform guard rail, taking flight somewhere over Manhattan, and was never heard from again.
By the time Leonardo and I did a quick triage to assess any broken bones, cuts, abrasions or contusions, Paul had the debris from the smashed light cleaned up and ready to haul away, and that was the precise moment we entered into our mutual agreement. When Andy returned, not a single clue remained which could have tipped him off as to the inefficacy of his little mantra, I Will Do No Damage, that he had me repeat ten times in the taxi.
Thanks to the heavy coat I was wearing, I suffered no cuts from the shards of glass. Leonardo, on the other hand, had suffered a big blow to his young male pride, and was so embarrassed he left immediately after apologizing profusely.
There was a lot of activity on the platform. People coming and going, setting up, taking down, shifting, moving, hooking up, discussing, debating, arguing, laughing, sipping, testing, and it was my duty, Andy had told me, to STAY OUT OF THEIR WAY! So that was exactly what I was trying to do. It was hard at times, particularly when I was in the space in which they needed to be. But I managed somehow to move to another space when I saw them coming. However, space was definitely at a premium high above Times Square, on that little platform, on that night, and I was kept busy just staying out of the way.
One thing I noticed, every time I looked to see where Andy was, he would be staring at me. His eyes were so penetrating, I would have to turn away, pretending something else caught my attention. I figured he was apprehensive about my being there, and worried that I was going to break something. However, by that time I already HAD, but it was only one (1) production light, and he didn’t even know about it. Still, he seemed unduly nervous over something.
At 11:50 p.m., he stopped talking, disconnected himself from the small microphone attached to his coat lapel, and took his earpiece out when they went to a 3-minute break. He then flashed a very anxious set of eyes in my direction. I saw him take a big gulp of air, and then let it out in a sigh, as he started wringing his hands and pacing up and down the platform. I couldn’t imagine what was making him so agitated. Something was going on and I didn’t think it was the show, because during his air time he was perfectly calm and collected. But during the breaks, his expression changed, and always after looking over at me. During one break I approached him to see if something was wrong and if there was anything he needed. But he took hold of my shoulders, pushing me back to the guardrail, like he wanted to push me as far away from him as possible, and then he ordered,
“Ellee, JUST STAY HERE!” emphasizing each word so there was no mistake about what he was saying.
At 11:53 p.m., after the break ended, he reapplied his earpiece and microphone, and then took his mark, ready with an affable smile just in time to say,
“Welcome back again. We’re here in Times Square, and this is the biggest party of the year!”
Four minutes later, at exactly 11:59 p.m., when the 1070 pound, 6 foot diameter Waterford crystal ball, made up of 504 crystal triangles, began its 77-foot descent, Andy, after disengaging once again from all his wires, made a descent of his own—on me! He rushed over, throwing his arms around me and began crying my name, “Ellee, Ellee!" At that point nobody heard him except me, because everyone was busy singing, Should old acquaintance be forgot . . . "No Ellee,” he answered the song, "I won’t forget you—not ever!”
Then it struck me, those weren’t the words they were singing! Those were Andy’s words! What was he saying? But I didn’t have the chance to figure it out, because at that moment his lips came crashing down on mine. It happened sooo fast. It just came out of nowhere. All of a sudden he was there, our lips pressed together. We were kissing—FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME! After so many near-misses, this was finally the actual, real, authentic, genuine, honest-to-goodness THING—ANDY WAS KISSING ME!
And what followed next was unbelievable . . . but, well . . . it happened.
At the precise moment in time when our lips touched . . . remember the Panthera Constellation? Well, not only did all twenty-five planets stop rotating on their axis and reverse directions, like they did that night in Andy’s Christmas tree forest, but they all—every one, changed positions in an absolutely phenomenal realignment, creating a completely new and heretofore unseen constellation. And guess what shape that constellation took? That’s right, you guessed it—a heart with a cupid’s arrow shot right through its center! Honest!
But there was more, much more—As the kiss intensified and became a veritable soul kiss, the edges of the world around us blurred, and we started spinning—like in the movies when they do a circular camera pan. And as this spinning accelerated, the centrifugal force lifted us from the platform, and we went soaring into the night sky—you know, like Superman and Lois—only it was us: Andy and Ellee. And as we took off, Andy stretched his left arm in front of him, holding me firmly around my waist with his other arm. Then he looked at me, and I looked at him, just like Superman and Lois did.
I could see we were headed on a course straight for the North Star. Little splashes of star light illuminated the vast darkness ahead of us as our flight took us further and further away from earth. And we must have been traveling awfully fast—probably at the speed of light, for everything seemed to blur as we passed by. Aerodynamically, this didn’t seem possible, and yet there we were. New Year’s Eve had found us racing through the great cosmos, ala Carl Sagan.
As we passed the Man in the Moon, he winked at us and tossed us a bag of stardust and some moonbeams to play with. So for a few moments we played catch with the moonbeams, and threw stardust at each other before continuing our journey. The stardust that had landed in Andy’s silver hair caught the light from the moonbeams, and bounced it out into the universe, lighting our way as our odyssey continued.
After a while, we noticed giant molecular clouds of dust and gas looming in the far distance, some 1500 light years away.
“This,” I explained to Andy, “is the Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery where baby stars are born.”
As we looked on, we saw the overwhelming beauty of its magnificent shapes and colors—the yellows and reds and purples—all swirling around a central core, which at some point in its existence, when the gases become warmer and achieve enough mass, will collapse, forming a protostar, which in turn will eventually heat up to the point when its internal pressure ignites a nuclear reaction in its core and voila, a *star* is born!
“Incredible!” he muttered in amazement.
Our star trek then took us to a quadrant of the universe where we could marvel at the Gibula, a magnificent spiral galaxy flashing its blue and white lights. It looked like it was just hanging there—as if on a dark wall of the universe museum, like a gigantic painting. It was breath-taking. We wanted to reach out and touch it. But when we tried, it eluded us by its distance.
Moving on, we passed through a field of luminescent torrites which were glowing like tiny fireflies, bathing us in a delicate green glow. This reminded me of the night I first arrived at Andy’s, when everything took on that same shade of green. I wondered if there was any connection.
As we played among them, tears filled our eyes—but they were tears of joy—complete joy, and we understood then that these creations of the universe with their wonder, their beauty, indeed, the shear miracle of their existence, were more than mortal eyes could behold, exacting from us feelings that were beyond our understanding and ability to deal with—and the only way to cope was with tears. So, we just held each other for a while and wept these tears of unspeakable joy for all we were seeing.
Finally, our journey took us to the extreme reaches of the universe, in a part which felt different from where we had been. There were no nurseries for baby stars. And those spiral galactic decorations were now thousands of light years away, so far in fact, their light hadn’t yet reached where we were. This was not a happy place in the universe. At first we didn’t understand when we began weeping, because we didn’t feel like our tears were coming from joy. But soon we discovered they were a reaction to an ultimate and pervasive sadness. However, we didn’t know why.
Then, enlightenment came when we saw Running Deer and Gentle Lily, and they were not together. They were separate and alone, parted by a massive black hole, which, had they tried to cross to reach each other’s arms, would have swallowed them up, and they would be lost forever. For a long time we cried tears of pain and sorrow for them. We wanted to bring them together once again, but didn’t know the way.
Was this the purpose of our journey, I wondered, to find Running Deer and Gentle Lily? And now, having found them, what could we possibly do about it?
Finally we had to leave. Our mortal ability to bear this sorrow had reached its limits. We simply could endure no more!
Our voyage back seemed like only seconds when we heard,
“Anderson . . . Anderson . . . break it up, you’re on in 5—4—3," the voice was shouting, and as it dragged us back, shutting our portal to the universe, our lips were still engaged. It took a second to disconnect, leaving only one second for Andy to make it back to the camera mark, and pick up his microphone and start narrating,
“There you have it! Tons and tons of torrites . . . I mean confetti. In America and around the world, you’re seeing it here on Cable News Network.”
The Network's New Year’s Eve Celebration lasted an additional thirty minutes after that, and then it was time to pack it up. In the middle of all the commotion, I lost sight of Andy, and after the crew was gone, I waited for forty-five minutes, but still—no Andy. I was about to leave when I heard footsteps on the platform.
As I was turning around, expecting to see him, I came face to face with Leonardo! He was carrying another tray of . . . hot chocolate. When he asked where everybody had gone, I told him they had probably gone to celebrate the New Year. He asked me why I wasn’t going to celebrate, too, and I told him I was tired and thought I’d call it a night. But he suggested we have one last cup of hot chocolate together before I left. I said yes, figuring it was the least I could do after all the trouble he had been through bringing us something to help keep us warm all evening.
So we sat down on the platform and drank more hot chocolate. I think I drank more of that brown stuff on New Year's Eve than I can ever remember drinking. After we finished, he wanted to know how I was getting home. When I told him a cab, he offered to get one for me. So I let him. On the way out I searched for Andy, but he was no where to be found.
When Leonardo opened the cab door for me, he asked my address so he could tell the driver where I was going. We then gave each other a Happy New Year's greeting and the cab pulled away.
Back at Andy’s place, when I opened the door, my heart skipped a little beat hoping he would be there. But he was not. Why had he left me like that? I would spend the rest of the night trying to find the answer.
After being in the frigid temperatures for so long, I knew there were only two things that could warm me now, and one of them wasn't even there, so I chose the fireplace, where I curled up with my soft, fuzzy blankie. I lay there for some time thinking, thinking, thinking, but the more I thought, the less I understood. I needed to be with . . . with . . . well . . . at least with Molly. Where was she when I needed her?
As I lay there on the hearth with my head on my pillow, although the outside of me had now become toasty, the inside of me was still sooooo cold. A little tear slipped out, and jumping the bridge of my nose dropped silently to my pillow below—I was crying, alone, in the dark, all by myself. And I wondered for a long time,
Had Andy really forgotten this ‘auld acquaintance’ THAT fast?
Bye for now,
Love,
Ellee
[Author’s Note: If you feel an uncontrolled desire to sing Auld Lang Syne please click here:
I Want to Sing
You may want to sing some alternative verses of this song—or not.
“There was a man
His name was Lang,
He had a wooden sign,
Now Mr. Lang
Was very old
So they called it
Old Lang’s Sign”
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