I had been reluctant at first. Marlene — the girl who saved me from drowning in the East River, and for whom I played Suzy Homewrecker with her abusive boyfriend, Satan — convinced me that since I had just moved to New York City, I simply had to get out of the apartment.
“Look, Marc,” she told me. “It’s New Year’s Eve. You’re in New York. What comes to mind?”
“Chinese food? Cats? Central Park?”
“Times Square!” she said.
“Fresh air!”
What a look!
Okay, so she had been right. It was an experience. Not necessarily one I want to repeat any too soon, shoving about 85 zillion people into a one block area, watching from a few hundred yards away as a disco ball leftover from Studio 54 plays fireman, sliding down a long pole.
Now it was some time way past midnight, and we were wandering down Broadway, a couple blocks down from Times Square. We talked about this, that, and the other. Among them was that we were now in the real next millennium, the one that was invented sometime in the 6th century and then screwed up by about four years from the correct King Herod, a week from the celebrated birthday of Christ, and three or four months from when shepherds would have been watching their flocks by night, and then modified with the Gregorian/Julian calendar shift, making January 1 be precisely 2000 years after absolutely nothing of interest. (Much better than the fake millennium, where at least all the numbers on the calendar’s odometer flipped over at once, no?)
After I tiraded on that subject for a while, Marlene changed the subject.
“Give it up, Marc. We’re young and healthy, and in another eight hours or so, no one is going to care about when the millennium — make that The Millennium — actually started.”
“I guess you’re right, pretty lady,” I said, watching our shadows waltz by as we passed a streetlight, coming fast, turning around, and then dancing back into the darkness.
We paused between lights, and I took her hand, and then her arm, and then kissed her.
“Nice,” she said.
“Hey, you’re getting to be a habit with me.”
“Get out of town,” she said.
“Dames! Always wanting a weekend in the country.”
Marlene stopped and looked at me, mildly disgusted.
“‘A Weekend in the Country’? What’s with the Sondheim reference? You know we’re not supposed to be doing that shtick tonight. Look at where we are: two blocks south of Times Square, just off Broadway.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” I said, abashed. “We’ll never be in the money this way. I must be getting tired; maybe it’s that lullaby of Broadway. You go into your dance, I’ll shuffle off to Buffalo. If I promise to only have eyes for you, will you meet me for breakfast at a quarter to nine?”
This time of year, you can always expect to find a Musical on 42nd Street.
