June 13, 1979

No new job yet.
No money to go to graduate school yet.
A new apartment.
And a new Lacoste shirt.

Well, the first year in The East has certainly brought a few changes, and with the absurd humidity back here I have discovered the wonders of 100% cotton clothing—and for the same reason—I find my favorite times of the year on this side of the country are spring and fall.

I never ever thought I would wear a Lacoste! We mocked the Lacoste crowd in college. Then, when I was getting ready to leave Loyola, actor and fashionista Craig Wroe offered a wardrobe consult for my summer in Cambridge. I was scribbling the list on a legal pad as he dictated, “Oh, Chris,” he said, “You can get by with khakis and jeans, but you must get some Lacostes! Two or three. They’re very versatile!!” I knew my Eagles and America and Jackson Browne t-shirts wouldn’t be appropriate if I wanted work in Massachusetts. I was okay with a blue button-down Oxford, but it was hard to imagine me in a “golf” or “tennis shirt”. Two so-called “sports” that did nothing for me. Then my friend Ed’s lovely sister Shannon volunteered to take me shopping in Century City, picking me up on campus in her baby blue BMW 2002. In Bambergers we followed Elliott Gould around for a bit. He was tall. I could track him by his head bobbing along above the clothing racks. (“I see him all the time”, she said, “Just life in LA”.) And Shannon had the same advice. “Get a Lacoste.” I still didn’t have one when I got to Cambridge, but Pal bought it for me and the damn thing is comfortable.

I’m not as relaxed as I used to be.
I blame the syndrome on the forty hour work week and living in a city, more than any negative, harried conception of “The East”. I walk faster. I’m more concerned with accomplishing things. I find that my muscles tense up. I clench my hands involuntarily. I’m on the brink of neuroticism – a bad craziness I’ve teased Pal about since I’ve known her. I need a vacation.

Hence a return to “the promised land”. Right in the flurry of DC 10-crash-paranoia-defective-pylon-madness, Pal and I have booked passage to California for 18 June. I can hardly wait.

June 14, 1979

Another day closer to leaving Leavitt and Peirce, and the tobacco shop grows more bizarre as the days go on. Tony never came back from vacation.
Customers want to know what he is doing now.
“He told me he’s going to the Philippines to become involved in the silk trade,” says one customer. “The last time I saw him,” I explained, “He told me he had been painting canvases and was going to Montreal to open up an art gallery.” “That’s one I haven’t heard,” says David, “He told me he was dying carpets about once a month for 12 hours, making $1000 a shot. Then, he told me he was painting a café, making $300 a week for about 18 hours work. At least that’s believable.” Ray, tamping, and lighting, and sucking on his cherished billiard all at the same time, piped in, “Since Harvard graduation he told me that a friend of his father’s, who is a big Macanudo exec, asked him to New York for some kind of interview. Now I know his father really was pals with some big wig from Macanudo, so there may be some truth to that. “
The beat goes on.

Once Tony told me ominously, “I sell cocaine. If people knew the truth about my past…,” He glanced into my eyes with a stare that was supposed to say more than his words, “Don’t ever believe anything I say. I just make up all the gonzo to keep people trying to figure me out.”

Ray meanwhile has taken over Tony’s duties, mostly, doing the books, cashing out, and dealing with various aspects of the web of bureaucracy that the company runs on. But at the same time he has proven his inability to be an effective assistant manager by being late, slow, and often, sick. He was out most of the last week with internal bleeding in his leg caused by a fall on the sidewalk. For a few days he proudly showed his purple leg to anyone who asked why he was limping; then it hurt so much he had to go to the hospital and “poof!” He was gone for a whole week from Leavitt and Peirce.

Jim Morris, the impressionist and comedian, works only lunch hours now. He comes in long enough to smoke one fat Te Amo Maduro cigar. He was driving the staff and customers crazy, practicing his “art”, impersonating all of us and trying his off-color jokes on us. He was particularly fond of the “bounced check list”, taped to the cash register with the names of the customers who were required to pay cash because of their disgraced credit. Every day or two Jim would write a new name on the list and see if anyone noticed. These were not just “names” but funny names, like Hardy Peters, or Everard Dicks. You get the idea. One day, Jay Leno dropped in for a box of cigars. Jim and I both chatted with Leno in my voice, until I couldn’t stand it, which annoyed the hell out of me, and amused Leno. ¹ Do I really sound like a whiney, nasal, California boy?? Anyway, Jim has become tolerable, and after a well-handled-disaster with a short-lived troublesome employee named William, I had more respect for him. (Jim added the name Will Uquitpleze to the list.)

Kate Schneirson is a Harvard undergrad government student. She’s pretty good. Hard-working, innocent. Just young and kind of funny; she has so much to learn.

Hugh, the older man who works full-time for the MBTA as a security officer, is great. He only works Saturdays, but what a pleasure to work with—fast, efficient, courteous. And funny.
Now, the scary thing, why, why would I write all this about my job? Because, I’m afraid, it’s a big part of my life. It’s where I spend most of my time.

Coming up next, we’re in the air!

— Christo